It wasn’t hard to do with a goddess asleep in his arms.
He’d whispered her name, Georgiana, as he kissed the sensitive skin below her earlobe, and she’d hum a satisfied little sound, silencing any doubts in his mind. He’d massaged her breasts, working her sleep-warm body as his fingertips glided down her torso and always, morning after glorious morning, found her wet and ready for him.
Savoring her scent and her breathy sighs, he’d slide inside her slowly as their limbs tangled, their bodies growing desperate to thrust and rock and grind together beneath the blankets. Sweet lazy kisses intensified into heated gasps. His chest tightened remembering her nails, raking down his back as she met her release, crying out his name over and over until he couldn’t hold back any longer, his hips pistoning as he teetered on the edge, ready to—
“Mr. Marks, are you coming?” came the wedding frau’s sharp German accent.
“Am I what?” he shot back, shocked out of his predawn fantasy fucking as if a bucket of ice had been poured down his trousers.
Georgie squeezed his hand. “We’re here. You must have been meditating or something.”
Or something, sweet Jesus! Was he so discombobulated that he’d rocked a complete sex rerun in his head during the car ride?
He slipped off the blindfold. “Sorry, I was…” He glanced from the stern wedding planner to his fiancée. “Meditating, like Georgie said. It’s great for centering oneself to be at your most productive,” he managed, throwing together one hell of a bullshit word salad.
The wedding frau produced another skeptical humph as he gestured for her to exit the car ahead of them.
Georgie leaned in. “Good save, Emperor. Did I happen to make an appearance in your meditation?”
“Silly, Empress of Asshattery, you should know by now that you’re in every single one of my meditations.”
“Are you ready for the Denver wedding underground?” she asked with a naughty glint in her eyes.
“No, but I’ve decided we’ve fallen down the Alice in Wonderland Bridal rabbit hole, and there’s no turning back now.”
Georgie slid out of the limo, and he followed, shielding his eyes from the bright sun. They’d parked outside a large building in an industrial area. Too bad he’d gone total recall sex replay or else he could have concentrated on where they were going. Luckily, a weather-beaten sign next to a rusty metal door revealed their location.
The Denver Porcelain Doll Factory.
“We’re going to a doll factory?” he asked.
The frau tossed a snarky wink over her shoulder. “Mr. Marks, that’s just the cover.”
“Why a doll factory?” Georgie asked.
“You know how unnerving porcelain dolls are. Not even the most hardened criminal would try to break into a doll shop. I’m told people fear all the little eyes staring at them.”
A chill went down his spine. “Are there any dolls inside?”
“Looks like you’re about to find out,” she said, keeping her features stone-cold.
“I’m starting to have a new appreciation for the underground bridal industry. They don’t mess around,” he said to Georgie, lowering his voice as the frau knocked on the door.
He glanced from side to side. “Is that a secret knock?”
The woman frowned. “Of course not! That would be ridiculous.”
He bit back a grin and met Georgie’s gaze. With her pink cheeks and lips pressed into a hard line, she was trying not to laugh either. And a sweet sense of contentment set in. This is how they’d get through the wedding madness. Together—the two of them.
Mrs. Lieblingsschatz ushered them inside. “Everything comes through here. This is where Denver wedding trends and cutting-edge front range bridal fashions are born.”
He gasped, feeling like a CrossFit Dorothy right at the moment in the film where the little farm girl had left the black-and-white world of Kansas and emerged in the bright and glossy Oz.
Despite the building’s dank exterior, the inside shimmered—actually fucking shimmered. Crates of flowers scented the air as rack after rack of lily-white dresses lined the far wall. A cluster of older women sat at sewing machines while young men carried boxes dripping with lace and puffy stuff that went under dresses. Shit! He didn’t even know what it was called.
“Tulle,” Cornelia Lieblingsschatz remarked.
He turned to Georgie. “Did she call me a tool?”
Georgie suppressed another grin. “No, the white fabric that went by us is called tulle, T-U-L-L-E. You made a funny face when you saw it.”
“It’s like a whole different world,” he said as a guy swerved past them with a massive bin of rubber penises.
The frau waved off the dildo delivery dude. “Pay no attention. Those are very popular for bachelorette parties. Ours have super-charged batteries.”
“I bet they do,” Georgie answered wide-eyed.
The wedding frau pinned them with her gaze. “But that is not for you. You two are on the zero-fornication protocol.”
He watched as the bins of cocks disappeared. With this no sex rule, it was a damn shame he couldn’t detach his manhood and toss it into the bin to be locked away. After his dirty meditation in the limo, all he wanted to do was get Georgie naked.
The frau led them farther inside the cavernous space. “Today, we’ll pick colors, flowers, the design for the dress, the cake, and find your perfect wedding rings.”
“We can do all that here, in this place?” Georgie asked.
The wedding planner closed her eyes. “Do you feel it?”
“What?” Georgie asked.
“The magic,” the woman replied.
“Yeah, sure,” he and Georgie answered like two confused kids in calculus class.
Mrs. Lieblingsschatz walked them over to a large computer monitor and tapped the surface. A weather map donned the screen. “You’re having a fall wedding. Lucky for you, on your wedding day, it will be sunny with a high temperature of eighty-one degrees Fahrenheit. Twenty-seven Celsius. Unseasonably warm.”
“Wait a second. How do you know it’s going to be eighty-one degrees on the third Saturday in October?” he questioned.
The frau met his gaze. “My contacts at NASA, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and years of my statisticians crunching Farmers’ Almanac data to within an inch of its life,” the woman answered, tapping the screen. “With everything I know, Mother Nature herself asks me for the weather forecast.”
“That’s certainly a lot of information! What else do you know?” Georgie pressed.
The wedding frau’s smirk was back, and she walked past them. The click of her boots on the worn wooden floor echoed through the chamber as she began to speak.
“Your ceremony will take place outdoors in the Botanic Gardens at sunset, casting a golden glow and illuminating the vibrant reds, the deep shades of rose, and lush greens. You’ll have your first dance under a pavilion, strung with thousands of tiny sparkling white lights.” The woman walked up to Georgie and gently fingered a loose lock of his fiancée’s hair. “You’ll wear your hair up, Miss Jensen, with flowers from your bouquet threaded in.”
“Like a Georgian wedding,” Georgie whispered as if in a trance.