“We didn’t consummate the marriage, so I don’t think that would be an option for you.”
She had a point. They’d both been drunk, but by the time they’d made it to the hammock, he’d had the presence of mind to put a stop to her digging in his trousers for his dick. Even with a long-term partner, drunk sloppy sex was not his favorite. And, with a stranger, it was completely out of the question. When they had sex—and the way their sparks were flying off each other, they would have sex—he wanted her present and willing.
Still, even though she was pissed at him and probably thinking of ways to detach his nads and serve them to him, he kind of wanted to consummate the fake marriage. Before she ended it. He wanted to kiss up and down her regal neck and unwind the tight bun so her hair would fall over and brush his chest. He wanted her to moan with pleasure like she had that night—their wedding night—when he’d rubbed her to a hard orgasm as a consolation prize for refusing to fuck her.
But, what he needed to know was how and why this happened.
And, he was sitting in the right room to do it. He hadn’t made it to the footage of the reception yet, where any incriminating video might be found. If there was any moment to skip to the good parts, that moment was now.
Chapter 2
He had no right to sit there looking so good and smelling so good. Not while she was panicking and furious with him. The smile he’d given her when she’d stormed into the room was knee-weakening. And resolve-deadening.
“I was editing the wedding video while waiting for the Bali show to go through post-production. Maybe there’s a clue as to how the fuck this happened here.”
Laura couldn’t stand how calm Charlie was about this whole thing. If she hadn’t menaced him quite thoroughly when she walked in, he probably would have shrugged a shoulder, opened a beer, and moved on. This didn’t even seem to register as a mild inconvenience for him. And, for some reason, that infuriated her.
She wanted him to act like a dick so she wouldn’t feel guilty about yelling at him. He was being so accommodating and unruffled, despite the video he’d made about his ex-wife and her opinions about his sexual prowess five years ago. She’d watched it after Carla had told her about the television show, and her cousin had assured her that Charlie was not that guy. Jonah and Carla even let him babysit Layla, which spoke volumes about how much they trusted him. Carla barely let her own brother hold Layla—she’d told him that he needed at least five years free of stripper glitter before touching her. She’d been joking, but barely.
Delivering the news that his second marriage was about to be even shorter than his first kind of felt like kicking a puppy.
“Want to watch the tape and figure it out?”
That would be helpful, but she had to get out of this room before spending too much time with him. He was cute and helpful, and the idea of spending time with him—of him wanting to spend time with her even though she was completely broken—terrified her.
“I don’t give a fuck how this happened. I just want it fixed.” She had to stop being such a bitch. When she’d told him about the impromptu wedding, he’d looked just as shocked as she’d been when her grandfather had shared the news with her. This hadn’t been a plot, just a terrible error in judgment. Even though a part of her was dying to know how they’d gotten from small talk to matrimony in a period of hours—or even minutes.
“Come on. You’re not the least bit curious as to how we came to this state of wedded bliss?” He smiled at her, and she had to purse her lips to keep from smiling back.
She was curious, and needing to know when combined with his charm got the best of her. More than how they actually had ended up getting drunkenly married, she wanted to know how this had happened with her entire family around.
Because she could understand why someone would want to marry Charlie Laughlin—just not her. Just looking at him explained his marriageability. He was at least 6’3” or maybe 6’4” and had almost black hair and these arresting blue eyes. Black Irish, Lola had said. He was lean, and he clearly worked out—not as much as her, but no one worked out as much as she did.
But his fabulous looks weren’t what made him so attractive, so disarming. Sure, part of it was the dimple and the mischief in his eyes when he’d looked at her. But it was more than that. When Charlie Laughlin put his attention on her, it was overwhelming.
When he’d looked up as she entered the dark editing room, she’d felt a punch of lust so powerful that it was even more maddening than the fact that she’d drunkenly married a very hot stranger.
And though she’d assumed he was a smarmy douche when they’d met before the wedding, none of that had been borne out by his behavior. He’d been editing his best friend’s wedding video when she’d found him, not snorting lines of blow off various sex workers’ body parts.
She could very well remember why she’d thrown off her strict diet and gotten drunk at the wedding—it hadn’t been entirely clear that she’d be able to return to the company after her last injury anyway, so what was the point? And she knew why she wanted to kiss him—she liked the way his very kissable lips moved, and the sound of his voice made her hot and achy.
He was basically the human equivalent of the flu: contagious, debilitating, and possibly deadly.
While she’d been thinking about how dead sexy he was, he’d been fast-forwarding through video. He must have felt her gaze burning into the side of his face after a few moments because he looked up and said, “What?”
She shook her head. “I guess I’m still in shock. Can’t believe I married you.”
One corner of his mouth rose, revealing a dimple deep enough to stick her whole thumb inside. God, the editing room was cold. That had to be the explanation for her tight nipples and the goose bumps on her arms. And the reason her ribs felt tight around her lungs.
“Come on, I’m not so bad.” His gaze returned to the monitor, and she felt like she could breathe again. “Some women even find me charming.”
“I don’t believe you.” Her words had no fire because she found him charming, but she couldn’t show it. She wasn’t about to start showing weakness now.
She watched as he fast-forwarded the tape, stopping here and there. His hands were kind of beautiful. He had long fingers. Although he was way too rough and tumble to be a ballet dancer, there was something about him that moved with grace and economy.
Needing to stop looking at him, she turned toward the monitor, too. The tape revealed the sun diving behind the horizon, and she knew that the moment—if it was on tape—was coming.
Charlie stopped right at the moment he’d walked over to her at the bar. When she saw her own face, screwed up, trying to feign some imperious nature she didn’t possess, her cheeks flamed. Her parents might have sheltered her from a lot growing up to keep her focused on her burgeoning ballet career, but they’d never taught her to be rude. And she’d been rude to Charlie. But something about him scared her, as though he was going to tip her apple cart right over and destroy the life she had built for herself.
She liked the way he looked too much—and he’d been even better in a linen shirt and pants that had shown his top-shelf ass. Not sure if it was out of embarrassment or a need to see that his posterior really was that distracting, she glanced over now.
Yep. Top. Shelf. Ass.
He just happened to turn at the same time, catching her. Her skin all over was on fire, and it made her feel like she was losing her mind. She was around gorgeous bodies all the time, and didn’t have this reaction. Hell, men nearly as good-looking as Charlie had their hands right up near her business on an almost daily basis, and she didn’t get to the same level of worked up that she was at right now.
Hastily, she looked back at the screen, just in time to see them