“Hey, babe.”

The man was a poet.

“Hey.”

I was too.

He leaned down, eyes staying with mine until a second after his lips touched mine. His kiss was soft, featherlight. His mouth brushed against mine once, then twice, then by the third time, more than his lips got involved. His tongue darted out to gently nudge at the seam of my lips, and when they parted for him, it flicked out to taste me.

Were we in a church? I was clueless, because in that moment all I felt, all I knew was Simon. His hands restless on my waist, the planes of his strong body anywhere it was pressed against mine, the scent of his shampoo and the ever-loving Downy filling my nostrils, and his mouth bearing down on mine.

I heard coughing, and as he broke our kiss to rest his forehead against mine, I saw Jillian arching her eyebrow at us.

“Simon,” I whispered, within our bubble.

“Yes?”

“I missed you too,” I said, giving him one more quick kiss.

Grinning, he spun me so I was next to him, and we turned back to Jillian and Benjamin. And the small crowd that was watching us.

“What? I missed my girl.” He tucked me farther into his side and I smiled up at him. “Now, what are we rehearsing?” he asked.

• • •

The rehearsal went well, the dinner even better. Jillian and Benjamin had picked a beautiful restaurant, renting a private room with a rooftop terrace. Wine and champagne flowed, families mixed and mingled; it was a festive mood. Serving heavy appetizers instead of a formal sit-down encouraged everyone to get to know each other as they moved from table to table.

Simon and I stuck close to each other most of the evening, when I wasn’t assisting Jillian with last-minute details. While there were several other bridesmaids and a maid of honor, Jillian trusted me implicitly to be her eyes and ears on All Things Wedding. Which is why I was the one with the sewing kit and the hemorrhoid cream in my purse.

For puffy eyes.

In between meeting second cousins and business partners on both sides, Simon managed to steal me away for secret kisses and whispered dirty talk in every nook and cranny of that restaurant.

“What’s got into you?” I asked, breathless after a fevered kiss on the terrace. I’d come out to get some air when I was cornered against the glass railing by a handsy Wallbanger.

“Into you, now that’s sounds like a wonderful idea,” he murmured, turning me so I was facing the city. Caging me in with his arms, he pressed his body into mine. I leaned my head back onto his shoulder as he teased me with wet kisses up and down my neck.

I sighed, letting my hands reach back and tangle into his hair. “Behave yourself, mister.”

“Not a chance.” He thrust gently but insistently into my backside. My eyes popped open, as my insides went on instant clench. “I missed you. How long do we need to stay here?”

“Um, I don’t think we should leave until Jillian and Benjamin are ready. I think that’d be—wow!” My head dropped back farther as he swept one hand up from my waist to just below my br**sts.

“Shouldn’t or can’t?”

I struggled to think, to stay focused.

“Uh, well, maybe we could, mmm—” I was powerless, his hands getting more sure as they began to nudge my skirt higher on my thighs. “Okay, now I think we should leave. This is crazy.”

“Atta girl.” He had me saying good-byes in less than a minute, into the elevator in three minutes, and had me in the back of a cab five minutes after that.

And when I say had me, boy, did he try.

• • •

After successfully fending off Simon’s attempts to get under my skirt in the cab, and then under my skirt while walking up our apartment stairs in front of him, I gave up all ownership of what was below my belly button when he bent me over the back of the sofa inside my apartment and removed my panties. With his teeth.

With his mother-loving teeth! I can’t even!

I’d read this particular scene in many romance novels; I’d never experienced it in real life. I always wondered how exactly that would happen. Did he take a big bite of the part over your hip? Use one canine to peel it off from the front? Sexy novels only mentioned teeth, so would lips be cheating? And speaking of cheating, if he used his hands to assist, but the teeth were the primary method for panty removal, would that be legal?

Romance novels, schmomance novels, here’s how Wallbanger does it.

Hands went inside my skirt from either side as soon as we cleared the front door. As he guided me backward through the darkened apartment, his mouth was on my neck and his hands inside my bra, when the back of my thighs met the sofa.

Which I then had the honor of feeling with my eyeballs when I hit the pillows face-first, after he’d spun me and pushed me over the arm with my bum in the air. Think I even noticed that I had a forehead full of sofa? Hell no, I had a Wallbanger kneeling between my legs.

Wet kisses were smacked along the back of my legs as my skirt was lifted and placed out of his way. I felt his hands nudging my knees apart, felt his warm breath on the inside of my thighs as his fingers dipped inside the lace of my panties. Had I dressed up for my man? Oh hell, yes.

White. Lacey. Sweet. Guaranteed to make him pant. Which he was doing now, heavily. He kissed me through the silk, his tongue pointed and strong even through the barrier. I cried out, having been ready for that mouth ever since he pushed me up against the railing in the restaurant.

With his hands wrapped around my waist, he pressed down on the small of my back, angling me toward his face. Growling—and I swear that’s the only way I can describe the guttural noises coming from the back of his throat—he grasped the top of my panties in his teeth and tugged. Down my thighs and toward my knees, and that’s as far as they went, because: Simon. Was. Impatient.

With my ass in the air and my panties at my knees, he groaned.

“Mmm, there’s that sweet pu**y.”

Not all men can handle the P-word. And boy, is that a mouthful. Ahem. Some say it all the time, some use it in common conversation. But a good P-word is all about placement: when to say it, where to say, how to say it. Dirty talk is an art. Do it too often, it becomes routine. Never do it, and you’re missing something. Simon did it just right. He was like a perfect bowl of smutty porridge: just right. Let’s get back to that mouthful . . .

I was done for even before his lips hit mine. And I meant that exactly how I said it.

There are nights when I need it slow. And there are nights when I need it sweet. And then there are nights when I need it fast and filthy.