Wedding the Bad Boy: A Bedding the Bachelors Novella Read online

  She just wanted a few more moments where everything felt normal.

  Their love. Their world. Their home. With nothing between them, just like he’d said.

  Sucking up her tears and drying her face, Grace went to the bathroom to repair her makeup. When she walked out, Max was leaning against the bedroom door frame.

  Grace froze.

  “Everything okay?” he asked, cocking his head and peering into her eyes.

  He knew something was wrong. He could see it in her swollen eyes, to be sure.

  “Just fine, honey bun.” She smiled. So much for having one more day of normalcy.

  His eyes darkened, and he walked up to her, burying his hands in her hair and nudging her face into his chest. She closed her eyes and soaked in the remaining seconds she had left before her life changed forever. Just a few more blissful moments before jumping off the high dive. That was all she needed. Then maybe she could gather the courage to let Max go.

  He stepped behind her and kissed the back of her neck and just like that, her thighs trembled and pressed together with need. How did he do this to her? Every time he touched her, she was like putty in his hands.

  His hand skimmed up her belly to her breast, giving her a loving caress. “I missed you today, gorgeous,” he whispered into her ear.

  She took one final deep breath, then turned to face him. And the music.

  But when she turned, she fell into his eyes. His precious, gorgeous, axis-tipping eyes. She had to stay in this moment. Just a second longer. She didn’t have the heart to destroy him. To destroy herself. She loved Max more than life itself.

  Taking Max by the hand, Grace led him to the bed and pulled him in.

  “We’re feeling a little randy, I see? But um, Dixie…”

  She didn’t want to talk. This morning, he’d come close to asking her again what was wrong, and just now he’d been waiting at the bathroom door. She had to prolong the moment just a little while longer, distract him from asking the question she didn’t want to hear.

  Ducking her head under the covers, she started to slide down his body.

  “Grace,” he said, obviously wanting to talk. But words were fickle things that only got in the way. One of his hands found its way into her hair, trying to gently tug her up, away from him. But she was too quick for him and dove down further, pulling his boxer shorts down and flinging them away. Without preamble, she opened her mouth and swallowed his half-hard cock. “Jesus Christ,” Max swore as his hips came up off the bed and his cock hardened almost instantly in her mouth. She swallowed more of it down into the back of her throat. He tried again to tug her off of him, but she only sucked him in harder, savoring his flavor, his hardness, reveling in the body of a man who’d surely reject her once he learned the truth. It all came down to this moment, and she tried to emblazon the scent of his skin on her mind.

  “Grace,” he groaned.

  She felt the exact second he gave himself over to her. His hand tightened even further on her hair but his hips thrust upward, forcing himself into her in a way that made Grace moan, press her thighs together.

  She added her hands, stroking the length of him while she sucked on the head of his cock, circling it with her tongue. She added the slight twist of her wrist that she knew drove him insane.

  His hand loosened from her hair and she felt it slide down her back, to rest gently on her ass. He gave her a testing squeeze, then one of his fingers began tracing her seam, pressing and pulling back. Pressing and pulling back.

  With a moan, she pushed her hips backward into Max’s hand. And there was pleasure. God, so much pleasure just at the simple, expert touch of his hand on her. Over her. In her. And then he was ripping the sheet aside and grabbing her by the hips.

  Grace found herself roughly rotated around on the bed so that she was suddenly sitting on Max’s face. She stiffened for half a second before she felt the warm, wet heaven of his mouth close over her and, melting forward, she took her cock in her mouth, swallowing him even further than she ever had before, her throat closing around him.

  He groaned out his pleasure and she felt the reverberations all the way through her pussy. This was bliss. This was heaven. This was really, truly giving yourself over to someone.

  Soon, Grace couldn’t hold on a second longer. She wanted to prolong the experience, felt she could do this for hours, but her body had different ideas, tensing and quaking and trembling around his dexterous, loving tongue. Grace screamed her pleasure over his cock as her head continued to bob up and down on him, her hands working furiously.

  But the second her body sagged in relief, he tugged her up and off of him. He thrust her facedown on the mattress and mounted her from behind, pressing into her slowly but inexorably, without pause. When he was fully seated in her to the hilt, he thrust his hips forward, pressing even farther. Grace moaned into the sheets as another climax began to overtake her, just from the simple motion. And then he was dragging out the climax, pushing into her over and over, a deep intensity overtaking him. He pulled out almost all the way before slamming back in.

  All Grace could do was grip the sheets and enjoy the ride. Which she did, immensely, until his body tightened over hers. He gritted out a few unintelligible words and took her, again, over the edge. This time he went right along with her.

  Max collapsed next to her, then immediately gathered her into his arms. He petted her hair away from her face and dragged his hands over every inch of her body. As if he was checking to make sure she was still there, still with him. His lips went next, kissing every available inch of her without disturbing their spooned position. Her shoulders, her hair, her neck, the side of her face, her arms down to the fingertip.

  Finally, his intensity began to wane and he simply held her close. She could feel his heartbeat against her back, and she couldn’t help but hold back silent tears. But they betrayed her and slipped out anyway. She knew the moment was now. She had to tell him. For both their sakes. But he noticed her tears, wiped them off her cheeks, and sat up straight.

  “I can’t eat, Grace.” His eyes searched hers, but she couldn’t look straight at him. His words were a knife slicing tenderly between her ribs. “My mind is racing every goddamned second. I cut myself shaving today.” He lifted his chin so she could see the thin red slice on his neck. She turned in his arms to face him. “I’m losing my mind here, Dixie. You have to let me in and tell me what’s going on.” He kissed away another tear.

  Grace took a deep breath. He deserved to know the truth.

  “I have Antiphospholipid Antibody Syndrome,” she said, the words tasting like ash in her mouth. “I found out it was a possibility at the doctor’s the other day, but I didn’t say anything, because the blood test results didn’t come back until today. I’m sorry I kept it from you.”

  His mouth hung open. He looked like he had a million things he wanted to say.

  She put a finger over his mouth. She couldn’t handle questions right now and she was going to tell him everything he needed to know if he would just listen.

  “It’s a blood clotting disorder. Not deadly, but serious. I’m going to need to see my doctor a lot more often to be able to take care of it. Of myself.” Grace took a deep breath. Max’s hands were like vices around her back. “I was feeling achy. Lots of cramps. My periods had been kind of weird. And I’ve been getting those headaches. Then, there was this…” She spun her arm to show Max where the faded bruise was still visible. “So I went to the doctor.” Grace’s eyes filled with tears again. “I—I thought that maybe I would be pregnant. I thought when I walked into that office that I might be finding out something that would change our lives forever in a good way.”

  He gripped her even tighter, stroking a hand over her hair, but she couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t stand to see his face now that she’d actually said those words out loud.

  “But instead…it’s only bad news.”

  “Whatever t is, Grace, we can figure this out,” he said.

/>   “You don’t understand, Max…” She ran a hand over her eyes and realized that she was taking too long to tell the dirty truth. This must be killing him. She didn’t want to torture him any longer. “There are a lot of potential complications of AAS, most of them manageable. But one big problem is infertility.”

  She had to look at him now. And when she did, when she met his eyes, she didn’t see anything she’d feared she’d see. There was no betrayal or disappointment or regret, only love. He stroked a hand over her hair again, silently urging her to go on. “So?”

  “So?” She took a deep breath. “Max, don’t you get it? I might not ever get pregnant. And if I do, which will be a long shot at this point, there could be serious complications. Miscarriages are extremely common. And labor and delivery are wildly dangerous.” Her voice quavered, no matter how strong she was trying to be. There was no stopping it. A waterfall of emotion was pounding through her as she felt her life starting to spin away.

  “But Grace—”

  She cut him off, looking him dead in the eye. “We might not be able to have kids, Max. I can’t do that to you. You’ll be a wonderful father. Just not with me.” She broke down into tears, unable to take the pain. Her perfect life had fallen apart in a matter of days. “I don’t know…I’m confused. I don’t know how I feel about all of this.”

  “All of what?” he asked, taking her by the shoulders and looking her square in the eye. “The diagnosis? Or this?” He motioned between the two of them.

  “My diagnosis, Max, but also what it means for this,” she mirrored his hand motion. “I just don’t know what to feel or think or…” She shook her head, trying to make it all go away.

  “Dixie…” He picked up her hand and placed it on his own cheek in a gesture that just wrecked her. “We’ve been ready to get married for a year at this point. We know that’s where we’re headed. A wedding is just a recognition of where we are emotionally.”

  She nodded. “I’m not sure I’m there emotionally anymore.”

  He sucked in a breath, like she’d cold-cocked him.

  “I love you,” she added before he went thinking that she didn’t. “More than you’ll ever know. But I have to get all these tests done over the next few weeks. Which is the reason I can’t go to Europe with you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth before. I didn’t know how—it’s been a shock to me, and I guess I didn’t know how to respond.”

  “Dixie, it’s fine. I knew you needed space, and that’s why I let you breathe.”

  She smiled at him through tears. “This diagnosis has been like a big black curtain that got hung in a circle around my life, and I can’t see anything through it. I can’t see the rest of my life or where we’re going. Not Europe. Not a wedding. Not—”

  “Hey, hey,” he soothed, as her voice began to hitch and tears rolled down her cheeks. He held her even closer. “No one can see past the black curtain. Even if you were a hundred percent healthy, there would still be a black curtain. Nobody knows what’s going to happen. So, listen. We’re gonna take things one step at a time. This is what life is. You make a plan, hope for the best, and change the plan when you hit a bump in the road. And that’s all this is—a bump. We get married. We find a way to have whatever kind of family we want to have. And as long as one of us can see that, and we stick together, then we’re going to be just fine.”

  “Max, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what’s best.” She knew by “whatever kind of family we want to have” that he meant adoption, but it was so unfair to impose that on him when she knew deep down in her heart that he would want his own biological children, especially if he was able to.

  He stroked her hair again. “All you need to do right now is this—let me inside. I get that you were freaked at first and needed space, but now I’m with you on this, and we can handle this together. Can you do that?”

  Her heart thudded in her chest. How could he be this kind? This understanding? Hadn’t he just heard everything she’d told him? The very least she could do was calm down. No clear thinking ever came from freaking out. And if she was being honest with herself, then he wasn’t wrong. She could see him through the curtain. She couldn’t see anything else. But she could see him.

  Finally, she nodded, and Max smiled tenderly.

  “We’re going to get through this together, Dixie. And you’re going to be what you always have been: mine.”

  Chapter Five

  Melina took a sip of Grace’s iced tea and shuddered. “God, that’s sweet.”

  “Well, that’s why they call it sweet tea,” Grace said as she signaled the waiter that they were ready to order.

  Lucy slapped down her menu as the waiter walked up to the table, looking like he’d won the lottery. “Alright, ladies, what can I get you?”

  “I want total honesty,” Lucy said. “Is the tuna salad sandwich gross or delicious?”

  The waiter grinned, quickly looking around to make sure that no one else would overhear him. “Gross.”

  “Great. Thank you for your honesty. In that case, I’d like the loaded baked potato,” Lucy ordered. The man scribbled down the order. “But I mean, loaded. Like really loaded,” she said. “Loaded-loaded, super loaded. Got it?” She waggled her eyebrows at him.

  “Loaded, loaded, super loaded,” he repeated, jotting it down and showing his notes to her.

  “Make it happen, Captain.” She winked, and the poor guy’s ears turned an attractive shade of fuchsia.

  “And for you, miss?” he cleared his throat and turned to Grace.

  “Oh,” she said, scanning the menu for anything that looked good. She hadn’t even been able to focus on the food. “I guess just a cup of the noodle soup and some fruit salad.”

  “And I want what both of them ordered,” Melina said, before the waiter could even ask her. “Potato, soup, and fruit salad. Also, an iced tea. Unsweetened. I’d like my liver to make it past the age of thirty-five. Not that I’m anywhere close to the age of thirty-five.” She pointed at the waiter to make sure he understood.

  “Oh, no. Of course not. I’ll be back with your food shortly.” He scurried away.

  Grace smiled. “I think y’all scared him. He came over, thinking, ‘Score, pretty ladies I can impress with my plate-putting-down skills.’ But he hadn’t counted on you two.”

  Melina shrugged. “If he can’t handle ladies who like to eat then he should be a waiter on TV, not in real life.”

  “Hear, hear,” Lucy concurred clinking her glass of water with Melina. She looked over at Grace. “Honey, aren’t you hungry? You didn’t order very much.”

  Grace shrugged. She’d told them about her diagnosis yesterday, but she still didn’t like to talk about it very much. “I’m fine. Just not so hungry, I guess, with everything that’s been going on.”

  “You mean because of the autoimmune disorder,” Melina said.

  Grace took a deep breath, knowing how hard it was going to be for her friends to hear the news, the reason why she’d gathered them here together today, not that she needed a reason to get together with them. “Guys…you may as well know. We postponed the wedding indefinitely. And cancelled the honeymoon. Max is going to go on tour without me.” Grace looked up from her drink, which she’d been absentmindedly stirring with her straw, and saw complete shock on their faces.

  “You. Did. What?” Lucy asked, her voice screeching so high, a passing bat could have understood her perfectly. “You cancelled your dream honeymoon? The month-long European adventure with the person you love most on this earth?” Lucy sat back in her chair to gawk at Grace like she was insane.

  Grace pressed her fingers to her temples. Wow. She kind of screwed the pooch on this one. “I’m sorry. After I told you about the diagnosis and about me maybe having a problem getting pregnant, I figured you wouldn’t be so surprised—”

  “That you’re running scared. I supposed we shouldn’t have been,” Lucy said, her voice tight.

  Melina’s gasp mirrored Grace’
s. “Lucy,” Melina said gently, but Lucy shook her head.

  “No, Melina. Now is not the time for gentle. Now is the time to tell it to our friend straight.”

  “Tell me what exactly,” Grace said, her body tight, arms crossed.

  “That you’re acting like an idiot.”

  Melina took the cloth napkin, folded it, and unfolded it again. Her discomfort made it perfectly clear that she wasn’t about to defend Grace. She was on Lucy’s side. They both felt the same way.

  Grace blinked. “A what?” Grace said softly.

  “Wait, wait. Honey,” Melina said, pressing her hand over one of Grace’s. “Lucy didn’t mean to say that so harshly. What we’re trying to say is—”

  “Like hell I didn’t.” Lucy barked. “Max loves you!”

  “And I love him! Which is why I’m not going to condemn him to a life without kids. Not without giving it a lot of thought. Maybe not ever. It’s something we need to talk about, so no weddings are going to happen anytime soon.”

  “Grace, you have not been diagnosed as infertile,” Lucy added indignantly. “It’s just a chance. Lots of people beat the odds.”

  “You don’t get it,” Grace said. “I have to undergo a ton of tests. Prepare myself for the possibility. Now isn’t the time to be getting married. I have to focus on myself right now. Even Max said so.”

  “Of course he said so. He loves you and is going to be supportive,” Lucy said. “But preparing for a possibility is very different than putting a giant ‘barren’ sticker on your forehead, alright? And even if you can’t have kids, that doesn’t change who you are. You’re the woman Max loves. You’re the woman who loves him back. What about that? What about condemning him to a future without the woman he loves?” Lucy cried.

  A tense silence fell over the table. Grace blinked. Blinked again. Then, the first tears fell. She covered her face with her hands. “I don’t know what to do,” she cried.

  Instantly, both Melina and Lucy were next to her, hugging her.

  “God, I’m sorry, Grace. I sounded harsh. I guess I’m just shocked,” Lucy cried.