A muscle in his jaw jumps, but he raises a brow and holds my gaze. “Prove it.”

My heart leaps into my throat at the challenge, and I lick my lips. When I part my legs, his nostrils flare and his eyes go darker. “With this?” I ask, holding up the vibrator.

“Show me how you do it.” He drops his arms and his fists clench at his sides.

I release the vibrator on the bed next to me. Keeping my eyes on him, I cup myself between my legs. I’m so turned on from all this talk of mas***bation and the look in his eyes. I’m already slick and swollen, and if he joined me on the bed and put his hand between my legs, he could get me off in seconds flat.

But he isn’t on the bed with me, and I’m not going to rush this. I rock my hand against myself, applying just enough pressure to my cl*tto make my eyes float closed.

“Here.” His hard voice has my eyes flying open. He’s leaning over the bed and tugging my panties from my h*ps in one smooth motion.

I squeak as my ass falls back to the bed, and he gives me that shit-eating grin.

“You have touched yourself without the panties before, haven’t you?”

I take a breath and part my legs farther. He watches, and that’s what does it for me—his gaze between my legs, like that private bit of me is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, the rising and falling of his chest as I slide my hands up my inner thighs.

I’ve never done this before—never let a man watch me touch myself. I would have thought it would be awkward or that I’d worry I might look like I was enjoying my own touch more that I enjoyed his, but there’s nothing awkward here, and we both know it’s Nate’s touch I want. All I feel is heat and lust and this need to give him anything he wants.

As I settle on hand over myself, taking my cl*tbetween two fingers, I bring my other hand up to my chest and squeeze my breast through my shirt. I’m not wearing a bra, and the sensation of my sensitive ni**les scraping across the cotton makes my h*ps buck and my body ache for more. For his mouth on my breasts, his tongue toying with my ni**les until he draws them into his mouth—hard and tight and merciless.

I enter myself with one finger as I imagine it, and he steps closer. I love that I can make him damn near lose his self-control. I imagine his mouth against the flat of my belly before dipping lower.

I squeeze my cl*tgently. Right where I want his lips. My h*ps rock faster and his eyes grow hotter.

I’m close. So damn close. But my own hand isn’t enough when he’s right there, when I can reach out and touch what I really want. “Nate,” I whimper.

“Do it, angel.” His nostrils flare as I pinch my nipple through my shirt again. “I want to hear you come. I want to watch.”

“I want you to do it.”

“Do this for me.” His breathing is ragged. As if he’s been holding me up and f**king me hard rather than standing here watching.

I can see what I’m doing to him. I can see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice.

“Fuck your hand for me, baby. Just like that.” His words make me wild and my h*ps move faster, my hand at my breast pinches tighter, and then I’m gone—tightening, squeezing, and exploding into a hard and fast release that’s better than any orgasm I’ve ever been able to give myself.

As I lie limp in bed after, he climbs in beside me and brushes my hair from my face. “I swear to Christ, you are a living fantasy.”

I force my heavy eyes open. “That was amazing. I wouldn’t have believed I could make myself…”

“Get off?”

I shake my head. “I knew I could do that, but it’s never that good. But with you standing there…”

He presses a kiss to the side of my neck. “That’s what I want you to think about when I’m gone. When you touch yourself, imagine me at the end of the bed watching you.”

I hear the hum of the vibrator clicking on, and then he’s pressing it against the inside of my thighs and sucking at my neck as he inches the vibrating wand closer to the apex of my thighs.

“What are you doing?” I whisper, reaching for the button on his jeans. “I think it’s your turn.”

“I might have had an ulterior motive for buying this for you.”

“What’s that?” My breath catches as he brushes it lightly over my cl*tbefore returning it to my thighs. I part my legs instinctively.

“I want to f**k you with this, Hanna. If I can’t have my c**k inside you, I still want to f**k you.”

I slide my hands into his hair and lock my eyes on his. “If you want me, I’m yours. I’ve told you that.”

His kiss is hard and sweet at the same time. I know he’s trying to be noble, and I don’t want him to be. I release him from his jeans, and he groans as I take his hard length into my hands.

“I’m ready,” I promise.

He buries his face in my neck and presses the vibrator lightly against my entrance. The sensation is new and intense, and I cry out even as I rock my h*ps toward the intrusion.

“Just imagine it’s my c**k sliding into you.”

I want to make a joke about his magically vibrating appendage, but the words die on my lips. I’m too distracted by the round tip of the vibrator poised at my entrance. He slides it in, inch by inch, while kissing my neck. Slowly in. Slowly out. Long, languid movements that already have my body pulsing in response.

“Nate.” I try to draw back, to escape the sensation before I’m lost in it. He lowers his mouth to my breast and sucks hard. Then instead of pulling away, I’m rocking forward. Instead of withdrawing from the pleasure, I’m running toward it.

“I can’t stop thinking about how it would feel to be inside you,” he whispers. “You are so f**king responsive, and I could get off right here just imagining that pu**y squeezing around my cock.”

I cry out, my h*ps rising off the bed. “Please.”

He groans in my ear and rocks the toy inside me, moving it deeper this time. “I know, baby. I want it as much as you do. But you’ve done something to me.” He removes the vibrator, and I cry out, hungry, empty, desperate.

“Fuck me, Nate.” I wouldn’t have had the courage to say those words to anyone before meeting him, but he brings out this bold side of me. This wicked side. “Don’t make me wait anymore.”

“It would be so damn good.” He touches the vibrator to my cl*tand my body squeezes tight, climbing higher. “I’d never get enough of you. I’d f**k you from behind. I’d f**k you with your legs wrapped around my waist. I’d f**k you in the shower and until you thought you couldn’t come again.”

“Now. Please.”

He slides two fingers inside me and holds the vibrator snug against my clit. “Not until you’ve made a decision. Not while his ring is waiting in your jewelry box.” With those words, he rocks against my cl*tand curls his fingers, and I’m gone. Flying. Falling. Releasing.

16

WHEN MY alarm beeps at four thirty on Friday morning, I roll over in bed and bury my face in the pillow, howling in frustration. I thought about Nate Crane all night—his eyes on me, his dirty words, his wicked touch. And when I managed to fall asleep, I dreamed about him.

My body is a live wire of hot need at the memory, an ache pulsing between my legs that I don’t want to ignore. For thirty seconds, I lie there with my eyes closed and contemplate sliding my hand beneath the sheets to banish the ache, but guilt has me climbing out of bed.

I take a cool shower before dressing and heading for the bakery, where I lose myself in the comforting motions of baking.

Liz comes in at six and works the front while I experiment with a new cupcake recipe—stress management for bakers.

When Drew comes in after school, Liz hands over front-counter duties and drags me away from my flour and sugar. “Time to stop stewing and get cleaned up.”

“What? Who said I’m stewing?” I let her lead me up to my apartment, and I unlock the door for us and push inside.

“You are, aren’t you?”

My shoulders sag. “Totally.”

“Want to share?”

“I had a Nate Crane memory.”

She frowns. “Was it bad?”

I chew on my lower lip and shake my head. “No. It was good. Really good. And now I’m having memory guilt.”

We sit in silence for a minute before Liz asks, “Does it bother you not knowing what made you choose Max?”

The question makes me uncomfortable in my own skin. I want to say no. To swear that I don’t need to know. To say that every morning when I wake up, my heart chooses Max.

But that’s not true. My heart? It doesn’t know what it wants.

“You don’t have to answer that,” she whispers.

I sigh. “Bridesmaid dress fitting this afternoon?”

“Yeah. Yours is going to need to be taken in. We ordered them a couple months ago. I think we’re going to choose bridesmaid dresses for your wedding while we’re there.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess we need to do that.”

She frowns. “Don’t get too excited.”

“What do you mean it doesn’t fit?” my mom screeches from the other side of the dressing room door. “That dress fit you perfectly the day we bought it!”

The seamstress studies her shoes and shifts uncomfortably. “I could try the zipper again,” she whispers.

I shake my head. “It’s no use.”

We met Cally, Maggie, and Nix at Cleanstein’s to try on our bridesmaid dresses and see if they needed alterations. They pinned mine to be taken in. Then Mom showed up and decided that I should try on my wedding gown for the girls.

“Okay,” Mom says, pushing into the dressing room. “We can put off final alterations for, what, another couple of weeks if we need to. You can get the weight back off, can’t you, sweetie?”

I look to the seamstress. “Is it possible to take it out?”

“We have maybe half an inch to work with,” the seamstress says. “It might just be enough, but in a dress this style, there’s not much wiggle room.”

“Let’s wait,” Mom says. “Hanna’s going to fit into it, and if not, we’ll take it out.” She forces a smile and pats me on the shoulder awkwardly before leaving the dressing room.

The seamstress helps me out of the dress and leaves me alone to study myself in the mirror. Somehow it looks different to me now. The curve of my h*ps and my breasts. The returning softness of my belly. This is a body two amazing men lose their minds over. It’s something beautiful. Something worth caring for.

“Are you okay?” Maggie calls on the other side of the door.

I shake my head to clear it and dress. “I’m fine.”

She’s waiting outside the door when I exit the dressing room. “I heard it doesn’t fit,” she whispers.

“I’ve gained weight.” I lower my voice to make sure Mom can’t hear. “There are probably only five pounds between me now and me getting that dress zipped, but just staying the size I am now until the wedding is going to be hard enough.”

“Would you be offended if I offered my old dress from my canceled wedding?”

I draw in a breath, remembering how much I loved Maggie’s dress. She ended up calling off the wedding, and I never thought about what happened to it. “Would it fit me?”

She nods. “It’s a ten and it’s an A-line, so it’s only fitted right above your waist and at your chest. It’s in the closet in the guestroom at Asher’s if you want to try it on.”

“You think Mom would flip out?”

She shrugs. “It’s your wedding, Hanna. I think it’s more important you wear what you want.”

Maggie’s wedding dress fits like it was made for me.

“Oh, Han-Han,” Lizzy breathes. “It’s perfect.”

The A-line bodice accentuates my br**sts while making my waist look small, and the basic bridal satin is covered with the most delicate organza I’ve ever touched. The satin bodice is heart-shaped, with only the organza continuing over my shoulders in wide, sheer straps.

“Do you want us to stay or do you want to be alone?” Maggie asks as I look at myself in the mirror. “Think about it for a little bit?”

I watch my reflection as I turn side to side. I’ve never felt so beautiful in my life as I do in this dress. So why does the idea of wearing it in three weeks make me want to weep?

“Can I have a few minutes?”

She nods and ushers Lizzy out of the room with her.

The bedroom has French doors that lead out onto a balcony overlooking the river. I unlock them and pull them open. Desperate for fresh air, I lift my skirt and step out onto the balcony.

I close my eyes as the breeze brushes through my hair. I concentrate on my breathing.

Everything is good. Everything is okay.

My mind scrambles through reassurances, but only one calms me—I don’t have to go through with this. If, in a couple weeks, the idea of marriage still panics me, Max would understand. Wouldn’t he? Or would I lose him for good? And what would my mom think? She’d be so embarrassed to have another daughter with another botched wedding. Maybe the Thompson girls are cursed.

“Hanna?”

I turn toward the voice to find myself face to face with Nate Crane.

His eyes take me in inch by inch, like he’s drinking in what he sees. Me. The dress.

“What are you doing here?” After last night’s memory, I’m simultaneously more drawn to him than ever and more wary of being near him. Stepping toward him is as instinctive as breathing, but I catch myself and stop. I clench my hands into fists at my sides. I want to smooth over the hurt between his eyes, to touch his cheek and feel the heat of his skin under my fingertips.