She couldn't remember even having awakened feeling so...delicious. Miranda lay in a generous puddle of sunlight, thinking immediately how nice it was that he'd left the room the way he'd found it.
HE.
Jackknifing into a sitting position, Miranda looked quickly around the room, noting the wide open curtains; her discarded clothes exactly where she'd left them last night...everything in order. Flopping back down into the softness of the bed, she sighed.
She had to call off the wedding.
She knew she loved Ed and that he loved her, but clearly that wasn't enough. If she were willing to give herself so fully and so desperately to someone else, then there was something wrong. Not with the relationship or with Ed, but with her. Marrying Ed wouldn't be fair to him if she hadn't worked out all her needs, wants or...whatever it was that had her moaning and coming for a man she'd known for all of three hours. So the wedding was off.
Her heart ached at the thought, even more than she would have thought it might, and she realized in that moment that her feelings for Ed were stronger than even she had realized. She would do the right thing. Marrying one man when you could respond so hotly to another wasn't right, but doing the right thing made her hurt unbearably.
How could she have done this to him?
Rolling to her side in the bed, Miranda grabbed a tissue from the box on the bedside table and wiped the first tears away. Wondering miserably how she could have done such a thing--and enjoyed it so much--she tried not to look at the beautiful yellow roses he'd sent her yesterday because they only made her cry harder.
Gasping, she sat up again. Yellow roses?
Jumping to her feet, Miranda ran to the dresser to make sure the bright, sunny blooms were real. Yesterday, he'd sent her roses. RED roses. So, whose were these? Pulling the same little white florist's envelope from the center of the bouquet, she slipped the card out to read it; to assure herself that it was the same card.
It wasn't.
‘Good Morning, Beautiful--' this card read. ‘I hope you slept well and are ready for the big day. I can't wait. By the way, I've never been much for symbolism, but these seemed to fit the occasion. I hope you aren't angry but Peg said you were having some...concerns...about...well, you know. I love you'
She backed up to the bed as if the note had slammed into her, forcing her backward. When the backs of her knees hit the bed, she sat down hard. What did all that mean? Peg told Ed that she was having concerns about...something? But the only thing she and Peg had discussed was...
SEX!
"Oh, Peg, you didn't," Miranda moaned aloud. "I'm going to kill you for sure now."
So what was all this about not being into symbolism. What did symbolism have to do with roses? Flowers were sent to people you loved and...wait! Red roses were symbolic of love, right? So what about yellow?
Passion.
Miranda sat silent for a full minute before it hit her hard in the midsection.
"Oh my god!" she shouted, standing again.
It hadn't been Grant at all. It had been...Ed.
Stunned, Miranda couldn't decide if she were thrilled or horrified. ED...her sweet, beautiful, calm, dignified Ed had...snuck into her room, tied her down and...and....
What, she thought. And made her feel such awful need and fiery passion and down-and-dirty lust that just thinking about it now made her knees weak. Ed.
"Wow," she whispered to the empty room. And now what? How could she face him...how could she wait for the honeymoon?
Four hours later, Miranda stood behind the closed door at the back of the church, her left hand holding her bouquet, her right in the crook of her father's arm. She was shaking like a leaf. Then the doors opened and through her gauzy veil she forced herself to look at Ed. He stood tall and handsome in his dove-gray tuxedo, waiting for her with a slight, patient smile on his lips. To everyone present he no doubt looked like the perfect groom--mild, affectionate and perfectly calm.
The look in his eyes, however, burned into her, so full of love and excitement and desire that her knees actually wobbled.
Three hours after she walked down the aisle she was still shaking. Something had happened to her Ed. Or maybe to her. He never spoke to her about her midnight visitor and was outwardly the same man he'd been two days before. Lovingly solicitous, courteous and kind.
And, at least in her eyes, mouth-wateringly sexy.
He looked at her with hooded gazes that told her he remembered how her passion tasted on his tongue; how it felt to have her hungrily sucking his cock. And that he planned to enjoy those pleasures as often as possible till death parted them. That he might not have fucked her, but he was going to. Fierce and hot and hard. All night long.
It was forever until all the handshaking and kissing and crying were over and then the chauffeured ride to the hotel and finally he was carrying her over the threshold of their suite, silently leaving her to stand alone in the middle of the bedroom to stare at the bed while he went to tip the bellboy and lock the doors.
"Turn around," he said from the bedroom doorway behind her.
Moving slowly she faced him, still in her wedding gown, while he leaned against the bedroom door frame, arms crossed over his chest. She went hot at the tone of voice he'd used to gently order her around. It was the same voice she should have recognized in her bed last night, thick and rusty with desire.
"You're so beautiful," he murmured. Stripping out of his jacket and waistcoat and tie, he tossed them onto a chair. "Don't move," he told her when she began to. Moving behind her, he began unfastening the long row of buttons along her spine.
"Ed--"
"Tell me about yesterday."
"Wh--what?" she gasped. Until that moment, had she really believed it had been Ed...or was that all just her wishful thinking? And if so....oh, god! What if he knew?
"Tell me. About your day without me."
Now she was really unsure. Shakily, she told him. While his fingers slipped and tugged on the little pearl buttons at her back, she told him everything--including the details of the bachelorette party. Everything, until she'd gone to bed.
"And you slept?" Ed's voice at her ear was low. Soothing. Then his hands left her dress and he kissed her nape; the bare curve of her shoulder, and she felt anything but soothed.
Miranda gasped again, this time with pleasure. Ed tossed his shirt onto the floor beside her.
"No," she answered finally. "Well, yes, but..."
"But?"
His hands--why had she never realized how big and hard his hands were?--slipped into the deep vee of her open gown, around her bare waist, and flattened on her belly, pulling her back to his body.
"But...oh, god..." The heat of his chest against her back was incredible. His thumbs were moving slowly...oh, so painfully slowly...on her skin.
"But...something woke you?" he prompted, his voice at her ear again.
Miranda sighed, relaxing back against his chest. "Ummm...yes."
"Don't tell me my bride to be was having pre-wedding nightmares," he murmured gently.
