Wedding Favors by Sheri Whitefeather

script, and slid it into his locker. One day she’d caught him wearing it, and that day he’d finally asked her out.
    The date had been a complete disaster, but she’d spent one golden week in giddy anticipation.
    They’d lost touch after Madison moved in with her grandmother in New Orleans before her senior year, after she lost her parents in a car accident. She’d seen Thomas from time to time over the years as he’d changed from cute teenager to a hot, tasty man, but they’d never reconnected. These days, whenever Madison had a sex fantasy or an erotic dream, Thomas Dupree was its star. She imagined him pouring champagne into tall glasses while slowly removing his tie, or he’d pick her up in a red-hot sports car and drive her somewhere they could be absolutely alone, or he’d take her out in a limo and make slow, sweet love to her in the backseat.
    Seeing him in person today made her nipples perk and her peach satin panties grow damp. Thomas in the flesh was tall and broad-shouldered, with a dangerous air of take-no-shit she’d always liked. Would real-life sex with him be slow and sensual as in her dreams, or wild and wicked and no-holds-barred?
    Madison had heard a few unnerving whispers about Thomas. How he and his brother had begun a courier business, but Thomas seemed to leave town a lot, returning looking like he’d been living in the wild for weeks. No one knew exactly where he went, and his brother wasn’t saying. Thomas might only be taking extended fishing trips, but looking at him, Madison didn’t think so. No one who made the air crackle like that was sitting in a swamp fishing.
    Madison realized with another frisson of pleasure that Thomas was assessing her, even if he didn’t do anything so crude as run his gaze down her body while they were standing in a church with a priest between them. Still, he looked as though he knew every thought going on behind her eyes and every wicked fantasy she’d ever had about him. And knew he could make them come true.
    If only.
    The ceremony was long because they had a sermon and Communion, the whole works. But at last the recessional played and it was time to hurry down the aisle to photos, champagne, and a catered dinner in the beautiful old hotel down the street.
    “Maddie.” Thomas Dupree extended his arm. A nice arm, thick with muscle under his coat.
    Madison put her fingers through the crook of his elbow, trying not to shiver at the raw strength of him. He moved with a quiet confidence and even more animal-like grace than when she’d known him nine long years ago.
    “Haven’t seen you in a while,” Thomas was saying. “What you been up to, cher?”
    His bayou accent wrapped its warmth around her; his voice had grown deeper and fuller.
    “You know. Life.” Trying to keep everything from being ripped out from under me, trying to put off frightening decisions.
    “Yeah, I know.” Thomas’s smile fanned the spark that his cher had ignited. Heat curled down her spine to park between her buttocks.
    They’d almost reached the door. The guests surged around them, pushing their way to the bride and groom, who stood on the steps. Thomas leaned to Madison, dark head bent.
    “Maddie, I need to talk to you. Can we meet up later?”
    The heat inside became a river of fire. She was acutely aware of his fingers on her arm, the way his head tilted, the way his dark eyes held hers as he waited for her answer. Madison caught his scent, warm, masculine, coupled with whatever musky cologne he’d dabbed on.
    “Sure, if you want.” Lord, she sounded so nonchalant. As though men as blatantly sexual as Thomas asked to speak with her all the time. As though her knees weren’t bending, ready to let her slide her face down that tight, gorgeous tux to the nice bump between his legs.
    “I need to ask you a couple of questions about your grandmother’s house,” Thomas said.
    Madison’s warmth died to ice.
    The house. Of course. Everyone wanted to talk about the