Chapter One
LAUREN
It’s impossible to sleep. I punch my pillow and lie back down, hoping a shift in position will help.
But no.
I’m too tightly wound to relax.
My skin is damp. My body tight.
My head a whirlwind of chaotic thoughts and crazy nerves.
I keep telling myself it’s pre-wedding jitters, after all, this time tomorrow I’ll be married to the most eligible man in New York. Vince the Prince, they call him. A Wall Street miracle man. The tabloids love our story. The Wall Street prince and the society princess. Apparently, we’re a match made in tabloid heaven. Him a good-looking stock broker in his three-piece suits and chiseled model looks, and me, Lauren Carmichael, daughter of the King of Wall Street, Christopher Carmichael.
Yep. That’s it. I’m famous for being born to a stock-brokering genius. And that’s about as far as my achievements go. Oh wait, I did go to college, even got a degree in what my father called a waste of money, otherwise known as Naturopathy. I started in law, hated it, and quickly changed to something I actually enjoyed. Law was stuffy. Naturopathy wasn’t. I was more at home with the tinctures and oil remedies than the anatomy of law.
Daddy was furious. But he wasn’t available for consultation when I decided to change career paths, because he was caught up with some kind of stock-brokering crisis on the Street, so I went ahead and changed it anyway. Unfortunately, naturopathy was not a suitable career choice for a society princess, and Daddy lost his shit. Now, I’m pretty sure he’s marrying me off to Vince just so my new husband can deal with my stubborn ass so he doesn’t have to. He’s been struggling to know how to handle me since my mom died fifteen years earlier when I was just twelve years old and at the threshold of puberty.
I turn again and try to settle comfortably into the mattress.
The mattress that costs a thousand dollars a night to sleep on.
We’re staying at the spectacular Mirror Lake Lodge, deep in the alpine woods of Misty Peaks. It’s a sprawling mountain lodge of pine logs, river stone fireplaces, and raftered cathedral ceilings. A favorite getaway for the rich and famous. Here they drink overpriced bottles of champagne, bathe in deep tubs made from Italian marble, and indulge in their scandalous rendezvous with everyone but their spouses, hidden among the smoky seclusion of the mountain. Or there was the other side of the coin where this palatial mountain hideaway is used as their personal detox facility, where they can spend weeks coming down off of whatever has them up by order of the courts following some kind of scandal.
But not even the rich and famous are allowed here this weekend.
Unless by invitation, of course. And out of the five-hundred guests due to arrive, I’m sure there are certainly a few of those. I say, I’m sure because like any of this, I haven’t been involved in the planning. My friends extend to the number of fingers on my right hand. Which is five, just to be clear.
It is costing my father almost a hundred-thousand dollars just to hold the wedding in this magnificent location.
It was Vince’s idea. He was insistent we get married here. He wanted the mountain hideaway where a lot of guests would have to arrive by helicopter.
I had envisioned something a little less extravagant. A beach wedding on California sand, or a small garden ceremony somewhere, followed by an intimate reception for family and close friends.
Mirror Lake Mountain Lodge seems a little over the top.
But I have to admit, I’ve already been seduced by the mountain with its alpine forests, the heady scent of sap, and crisp summit air that makes my skin tingle.
Just like everything he turns his mind to, Vince has gotten it right.
I sigh.
Vince.
Lately, things have been a little … strained between us. It’s been weeks, months, since he’s touched me. His work keeps him busy. He usually spends most nights working, and afterward sleeps at his apartment in the Upper East Side, while I live in a palatial loft on Park Avenue.
Right now, my body is so tight with need it’s like a tightly coiled spring ready to explode.
Tonight, we are sleeping separately. Being the night before the wedding, Vince insisted we spend it apart. He’s with his groomsmen in a ridiculously expensive lodge in town, while I spent the evening with my three bridesmaids being pampered and primped, and drinking champagne. But my bridesmaids have gone to their rooms to get some sleep, and now I am alone.
And needy.
I let my fingers slide down my torso and gently sweep back up again.
Vince says it will change once we’re married. We’ll be living together, so we’ll see each other more. And he will be more attentive then.
But I need something now.
I need to be touched.
Made love to.
Fucked hard.
To come.
My clit aches, and when I reach down to rub it, bliss curls through my limbs. I sink my teeth into my bottom lip and moan, letting my mind drift to wherever it wants to go.
Which just happens to be to the gorgeous handyman the lodge has helping them set up for the wedding.
Tall. Muscular. With arms as big as my thighs and shoulders as round as boulders.
Today, I watched him unload chairs and tables from the back of a truck, spellbound by his powerful arms and how they effortlessly lifted six or seven chairs at a time and carried them inside the garden chapel where I would become a wife in less than twenty-four hours. I’d watched him from the seclusion of my balcony, a secret thrill taking up in me as I watched every flex and pull of his muscles as he lifted and carried heavy objects with ease.
From behind he was magnificent. Impressive. With thick slabs of muscles for arms and a broad back. But when he turned around and I saw that sharp jaw covered in just enough scruff and eyes the color of emeralds, my insides had flipped on themselves.
Now the muscles between my legs are doing the same thing. They throb at the thought of those big hands on my body, parting my thighs as he sinks his head to my pussy and tortures my clit with his tongue.
I gasp as arousal rolls through me.
A man like that, he knows how to make you come with his tongue. And in my mind, he is doing just that, licking me, penetrating me, growling as he laps at my clit and commands me to come for him.
Because he would be demanding. Powerful. Commanding. He would hold me down until I did what he wanted.
I feel my muscles quiver. In my mind I can feel his tongue penetrate me. Feel the scruff of his jaw graze my thighs. Feel the quickening of my heart as he pushes my thighs farther apart so he can open me up, and fuck me with his glorious tongue.
My toes curl and dig into the mattress, while the fingers on the hand that isn’t rubbing my clit scrunches into the bedsheet beneath me. My back arches. Pleasure tightens like a coil where my fingers rub at my clit.
I come thinking about him. My body trembling with euphoric bliss as an earth-shattering orgasm rolls through me. I cry out, my breathing heavy as I fall further and further into my fantasy, thinking about the rugged handyman with bright green eyes.
Chapter Two
AXEL
Jesus Christ, she’s touching herself and I’m so fucking hard as I watch her. I try to swallow, but my mouth is dry, thick, aching to taste that sweet pussy she’s sliding her fingers into. I stand in the shadows, my cock throbbing, my balls full and tense with a desperate need for release. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt the sweet taste of a woman against my lips. Let alone watched one bring herself to one orgasm after another.