“I probably should have asked, but I thought you might like your father to marry us. Since he’s in the business.”
“Did my mother put you up to this?” she asked, knowing the woman could be a bit overbearing and that Eric was not a religious person. She couldn’t imagine him wanting to get married in a church, and she loved him enough to be okay with that. God would understand. He knew love, and he would never stand in its way. He didn’t care about gender or race or age or anything but the spread of his love. Rebekah had always believed that. Her father had been preaching it her entire life.
“Okay,” Eric said with a heavy sigh, “this was obviously a poor decision on my part. I’ll just turn this car around and make a speedy getaway.”
She covered his hand with hers before he could put the gears in reverse. “I would love my father to marry us in the church he adores, but I don’t want you to feel forced into doing something you aren’t comfortable with just because my mother happens to think she’s queen of the fucking universe.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head. The woman had always been a bit too righteous. Even for a minister’s wife.
Eric grinned. “She never suggested it. Like the dress, it was my idea. I called your parents’ house and when your father answered, I asked him if he’d be willing to marry us instead of giving you away. I think he was crying by the time I hung up, so if I feel any pressure at all, it’s because I don’t have it in me to break that man’s heart. But if you don’t want to get married here, I’ll drive away now and let you tell your daddy later.”
She grabbed both of Eric’s hands and clutched them to her chest over her pounding heart. “But I do want to get married here. I do. I do.”
“Hey, save all that I do stuff for the ceremony,” he teased.
She flung herself into his arms and kissed him, the gearshift digging into her thigh—not that she cared just then.
After a moment, she pulled away and examined his face. God, she loved him. How did he know what things were important to her? She’d never told him how much her daddy’s church meant to her. When they were off tour, she attended service on Sundays when she could, but Eric had never wanted to accompany her. He said church made him feel uncomfortable. So she’d gone by herself.
Eric caught a stray tear from her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “These better be happy tears, damn it,” he said.
“The happiest,” she assured him.
Eric captured her face between his hands and pressed his forehead to hers. “So you said I do and we kissed and everything, so does that mean we’re married and can start our wedding night? Because I really want to do things to you right now. Things I shouldn’t be thinking about in a church parking lot.”
Before she could answer, there was a loud thud on the hood of the car. Eric jumped up and shot out of his seat to lean over the windshield and grab someone by the shirt.
“You deliver a guy’s lucky tuxedo…” Trey said, both hands raised in surrender.
“Don’t hit my car,” Eric said through gritted teeth. He shoved Trey in the chest as he released him.
“I’ve been standing here trying to get your attention for several minutes,” Trey said. “But I see why you were distracted. Hellooooo, Rebekah Blake.”
“Sticks,” Eric corrected.
“Not yet,” Trey said with a wink directed at Rebekah. “She’s still on the market as far as I’m concerned.”
Rebekah’s face flushed with heat. She wasn’t sure what it was about Trey Mills that made him such a walking aphrodisiac. She wouldn’t trade her Eric for a hundred Treys, but she wasn’t dead. The man was sexy in a flustering sort of way. She’d always thought so. Maybe it was strange that she could still find him attractive after knowing that he’d stolen her ex-fiancé Isaac’s heart and his cherry, but damn if she could hold that against the guy.
“You already missed your chance at a threesome with Trey,” Eric whispered in her ear. “You better get over him fast.”
She slapped him in the shoulder. “If I’d really wanted to have a threesome with Trey, I would have,” she said, just as her mother arrived at her side of the car. Thankfully her mom hadn’t heard what she’d said. Her mother freaked out over sections of Rebekah’s hair being colored blue or purple—as it currently was. Rebekah couldn’t imagine how many 360s the woman’s head would do if she’d known some of the things Rebekah had done on the Sinners’ tour bus outside the sanctity of marriage. Or even outside the propriety of a legitimate relationship.
“So glad it fits you, baby girl,” her mom said, smiling brightly at her wedding dress. “See, I wasn’t always so big boned.”
“You still look fantastic, Mom.”
“I would totally do you, Mrs. B,” Trey said with an ornery grin.
Rebekah was pretty sure that if any other man had said that to her mother—perhaps even her own husband—he would end up with a few less teeth, but Trey slipped a red sucker into his sensual mouth, clicking his tongue jewelry against it, and to Rebekah’s utter astonishment, her mother blushed and flicked her gaze to the ground.
“Ah, well. Maybe twenty years ago,” she said, obviously flustered.
“I like mature women,” he said. “And younger women. And women my own age.”
“You like any woman with a pulse,” Eric said.
Rebekah was glad Trey didn’t mention that he liked men of all ages as well. She wasn’t sure how her mother would handle knowing about Trey’s lack of preference or that Isaac—the man her mother had been convinced was perfect for Rebekah—had been just as charmed by Trey Mills as every woman in the immediate vicinity.