That's Amore! - Janelle Denison [47]
And judging by the hardness pressing against her belly, she had a pretty good idea that he felt the same.
"Wish for another slow song," he muttered.
"Why?" she asked innocently.
"Because we're going to look awfully awkward dancing slow to a fast one."
CHAPTER SIX
Day six…
THE DAY BEFORE HER WEDDING.
Efi automatically jerked upright in bed, only to realize there really wasn't anywhere she needed to be. At least not at 8:00 a.m. So she nudged her sister Diana's elbow over and away from her ribs and rested her head back down on the pillow, watching the sun dapple the walls of her room through the branches of the big oak outside her window.
In just over twenty-four hours she would be Mrs. Nick Constantinos. She twisted her lips, not sure she liked the sound of that. Okay, how about Efi Constantinos? She settled more comfortably against the mattress. Yes. That sounded much better.
She couldn't remember a time when her name and the length of it hadn't caused her problems. Filling out any sort of form was a chore because inevitably there weren't enough spaces to fit Panayotopoulou. On her bridal magazine subscription they had cut her name so she was Efi Panayotopo.
Not that Constantinos was that much shorter. But it was connected to Nick. And that alone was enough to make her feel all warm and mushy inside. Not to mention sexy. Merely imagining waking up to Nick curved against her backside or with her cheek smushed against his hard chest made her shiver all over. Never again would they have to worry about relatives lurking on the other side of the door or tracking them down to make sure they weren't doing anything they shouldn't be doing. They would be married and a healthy sex life would be expected … along with lots of little grandchildren named after their grandparents.
Okay, she'd traveled a little far down that particular imaginary road. Right now all she wanted to think about were periods of unbroken, hot monkey sex between her and her husband on that white bed decorated with rose petals and sugared almonds.
She blinked, bringing into focus the opposite side of her room. Wedding gifts had been arriving throughout the week from relatives abroad and closer who couldn't make the wedding. Her mother had initially begun stacking them in the dining room. Until she'd caught one of her aunts skillfully trying to re-wrap a gift she'd opened to see what was in it. In fact, Penelope was convinced that a gift or two might even be missing, along with a crystal ashtray, a figurine of the Greek goddess Athena and an oven mitt her mother was sure Aunt Frosini might have burned in some sort of strange old village ritual. So the gifts had been moved to Efi's bedroom, along with the rest of the boubounieras, a great number of the bridesmaid dresses, and umpteen other items connected to the wedding, making her room look like a bridal shop. She glanced at Diana sleeping next to her and Eleni and Jenny sleeping together on the floor near the gifts. Well, almost like a bridal shop, anyway.
The smell of freshly brewed coffee reached her nose and she followed it like a woman in a trance, slipping from the bed, putting her feet into her slippers and grabbing her robe, never breaking her leisurely stride. She wrapped her fingers around the door handle.
"Are you sure you're ready for this?"
She looked over shoulder at where Diana peeked at her from barely open eyelids.
"I was born ready for this," she said.
She swung open the door to find nearly every one of her female relatives on the other side, her mother leading the way with a makeshift tambourine by way of a metal pie plate and they launched into an old Greek wedding song that could be translated as "Tomorrow we're going to the chapel and we're going to get married…"
Efi broke out into a grin, glanced at where Diana groaned and pulled her pillow over her face, then led the way down to the kitchen, the group dancing and singing and banging on metal pans behind her.