Sinners at the Altar (Page 86)

“Are you really going to allow him to do that in public?” Jessica’s mom said as she returned to the table with her piece of cake. Monica was right behind her and took her seat on Sed’s opposite side.

Jessica wanted him to do even more to her in public, but she forced herself to push him away. “He was cleaning up his cake, Mother. You wouldn’t want to let two-dollar-a-slice cake go to waste, would you?” Jessica said tersely.

Jessica stiffened when Sed’s hand brushed the bare skin of her inner thigh. How he’d gotten it under her skirt, she didn’t know.

“It is delicious,” Monica said. She gave her son a disapproving look and his hand disappeared from Jessica’s quivering thigh and reappeared above the table.

“What time is it?” he asked. “We have to be out of here by four.”

“Four!” Jessica’s mom said. “But we have the hall rented until eight.”

“And you are more than welcome to stay and party until eight, but Jessica and I have plans for this evening.”

“What kind of plans?” Jessica asked.

“Good plans,” he assured her with a nod, but he remained tight-lipped about the details.

She leaned close to his ear and, careful not to be overheard, whispered, “Does it involve you filling me with this?”

She grabbed his semi-hard cock through his pants. It jumped against her palm, rapidly engorging with excitement. So he was as hot and bothered as she was. Good to know. Fortunately, her ardor was a bit easier to hide.

“It might,” he said.

He took her hand from his lap and lifted it above the table to brush a kiss over her knuckles.

“Patience, love. We have to dance soon,” he said.

She supposed she should try to be patient, but it wasn’t easy to keep her hands to herself with her virile hunk of a husband within reach.

She ate her cake—which was a far cry more delicious than a plate of steamed vegetables—and allowed her mind to conjure up all sorts of naughty adventures Sed might have planned for their wedding night. She somehow refrained from showing her enthusiasm for the idea and kept both hands above the table.

“Can I have a bite?” Sed asked after a long moment of watching her eat her cake.

“Didn’t get enough off my boobs?” she teased. They were uncomfortably sticky. She was looking forward to getting out of her ocean-stained dress and hopping in the shower. Of course thoughts of showers conjured thoughts of Sed naked in the shower with her. Her hand was trembling as she used the side of her fork to cut a bit of cake from her rapidly dwindling piece.

She offered it to Sed, who leaned forward to take a bite.

“It’s okay this way,” he said after he swallowed. “But it tastes a lot better when eaten off you.”

A sudden loud thud made Jessica jump. The wail of an electric guitar followed an instant later. The band had taken up their instruments, and the entire crowd of wedding guests turned toward the open dance floor beyond the sea of tables; it wasn’t every day that Exodus End played at a reception.

“Sed told me that we were to begin exactly at two thirty,” the vocalist, Maximilian Richardson, said into his microphone. “Something about wanting to dance with the most beautiful bride ever to be drenched in a downpour.”

Sed pushed his chair back and helped Jessica to her feet.

“Congratulations, Sed and Jessica,” Max continued. “I’m not sure your song will sound quite right played by a metal band. Dare insisted on changing it up a bit when we rehearsed yesterday.”

Dare played a rapid-fire string of notes on his electric guitar that shot sparks of excitement down Jessica’s spine. The man had a gift with six strings.

At first, Jessica didn’t recognize the song they were playing. Exodus End’s cover of Elvis’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love” took certain liberties with the tempo, and she didn’t remember any wailing guitars in the original. And Max’s voice, while deep and edgy, didn’t quite have the slow sensuality of the King’s. Sed stared at her, mouth and eyes wide. She was just as flabbergasted about how to dance to the song as he was. It felt like an opportunity to head bang and mosh to her, so she went with it. Sed caught her against him when she bounced her chest off his. He was laughing so hard, his entire body shook.

“I do love you woman,” he said, “but this isn’t what I had in mind when I selected this song.”

“It sounds awesome!” Jessica said. And she wasn’t lying. If anyone could take a sappy love song and turn it into a work of metal perfection, it was Exodus End.

“Stay here,” he said.

He released her and stalked across the empty dance floor to the stage. The astonished look on Max’s face was priceless as Sed yanked the microphone out of his hand.

The guitar stopped instantly. The drums faded after several more thudding progressions around the toms.

“Max apparently doesn’t know how to sing this song properly,” Sed said into the microphone.

The band stared after him as he crossed the dance floor toward Jessica. Her heart was thudding like a jackhammer when he wrapped one arm around her waist and tugged her against his body.

“He must not have realized that I picked this song so I could hold my gorgeous wife close, and feel her heart beat against my own.” He smiled and she flushed with pleasure.

Staring deep into her eyes, he started the iconic love song, taking no liberties with the tempo or the perfection recorded by Elvis decades past. “Wise men say…”

Lost in his gaze and his serenade, Jessica swayed in time to the music in her heart. She was vaguely aware of a piano starting to play along and a moment later a very subdued drumming filled out the tune, but it was Sed’s satin-smooth voice that carried the melody.