BLISS: A Wedding Enemies to Lovers Alpha Bad-Boy Billionaire Romance Read online

  My heart, Jake’s heart, hurts for her. I want to stand and wrap my arms around her, pull her to me and kiss her and hold her tight. Make her feel safe and cared for and whole and loved. I want to emotionally fix the wound that’s cut her heart. I want to give her my heart, my warmth, my love.

  But I’m not Jake. Not now. Not here.

  “Maybe it was a mistake,” I say. “Maybe you’ll be better off than you would’ve been.” These are words I’ve spoken before tonight, to other women in similar circumstances.

  Tara’s gaze sharpens. She walks toward me and sits on the couch perpendicular to me. Her skirt rides up her thigh. My usually disciplined gaze travels over the soft flesh of her leg.

  “I know that. I believe that. I’m thankful for what I found out, but I’m still hurt by what he did.”

  My breathing shortens. I loathe hypocrisy, and yet I continue to wallow in it every time I’m Wonderfuck.

  “How did you find me?”

  Her head tilts and the muscle in her jaw twitches. An internal debate as to what to tell me.

  “A referral,” she says, crossing her legs. “From a friend.”

  She’s a good liar. She meets my gaze without flinching, her eyes don’t drop away from mine, her body language doesn’t give away her lie, but I know she’s lying. I know based on her hands. Her pointer finger strokes her thumb. She did the same thing when she sat in my apartment telling me how she didn’t care that I’d left. Didn’t care that I’d walked out that morning, leaving her alone in my bed. Didn’t want to be involved with me.

  All of it lies.

  Now she’s lying again.

  Or so I think.

  “What’s your name?”

  She smiles at this question. She cocks her head and really looks at me, and for the first time in all the times I’ve been Wonderfuck, I feel uncomfortable. Tara sees through me. She sees all of me. She’s the first woman to know Jake and experience Wonderfuck.

  Ever.

  I feel naked, exposed, vulnerable. What could she do with this knowledge? What will she do? For the first time, I realize how much I’ll have to trust her, believe in her. Allowing Tara to have this much control over me and my life is terrifying, and yet the risk of her disclosing my identity to the world is oddly thrilling. My cock is hard. Her nipples press against her bra and the silk of her shirt.

  She wants me.

  I want her.

  “My name is Tara,” she says. “And you?” She nods toward me, she stands, she pulls her silk shirt from the waistband of her skirt. “You’re the Wonderfuck.” She slowly unbuttons her shirt before me until it’s open and her black lace bra peeks out. She takes off her shirt and drops it onto the floor. The ripe flesh of her breasts spills over the top of her bra. Her breathing is short. I remain seated. I don’t move. I want to jump to my feet, grab her in my arms, and fuck her. Fuck her and make her mine. Claim her for my own, as Jake, as Wonderfuck, as whoever the hell I need to be so this woman is mine now and forever.

  She slides the zipper down the side of her skirt and the fabric drops to the floor. Her full, curvy body is now nearly naked in front of me.

  “Why don’t you show me what you’ve got, Wonderfuck? Fuck away my pain, my fears, all the sad things in my brain, because I was supposed to wear a beautiful white dress and get married today.”

  Her bottom lip quivers with the final word. And I know how much sadness courses through her and I can feel her pain, because she’s more than just another woman, another stranger who uses me to fuck away feelings they don’t want the same way I use them to stay out of the abyss of pain that threatens to swallow me whole. I know, because this is Tara. She’s the woman I’ve slept with as Jake, the woman I’ve spent time with, the woman I’ve heard crying softly behind a closed door. She’s the woman I see when I close my eyes and the first person I think of when I awake each day.

  I stand. When I do, I realize how much bigger I am than she is. Somehow, this never crossed my mind before. How small she appears next to my body. This body that can both protect her and give her pleasure.

  And I will. I will give her the Wonderfuck of her life.

  Then we’ll be finished. We won’t be together again. But I don’t tell her that, not now, not today, not in this moment. Because I can’t. All I can do today is make her forget that this was going to be her wedding day.

  I clasp her chin, tilt her head up, and press my lips to hers. A soft and gentle kiss. I put one hand at the small of her back and pull her toward me. I take off her bra. Her body fits against my sex. She feels the hunger of my hard cock, pressed against her cleft.

  She knows this cock. She’s felt this cock before.

  Her mouth opens and I slide my tongue into it. My hand trails down her arm. Goosebumps on her skin. I pause at her hip. The tiniest string of fabric keeps her panties on. With one twist and a swift flick of my wrist, the bit of string snaps.

  She gasps.

  I smile.

  Her panties drop to the floor.

  My hand travels across her sex, down into her cleft. I pause just over her clit, and her hips shift forward, seeking my finger, seeking pleasure. I pull my lips from her mouth and my gaze locks with hers. Huge pupils surrounded by a thin ring of blue, her mouth open, breathing shallow. I press my finger to her clit and a tiny note comes from her mouth.

  “Oh my God, Jake.”

  I pull my finger away. “Wonderfuck.”

  “No, no, no,” she begs, not wanting to lose the blissful sensation flooding her body.

  “Wonderfuck,” I say again. This can go on all night. She’ll call me Wonderfuck in this room. She’ll forget I’m Jake.

  “Wonderfuck,” she pants. My finger resumes circling her clit and her hips press against me. “Please, oh my God, Wonderfuck.”

  I kneel, bring my lips to her right breast and pull the nipple deep into my mouth. My tongue circles her taut flesh at the same tempo as my finger circling her clit. Yes, yes, her body responds as she rocks forward and back. Her fingers clasp my shoulder and dig into the fabric of my shirt. I plunge a finger deep into her sex and stroke her clit again.

  “I’m going to . . . oh my God, I’m going to come!” She pants out.

  I pull her closer, I suck harder, I caress her clit.

  She yells. Her body vibrates and tenses with pleasure. I take her over the edge, and her body becomes limp in my arms. Her eyes are heavy-lidded. I will fuck her senseless. Tonight, I will make her come over and over again. I will give her more pleasure on this, the night she thought would be her wedding night, than she ever could have imagined.

  Tonight she will be my bride.

  I lift her and carry her to the bed. She fits in my arms. She is beautiful and perfect, everything a woman should be. She deserves to be worshipped and adored. I lay her on the bed, naked in front of me. I undress and her eyes roam my bare skin. As my pants drop to the floor, her hips twitch upward. I’m not even touching her.

  Damn.

  A tingle begins in the bottoms of my feet and the back of my legs tighten. My cock throbs at the thought of driving deep into Tara’s heat. My own desire thrums through me, and I fight to remain Wonderfuck. I fight to not become Jake, not succumb to my knowledge of Tara and the emotions that are barreling through me.

  She licks her bottom lip. Her hips continue to rise and fall, and the wetness of her sex glistens. I climb onto the bed. I move above her. She puts her hands on my chest, and our lips lock together. This kiss is fire.

  I pull my lips from her mouth, shifting down to her left nipple. Her hips move up and back, up and back. She wants my cock inside her.

  “Please, I want you! Please.”

  I fight the urge to give in to her plea, to forego the pleasure I know I can give her. I stop myself from thrusting deep and hard into her. No. I wait. My lips drag along her body. Over her belly and to her mound. I am between her parted legs now. The sweet scent of her sex arouses me. I press my mouth to her slick clit and her hips thrust up. I can bare
ly stand to continue. My balls pull tight to my body.

  I’m about to come.

  How is that fucking possible? I’m about to lose it. I never lose it as Wonderfuck. I’m invincible as Wonderfuck. I control my release when I’m Wonderfuck. I pull her clit deep between my lips. My tongue strokes out the words I can’t say, the thoughts I have for Tara. She keeps rolling up and back with the pleasure. I press two fingers deep into her sex and she clenches around me. She is shattering with her orgasm.

  “Fuck, oh my God, Wonderfuck!” she yells. Her head arches back into the pillow and her hands clasp my shoulder as I continue to tongue the words on her clit. Her body shakes and shakes. Then I hear her tiny moan, a whimper, and I realize she’s ridden her orgasm to the end.

  “Please,” she whispers, “please, I want you inside me.”

  I reach for a condom from the well-stocked nightstand and glide it onto my cock. I can barely contain myself.

  Heat builds in my legs. I don’t have long. I won’t be able to give her the ride she deserves now, but we have all night. We have as long as it takes.

  Her gaze focuses on my face. I fix my eyes on hers as the head of my cock nudges slowly and gently into the tight muscles of her sex. She gasps, and so do I.

  Sweet pleasure. Beautiful pleasure that I want and she wants. Her hips remain still. I slowly, so very slowly, press into her and her sex gives way, the soft hot flesh slowly parting for my cock and tightening around my shaft. I’m inside her. Sheathed by her heat.

  “Yes,” she whispers.

  I pull back, all the way out, except for the tip of my cock. Slowly, slowly I slide back into her. She tightens around me with the contraction of a woman about to come. She grinds her fingernails into the muscles of my ass.

  “Please, oh my God, please, faster!”

  Her words rip away my disciplined, slow movement. I thrust deep and hard into her body. Ferocious heat climbs through my legs and tightens my lower back. I’m about to explode. Our eyes never leave each other’s. I thrust again. Heat jets through me and out my cock as she pulls me closer, her body climaxing and tightening. I thrust one final time. My body turns to stone. I careen over the edge, filled with pleasure.

  Chapter 20

  This time when I wake, I don’t leave. I don’t need to leave. I’m not Jake, a man filled with fear and anxiety and the belief that I’ll wreck Tara’s life and mine by caring for her, getting involved with her. No, I’m Wonderfuck. I’m safe in the knowledge that this interaction is finite.

  No names.

  I shove the knowledge that Tara knows my name, my true identity, from my mind. I push away the real possibility that she always knew who I was. I don’t want to consider that thought, so I shove it deep into my brain and lock it up with the memories I so desperately try to ignore. I am Wonderfuck. Wonderfuck has rules, and Tara will follow the rules.

  I look over at her. She’s awake. Her blue eyes peer through the darkness.

  “Hey.” It’s nearing midnight. Soon this day, the one meant to be her wedding day, will be over, and hopefully she can rebuild. Her pain will lift and eventually reside in the past.

  “You’re awake.” I press my lips to her forehead. Not too familiar, not anything I haven’t done with a myriad of other women I’ve wonderfucked.

  “And shockingly hungry.” A smile curls up over her face.

  “Hunger requires sustenance. What do you want to eat?” I lift the phone receiver.

  “What do they have?”

  “They have an excellent concierge, who can get us anything you want. What’ll it be?”

  “Chinese,” she says. “You know what I like.”

  And I do. I let what Tara just said go by. The slight allusion to Jake, to my other life, to her knowledge of who I am and where I live and the things I know about her and me and us. I make the call and place the order. Then I turn to her. I pull Tara into my arms. I kiss her slowly and I wonderfuck her again as we wait for our food.

  * * *

  “I didn’t realize how painful today would be.”

  We stand at the window, a blanket draped around us. The sky grows lighter as we watch. We’ve wonderfucked on the bed, the couch, the chair, the floor, even standing by the wall. I’m nearing my limit, but each time I think that I can’t, Tara turns to me with that sweet mouth and those lush lips and her eyes that see through me and I can’t stop myself from reaching out and kissing her. Kissing Tara turns into my cock getting hard, and her getting wet, and us wonderfucking again and again and again.

  “Was it like this for you too?” she asks.

  My blood chills and my muscles tighten. She stands in front of me, her ass pressed against my cock.

  “On the day you were supposed to get married?”

  She doesn’t turn her head when she asks. Maybe she notices how her words affect my body. How I pause, as still as stone.

  “I . . .” I’m torn. Never has anyone asked me about my wedding day, the day I was meant to wed Susie. No one has asked me as Jake, and most definitely not as Wonderfuck.

  My worlds collide. Pain mixed with fear mixed with want and desire churn in a cocktail that is too sweet, too bitter, simply too much for me to swallow. The walls I’ve created are crumbling and I don’t know how to stop the destruction, so I do what I do best.

  I press my lips to the back of her neck. I slide my hand down the front of her belly and my fingertip slips between the hot folds of her sex.

  “Oh yes,” she moans.

  Yes, there it is, my cock, my cock hardens and wedges underneath her. No words. No answers. No thoughts. She opens her legs to me. Conversation is gone. Pleasure replaces questions. My other hand reaches to her taut nipple. I pinch it between two fingers, giving her pleasure just on the cusp of pain.

  Her hips, her ass, shift back to me. I turn from her and grab a condom. A moment later, my finger strokes her clit again. She bends forward ever so slightly and I press my cock deep into her.

  “Oh, Jake.”

  I’m deep inside her. Bindings of pleasure tighten around me. I don’t know who I am anymore. I weave my fingers through her hair and tilt her head back, my lips beside her ear.

  “I. Am. Wonderfuck,” I say, one word with each thrust. And with each thrust, a gasp escapes her lips.

  I will her to say it. I will make her forget Jake. I will fuck her until she knows this name, my only name when I am with her.

  “Say it.”

  “Wonderfuck.”

  I brace my palm against the cold glass of the window, and heat shoots from me and out of my cock as the new-day sun bathes us both in the early morning light.

  * * *

  We don’t ride home together. We can’t. I don’t want to. I get her a car. I watch her leave. I turn and walk away from the hotel. A weariness gathers deep in my bones. I’m exhausted.

  I don’t want to go home and chance running into Tara in the building. My heart is a gaping hole—a wound. Instead I walk. Where I’m going, I have no clue. Nobody walks in L.A. This is never more evident than early on a Sunday afternoon. Cars whiz by me. Finally I pull out my phone, type in an address, and order an Uber.

  * * *

  “Richard, did you golf this morning?”

  I realize when I walk into my childhood home that I’ve made a mistake. I wanted to go home, but the home I wanted disappeared with Mom’s memory. I surrender to the role that Mom’s brain needs me to play.

  “It’s beautiful outside,” I say and lean down and kiss her cheek. I say hello to Sylvia, her weekend nurse.

  “Uncle Jake!” The sound of my niece’s brilliant crystal voice pummels me from the backyard.

  “Rachel is swimming with some other children.” Mom looks toward the backyard. “And that woman is here. The one I don’t like, who’s always ordering me around. I tried to go for a walk earlier and she wouldn’t let me.” Mom grasps my hand. “Will you talk to her, please?”

  I know from experience that when Mom says “Rachel,” she means Lily, and
“that woman” is my sister, who Mom can’t seem to remember either.

  Lily leaps into my arms. She’s wet from the pool, but I don’t care. This is the kind of salvation I need. Simple love and pure joy. The kind that only kids can make and adults spend a lifetime trying to manufacture. She hugs me tight and gives me a big wet kiss on the cheek. “I’m swimming!” She slides down from my grasp, leaving a giant wet mark on my shirt. “Come watch me.”

  “Sure thing.” I follow her to the lanai. Four kids swim and Rachel sits beside the pool with two women. Hmm . . . this is really the last thing I wanted, but I’ll do my brotherly duty and say hello. Then I may slide into my childhood bedroom and snooze.

  I walk over. The moms are looking pretty good, and they’re eyeing me. I flip down my shades so I don’t feel exposed.

  “Didn’t expect to see you here today,” Rachel says.

  “I was over this way. Thought I’d stop in and say hello.”

  Rachel introduces me to the moms. One of them mentions she remembers seeing me at the birthday party. I do the honorable little brother thing and chat for five minutes. Then Rachel hooks her arm through mine, tells them she’ll be right back, and walks me inside.

  “You look like shit,” she whispers.

  I pull up my sunglasses and give big sis my version of her evil eye.

  “What’d you do? Were you out all night? You look like you haven’t slept in days.”

  “Work stuff,” I lie. “I needed to get out. A quiet place away from my computer.”

  “Go upstairs, grab a nap. We won’t bother you. Want me to wake you before Lily and I go?”

  I nod. The need for sleep scrapes my insides. I turn and head up the staircase with the pictures on the wall that lead me back through time, all the way to when I was a preschooler. Handsome boy even then. I turn the corner, walk into my childhood bedroom, and fall onto my bed. I’m asleep before I hit the mattress.

  * * *

  Tara’s hand glides up over my jeans and rubs against my cock. I’m rock hard. I want nothing but to fuck her over and over again. She smiles at me and unzips my fly. She grasps my cock and pulls it free from my jeans, a mischievous gleam in her eyes. Thrilled with the size. The look every man wants to see on the face of the woman he wants to fuck. Tara is that woman for me.