Page 36 of Dirty Like Us
I was way too sober—not to mention sane—to be down withthat.
“Fucking right, we are,” he murmured, and this time he nibbled on my ear, just scraping his teeth lightly over the curve of the lobe. And damn, I couldn’t keep still. I squirmed a little as I shivered again, pretending to be cold as I burrowed deeper into hisarms.
“No,” I said into his shirt. I was putting my foot down on this. No fucking way were we “celebrating” this craziness. I just wanted this whole thing overwith.
“C’mon, Maggie.” Zane gripped my head and tilted my face up. “We just got married and I wanna go shake it up before you pop my cherry,” he whispered, his lips hovering so close they brushed against mine. “Don’t worry, we’ll keep it low-key.”
Right. Low-key.
And popping his cherry? Pretty sure some other woman had that honor, many, many years ago… his high school music teacher, if I remembered the storycorrectly.
No one was popping anything tonight, except maybe a couple of Advil before passingout.
“No, Zane,” I whispered back, my voice firm. “Let’s just go back to the hotel.” I only heard how it sounded once the words wereout.
Zane didn’t missit.
“Straight to bed, huh?” He cocked his pierced eyebrow at me, stroking my cheek with his thumb. “That’s cool. We can do that instead, if you’drather—”
“Forget it,” I cut him off, untangling myself from his arms. “Let’s go shake it,” I announced, loudly enough for everyone to hear, as my dad and his date headed over tous.
Maxxi whooped excitedly. My dad smacked her ass and I followed them into the limo, tugging Zane along behind me as Flynn brought up therear.
Dizzy was already opening a bottle of champagne that he’d produced from somewhere as I settled into my seat with a sigh… and pasted on my most dazzling newlywedsmile.
So much for putting my footdown.
When we arrived backat the hotel almost four hours later, my head was still ringing from the music in the all-night karaoke bar that was the last stop on our whirlwind tour of late-nightVegas.
It was Zane who’d insisted on the karaoke. He’d been going on about popping cherries again while we perused the song selection, and when I realized he was planning to serenade me, I’d hissed at him, “Don’t you dare sing ‘WhiteWedding’!”
Then my dad piped up, telling Zane with a heavy slur that he should sing “Dirty Like Us,” and I wasn’t even sure if it was an actual mistake that he got the name of Dirty’s most famous song wrong, or if he was just being an asshole getting it wrong on purpose, but neither Zane nor I bothered to correct him. I did slap my hand down over the Dirty songs on offer though, including “Dirty Like Me,” since it would give him away in a dead second if Zane decided to saunter on stage and start singing that panty-wetting, now-classic rock anthem of love, hate, and soul-sucking heartbreak. “And no Dirty!” Iordered.
Instead, my wiseass “husband” chose another Billy Idol classic, “Rebel Yell.”Which he sang arguably better than Mr. Idol himself, and holy fucking shit, who knew that song was so sexy? His performance, with ball cap pulled low over his eyes, raised so many eyebrows, we just barely scraped our way out of there before he lost hispants.
Flynn was sweating when we piled back into thelimo.
In front of the hotel, I was wobbling a little on the curb as everyone piled back out. I gave Zane a serious once-over, and my most managerial stare down. “That was the sexiest karaoke, ever. And karaoke is never sexy. So you do the math onthat.”
He pulled me close and steered me into the hotel. “You’re drunk,” he whispered in my ear, his hot breath on my neck making meshiver.
“Amnot.”
I kindawas.
We said good night to Dizzy and Maxxi. They were wasted and my dad hardly noticed our departure. At least he’d stayed coherent enough to witness the wedding; that was all that reallymattered.
Still… would it have killed him to offer a half-hearted “Congratulations” or a hug orsomething?
Apparently.
He was too busy pawing Miss Barely Legal to even saygoodbye.
As Flynn dropped us at our door, I convinced myself it was all for the best. No point drawing this out. It was done, and now I could leave my dad hanging as long as I wanted to. For all he knew, I could spend the rest of my life happily married to Zane, a man he obviously admired. A lot. It’s not like he’d notice we weren’t actually together. My dad and I didn’t live in the same city. Christ; Zane and I didn’t even live in the same city. I still lived in Vancouver, where I’d grown up and where Brody also still lived. Zane lived down in L.A. most of thetime.
Dizzy now lived inVegas.
Yeah. He’d never know. Not if we didn’t tellhim.