He picked up a program and studied it, ignoring me. “Frederick Mills,” he read aloud, and I began pulling my shirt up and over my head, “together with Elliott and Susan Ryan welcome you to the wedding of their children, Chloe Caroline Mills and Bennett James Ryan.”

“Yes, yes, it’s so romantic,” I whispered. “Come here and touch me.”

“Officiant,” he continued, “the Honorable James Marsters.”

“If only,” I sighed, and dropped my shirt on the floor before working my pants down my hips. “I’m going to pretend it’s Spike performing our wedding ceremony instead of that hilarious gentleman with early dementia we met back in November.”

“Judge Marsters performed my parents’ wedding ceremony almost thirty-five years ago,” Bennett chastened me gently. “It’s sentimental, Chlo. The fact that he forgot to zip up his pants is a mistake anyone could have made.”

“Three times?”

“Chloe.”

“Fine.” I did feel a little guilty for making the joke, but I stood quietly for a minute, letting my memory of the old, frazzled man take shape. He’d met us at the wedding site when we went out to see it last fall, and got lost on each of three trips to the men’s room in under an hour, returning with his fly open each time. “But do you think he’ll remember our na—”

Bennett cut me off with a stern look before he realized I was only wearing my bra and underwear, and then his expression went a completely different kind of dark.

“I’m just saying,” I started, reaching behind me to unfasten my bra, “it would be at least a little amusing if he forgot what he was doing halfway through the ceremony.”

He managed to turn his attention back to folding the program before my br**sts were exposed; he made a crisp seam as he slid his thumb along the edge. “You’re being a pain in the ass.”

“I know. I also don’t care.”

He quirked an eyebrow as he looked up at me. “We’re almost done.”

I bit back my response, which was to point out that folding the programs was the least of our worries; the next week with our two families together had the potential to be a disaster of Griswold-family holiday proportions, and wouldn’t sex right now be a lot better than thinking about that? My father and his two boozy divorcée sisters alone could make us crazy, but add in Bennett’s side of the family, Max, and Will, and we’d be lucky to get out of there without a felony under our communal belt.

Instead I whispered, “Just really quick? Can’t we take a little break?”

He leaned forward, inhaling between my br**sts before moving to the side and kissing a path to my left nipple. “Once I start, I don’t relish stopping.”

“You don’t like interruptions, I don’t like delayed gratification. Which of us do you think will get her way?”

Bennett ran his tongue over my nipple, and then sucked it deeply into his mouth as his hands circled my waist, slid to my hips, and then worked together to pull my panties off with a satisfying rip.

Amusement lit up his eyes as he looked up at me from where he sucked at my other breast, and his fingers teased at the juncture of my hip and thigh. “I suspect, my impossible wife-to-be, that you’re going to get your way and then I’ll finish folding these later while you sleep.”

Sliding my hands back into his hair, I whispered, “Don’t forget about tying the ribbons on the candy bags.”

He chuckled a little. “I won’t, baby.”

And it hit me all over again, like a warm gust of wind: I loved him, madly. I loved every inch of him, every emotion that passed through his eyes, and every thought I knew he had right now but wasn’t voicing:

One, that I’d been the one to insist we do as much of this ourselves as we could.

Two, that I was the one to assure him it was fine that every distant relative of ours on the planet had somehow squeezed their way into this wedding event.

Three, that I would never, ever back out of the opportunity to wear my wedding dress on the Coronado coastline.

But instead of pointing out the obvious—that he was the one being a good sport here, not me, and that despite all of my bitching I would never be satisfied with a quick Vegas wedding—he stood, turning to walk to our bedroom. “Okay, then. But this is the last night I’m f**king you before we’re married.”

I was so buzzed by the “fucking” part that it wasn’t until he’d disappeared down the hallway to our bedroom that the rest of his words fully sank in.Bennett was already undressing when I joined him in the bedroom, and I watched as he slipped the buttons free on the fly of his jeans and pushed them and his boxers down his legs. He reached for the hem of his shirt, eyebrows raised in silent question—want it on or off this time?—before I nodded and he tugged it up and over his head. He walked over to our bed, lay down on his back, and gazed at me.