“Take a guess,” she says and sips her drink. She wraps her full lips around the straw and pulls. I imagine her wrapping her lips around my cock while looking up at me with her gorgeous eyes.
I quickly take a swig of my beer to cool me down. “I think you are in PR or communications.”
“I’m impressed,” she says. “You are pretty close. I’m a wedding planner. And before you ask me, no, I’m not married.”
I pick up on the defensive note in her voice.
The bartender comes over to our end of the counter. “Can I get you another round?”
“Sure, why not?” Marian says. “Declan will have another beer as well.”
“I believe you,” I say when Mike turns away.
“What do you believe?” Marian.
“That you are a wedding planner.”
She laughs. Marian is easy to speak to and time flies as we drink and chat, our voices getting louder by the minute.
Several hours later, Marian is clearly tipsy, and so am I. Letting loose is the main reason why people come to Vegas. Still, I try to pace myself. I want to make sure that I can take care of her. She brings out protective feelings in me that I’ve never felt with another woman.
“Remember what you said about always a groomsman and never a groom?” Marian asks, her voice slurring.
I nod.
“That’s me,” she says.
“But there is no rush to get married,” I tell her.
“But I do want to get married,” Marian says fiercely. “The only trouble is, I don’t think I’ll ever find the right person. There are two types of people in this world.” She holds up two fingers in the air.
“Go on.” My tongue feels heavy. I’m drunker than I thought I was.
“People who find love and people who don’t.”
“That makes perfect sense,” I say. Even I can hear that my voice is slurring. “I think I’m in the second group,” I tell her.
Her eyes widen, and then her face splits into a grin. “Me too. We’re kindred spirits.”
“It’s not a bad group,” I say, but my voice carries a tinge of sadness, and she picks on it immediately.
“You’re just saying that. You don’t mean it. Nobody wants to be in that group. I don’t. It’s just that I don’t have a choice,” Marian says.
She’s right. I miss my brother Ace and best friend Park. It had been the three of us for the longest time, but now they are both married with families of their own. As Marian says, there are people who found love and people who didn’t. I’m firmly in the second group.
She bangs the bar, jolting me back to the present. “I don’t like being in that group, and I know you don’t either. Why don’t we do something about it?” she says, her emerald green eyes gleaming. She looks at me expectantly, but I have no idea what she’s talking about. She rolls her eyes. “We are in Vegas, the easiest place in the world to get married.”
I’m drunk, but a part of me realizes that her plan is a bit too dramatic.
“Mike, give us another round, please. We’re celebrating something,” Marian says to the bartender.
Laughter bubbles up in my throat. I can’t wait to tell Park and Ace about this. The day I almost got married to a stranger in Vegas.
Chapter 3
Marian
A blinding light strikes my eyes, and I raise my hand to shield them. As I slowly awaken, I become aware of the pain in my throat. It feels like someone was in there all night, with a hard brush scrubbing the sides of my throat.
I stiffen as something growls next to me. I open one eye and then the other and see the back of a man in my bed. I inch away and stifle a scream. The man rolls onto his back, and when I see his face, the events of the previous night come slamming into my brain.
“Oh, God.”
Declan. That’s his name. We met on the plane, made small talk, and said goodbye when we reached Vegas. Then we met in the lobby of the hotel and again at the bar. I remember us talking and drinking ourselves silly.
But how the hell did I end up in his bed or he in mine?
I lift the covers and look down at myself.
I’m in a bra and panties, and I don’t remember removing my clothes. Heck, I don’t even remember coming up to the room. I raise my head and glance around the room. I can’t tell whether it’s my room or Declan’s.
My mind is a whirl of confusion. I’ve never done anything so stupid. I’ve never gone home with a stranger, and I’ve never even had a one-night stand. I lie under the blankets trembling and trying to figure out my next move. I have no idea what time it is. All I know is that the wedding is starting at midday.