Wild Temptation (Wild #1)(31)
Author: Emma Hart

Take that, you sexy son of a bitch.

“You could at least let me put clean panties on before you come barging in here like you own the place.”

My best friend looks at me like I’m crazy. Well, maybe I am. I am wrapped in a Hello Kitty towel.

“By all means, Liv. Put some panties on. Never mind the rest of your damn clothes.” She rolls her eyes and sits on my sofa. “Never mind that we have, like, ten bridal stores to scour today to find your dress.”

“Okay, Bridezilla. The bridal stores will still be there in an hour. It’s not like aliens are going to suddenly appear and beam them all up.”

She shoots me the kind of look that would crumble diamond and I grin. Bitch doesn’t bother me. I wiggle my fingers at her and prance into my bedroom. I’m just pulling a bra out of my drawer when she yells at me.

“I know you f**ked him last night!”

“Fucked who? My vibrator?”

“Tyler.”

I snort. “Please tell me how you worked that out.”

“You look freshly f**ked.”

“I just got out of the shower. How can I look freshly f**ked?”

She appears in my doorway. It’s a good thing she’s seen me in my underwear a thousand times, because that’s the sight she gets. At least she gave me a chance to put panties on.

“Your eyes are shiny. And you’re smiling when you shouldn’t be.”

“You’re full of bullshit.”

“You smiled then.” She sits on the bed, and I look in the mirror. No smile. Day grins triumphantly. “You slept with him, didn’t you?”

“I plead the Fifth.” I pull some jeans on.

“Olivia Jade Warren, you tell me right now.”

“Really? You want to know about my sexcapades with someone who’ll be your family in two and a half months?”

“Well, there’s the truth I was hoping wasn’t true.” She sighs and leans back, hugging her knees.

I roll my eyes. “Relax, Mom. I’m a big girl now. I think I know what I’m doing.”

“I know you know what you’re doing, sweetie, but I don’t think you’re actually thinking.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I shove a sweater over my head and glare at her.

“You’ve already admitted that Tyler sets your alarm bells ringing. What if…you know. You get addicted and then—”

“History is history for a reason,” I snap, cutting her off and grabbing my hairdryer. “It’s so people learn from mistakes made before. Believe me, I have no inclination to repeat that mistake.”

I turn the dryer on, effectively ending our conversation, and ignore the way she’s staring at me through the mirror. I don’t want to go back to the past—I don’t want to think about the extreme my addiction to someone led me to. It’s a dark place.

Teenage love and a real addiction aren’t two things that mesh well. Or of course, you could say they go hand in hand… If you like your hand-holding destructive and potentially life threatening.

Eighteen-year-old me and twenty-five-year-old me are worlds apart. I’m strong where she was weak. I’m sassy, confident, determined. She was quiet, shy, reluctant.

Seven years is a long time to grow up. Seven years is a long time to grasp a handle on something that was once out of control. On something that could have destroyed more than just my heart.

I set the hairdryer down, banishing those thoughts from my mind. There are reasons I don’t think about those months, and the vulnerability is one of them. Thinking about them opens me up and scares me. One day, I’ll have to remember that bullshit and truly accept my own stupidity before I can move on.

Right now, though, I’m more than happy to move under and over. Preferably another person.

“Okay,” I say, breaking the tense silence. I screw the top back on my mascara. “I’m ready. Where are we going first?”

“Seraphina Bridal,” Dayton replies without missing a beat. Our previous conversation is tucked away. Both of us know better than to push each other on sensitive subjects.

“Then let’s go.” I give Angus a scratch on the head and follow Day down to the parking lot. Her annoyingly clean, white BMW stands out from the myriad of dirty cars around her, and I see her cast a glance at mine.

“Baby needs a clean.” She gets in her car, and I pull open the passenger’s side door.

“You know,” I say, sitting in the car, “your car would look really good with some mud on it.”

“Dirty my car, Liv, and I’ll dirty your ass.”

I laugh as she pulls out. The easiness is back, even if she is dragging me to ten stores.

I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for dress shopping—finding her dress was the single best day out of all of this planning crap—but I can’t help but feel that ten stores is a little excessive. I’ll probably find one in three.

We arrive at Seraphina Bridal and enter the store. My eyes are assaulted by a range of puffy, white marshmallow wedding dresses and bridesmaid dresses that resemble a stick of cotton candy. A quick look tells us that this is a no-go.

We leave as quickly as we came and move on to the next. By the time we reach the fourth store, I haven’t tried a single thing on. None of them seem right. They’re too short, too blocky, the neckline isn’t right, the skirt cut is wrong… I’m starting to think that ten stores isn’t all that ridiculous.

Thankfully, this store looks more promising. I immediately zone in on a floor-length, mermaid-style dress. The pale pink is the perfect shade and the bow that sits beneath the bust isn’t too much. It’s simple and elegant.

“Try it,” Dayton squeals.

I’ve never heard her squeal in my whole life. This wedding thing is, quite frankly, making me a little scared of her. One minute, she’s Bridezilla. The next, she’s all excited bride-to-be. It’s giving me a headache.

Good thing I love the panties off her.

I slink into the dress in the fitting room. Reaching around, I tug the zipper up halfway, but past that, it won’t budge. “Can you zip me up?”

She pushes open the door and gasps. “Oh, Liv! It’s perfect.”

“Yeah, yeah. Can you zip me up now?”

She rolls her eyes but pulls the zipper up to the top. She’s right. It’s perfect. It needs taking up an inch at the bottom and pulling in at the waist, but those things are easily altered.