Best Man, Best Man

MM Contemporary Romance
by Jace Wilder

Free with Kindle Unlimited

Pairing: MM
Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Inferno
Tropes: Forced Proximity, One Bed, Bi Awakening, Praise Kink, Caretaker Dom, Found Family, Closeted/Coming Out

Two best men. One room. One bed. One week that changes everything.

Ryan Carter is the anxious golden boy who’s spent his whole life being reliable, straight, and fine. He’s best man to the groom, armed with twelve drafts of a speech, a color-coded logistics plan, and a compulsive need to make everything perfect for everyone except himself.

Luca Moreno is the charming, out photographer who’s best man to the other groom — his older brother. He’s shot two hundred weddings, handled every disaster, and learned the hard way that being everyone’s favorite temporary thing means nobody stays.

When a hotel booking error forces them to share a suite with one king bed at a week-long destination wedding in Puerto Rico, the proximity becomes a pressure cooker. Ryan’s walls start cracking under Luca’s calm, praise-heavy attention — and the truth he’s been hiding since college comes flooding out.

But wanting a man is one thing. Wanting him in front of your mother, your best friend, two hundred wedding guests, and the version of yourself you’ve been performing for twenty-eight years? That’s the kind of brave Ryan doesn’t know if he has.

You’ll love this book if you enjoy:

✅ Forced proximity with one bed and zero chill
✅ Bi awakening with a praise kink through-line that readers will dog-ear
✅ “I’ll worship you while you calm down from this panic attack” energy
✅ A caretaker dom who says “good boy” like a weapon of mass destruction
✅ Destination wedding chaos with two loud families
✅ Scorching heat that serves the emotional arc (🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ — graphic, explicit, emotional)
✅ HEA guaranteed

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⚠️ Content Warning: This novel contains explicit sexual content (graphic MM scenes including praise kink, D/s dynamics, and penetrative sex), strong language, depictions of anxiety and panic attacks, family conflict around sexuality, and a bi awakening narrative. Intended for readers 18+.

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Chapter One

Draft eleven of the best man speech was not going well.

I stared at the index cards spread across the tray table like the world’s most anxiety-inducing game of solitaire. The woman in 14B had already glanced over twice, probably wondering if I was planning a murder or losing my mind. Both felt equally likely at this point.

Jake, from the moment I met you in Mrs. Peterson’s first grade class—

No. Too sentimental. He’d roast me for a month.

Jake, you’re the brother I never had—

Wrong. I had a sister. And Jake knew my actual brother situation, which was more of a “dad walked out and left a void” situation, and I was not going to cry at this wedding. Not during the speech. The bathroom later, maybe. The speech, no.

Jake, what can I say about a man who—

“Sir? Can I get you anything?”

The flight attendant smiled at me with the patient expression of someone who’d seen a lot of nervous flyers. I probably looked like one—cards everywhere, pen cap chewed to destruction, knee bouncing hard enough to register on a seismograph.

“I’m fine,” I said. The two words I’d been saying my entire life. My personal motto. Put it on my headstone: Here lies Ryan Carter. He was fine.

“Water would be great, actually.”

She brought the water. I drank it. I went back to the cards.

The problem wasn’t that I didn’t know what to say about Jake. The problem was that I knew too much. Twenty-two years of friendship compressed into a three-minute speech at a destination wedding in Puerto Rico, in front of two hundred people, half of whom were Diego’s large and passionate Puerto Rican family who I’d met a grand total of twice.

No pressure.

My phone buzzed in the seat pocket.

Jake: Landed an hour ago. It’s gorgeous here. Diego cried when he saw the venue. Don’t tell him I told you that.

Jake: Also your mom is already here and reorganizing the seating chart. I told her not to but she brought color-coded sticky notes so I think we’ve lost that battle.

Jake: How’s the speech coming?

I typed back: Great. Totally nailed it. Very confident.

Then I looked at the index cards, gathered them into a pile, and shoved them into the pocket of my carry-on with the grim determination of a man burying evidence.

I’d figure it out. I always figured it out. That was my entire deal—Ryan figures it out, Ryan handles it, Ryan is reliable and steady and doesn’t cause problems. The anti-drama human. The golden retriever of the friend group, except golden retrievers probably had fewer panic attacks about public speaking.

The plane banked, and through the window, Puerto Rico appeared—green hills tumbling down to a coastline so blue it looked Photoshopped. Somewhere down there was a boutique resort called Miramar Cove, and inside that resort were the two people I loved most in the world (minus my mom and Megan), about to promise each other forever in front of everyone they knew.

Jake was getting married.

My best friend since we were six years old—the kid who shared his lunch when I forgot mine, who sat on my bedroom floor the night my dad left and said I’ll be your family too—was marrying the love of his life. And I was going to stand next to him and say something worthy of twenty-two years of brotherhood, and I was going to do it without crying, and it was going to be perfect.

I closed my eyes and took a breath. The knot in my chest, the one that had been there since Courtney and I broke up eight months ago, tightened and then released by a fraction.

I don’t think you’ve ever actually wanted me, Ryan. I think you just wanted to want me.

I opened my eyes. Stared at the tray table.

Fine. I was fine.

Miramar Cove was the kind of place that made you feel underdressed just walking through the lobby. Open-air architecture, terra-cotta tiles, ceiling fans turning lazy circles above clusters of rattan furniture. The air smelled like frangipani and salt, and through the back wall—which was really just an elegant absence of wall—I could see the pool, the palm trees, and a stretch of ocean so turquoise it was almost offensive.

I stood at the entrance with my suitcase and garment bag, slightly sweaty, very rumpled from four hours on a plane, and immediately aware that every other person in the lobby looked like they belonged in a resort wear catalog.

“Ryan!”

My mom materialized from somewhere near the front desk, arms open, wearing a floral sundress and the expression of a woman who had already solved three problems and was looking for a fourth.

“Thank God you’re here.” She pulled me into a hug that smelled like her usual perfume and sunscreen. “I need you to handle something.”

“Hi, Mom. Good to see you too. Flight was great, thanks for asking.”

“The seating chart.” She was already talking over me, steering me toward the desk with one hand on my elbow. “Aunt Patty and Uncle Gene cannot sit together.”

“I’ll handle it.”

“And Megan’s already at the pool. I told her to wait for you but she said, and I quote, ‘Ryan doesn’t need a welcoming committee, he needs a Xanax.’”

“She’s not wrong.”

Mom squeezed my arm. “I’m glad you’re here, sweetheart. Jake’s been asking about you all morning.”

She gave me a look that said I don’t know the meaning of that word and disappeared back toward the pool terrace.

The check-in line was short. I approached the desk, gave my name, and watched the woman behind the counter type with manicured precision.

“Carter, Ryan. Suite fourteen, second floor. You’re here for the Weston-Moreno wedding?”

“That’s me.”

“Wonderful. Your room is ready. You’ll be sharing with—” She paused. Clicked something. Frowned. “—a Mr. Moreno. Luca Moreno.”

I blinked. “I’m sorry, sharing?”

“It’s a beautiful suite. King bed, ocean view, balcony—”

“King bed. Singular.”

I opened my mouth to launch into problem-solving mode when something collided with my left side.

Something wet.

I looked down. My white henley shirt was now soaked with what appeared to be an entire mojito. Ice cubes slid down my chest and landed on the tile with a series of pathetic little clinks.

“Shit. That was entirely my fault.”

I looked up.

The man standing in front of me was holding one surviving drink—some kind of rum punch, by the color—and wearing an expression of cheerful guilt that suggested he was not especially sorry. He was maybe five-ten, lean, with dark curly hair that was longer on top. Brown skin, laugh lines around dark eyes, a gold chain at his throat catching the lobby light. His left arm was covered in a tattoo sleeve—flowers, something tropical, what looked like a compass rose near his wrist. He was wearing a linen shirt that was unbuttoned one button further than any reasonable person would choose, and he smelled like coconut and sandalwood and the mojito he’d just baptized me with.

He held out the surviving drink. “You look like you need this more than I do.”

I stared at him. Mojito dripping down my stomach.

“I have ice in my belly button,” I said, which was not the suave response I’d been going for.

He grinned. The grin was—there was no other word for it—devastating.

“That’s a new one. I’ve spilled drinks on a lot of people, but the belly button detail is a first.” He grabbed a stack of cocktail napkins from the bar station. “Luca. Luca Moreno. Diego’s brother.”

“Ryan Carter.” I pressed napkins against my chest. “Jake’s best friend.”

“Ah.” Something lit up in his face. “The other best man. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Jake says you’re the most dependable person he’s ever met and that you’ve been stress-editing your speech for three weeks.”

“He’s a liar. It’s been four weeks.”

Luca laughed—an easy, open sound that belonged on this terrace, in this sunlight, at this resort—and extended his hand. I shook it. His grip was warm and firm.

“The problem is that we’re apparently sharing a room.”

He shrugged. “I don’t kick in my sleep and I’m told I smell great. We’ll survive.”

“Ryan.” He said my name like he already knew me. “It’s a sold-out resort during peak season. Nobody’s swapping. The bed is huge. We’re adults.”

He picked up his rum punch, took a sip, and added: “Besides, I already unpacked.”

He walked toward the elevator. I stood there, wet shirt clinging to my chest, holding a fistful of damp cocktail napkins, watching him go.

The woman at the front desk cleared her throat gently. “Here’s your key, Mr. Carter.”

I took it.

Suite fourteen was, objectively, beautiful. The bed was enormous. The balcony doors were open to the ocean. And the bathroom was a glass box with ambitions and approximately zero visual barriers.

“There’s no door.”

“There’s a curtain. Somewhere. I think they consider it decorative.”

Within thirty seconds, I’d constructed a textile barrier down the middle of the mattress that could’ve repelled a small invasion.

Luca watched me build the pillow wall with the focused attention of a nature documentary narrator observing an unusual animal behavior.

“That’s thorough,” he said.

“I’m a thorough person.”

He pulled his shirt over his head—just like that, no warning—and grabbed a tank top from his bag. His body was lean and defined, the tattoo sleeve extending slightly onto his shoulder.

I looked away. Looked at the balcony. Looked at the ocean. Looked at literally anything that wasn’t the man I’d be sleeping three feet from for the next six nights.

“Hey, Ryan? You might want to change first. You look like a mojito attacked you.”

He grinned again. The devastating one. “Welcome to wedding week.”

By nine p.m., I was running on fumes when I finally made it back to suite fourteen. Darkness. The sound of the ocean. The ceiling fan. His breathing.

I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, every nerve in my body tuned to the presence of another person in this bed. I could feel the heat of him through the pillow wall. Could smell coconut and sandalwood and something underneath that was just him.

He’s objectively attractive. Anyone would notice that. It doesn’t mean anything.

From the other side of the pillow wall, Luca’s voice, quiet: “You can relax. I promise I won’t steal the covers.”

I exhaled. A real exhale, from somewhere deeper than my lungs. My shoulders dropped a full inch. My jaw unclenched.

“Goodnight, Ryan.”

“Goodnight.”

On the other side of the pillow wall, Luca’s breathing slowed into the easy rhythm of sleep. I listened to it like a frequency I’d been searching for without knowing it, and eventually, somewhere between one wave and the next, I fell asleep too.

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Suite Fourteen — A scene TOO HOT for Amazon

Six months after the proposal, Ryan surprises Luca with a return trip to the room where it all started. The glass shower finally gets what it deserves. The “good boy” reversal that breaks them both. And a napkin on the nightstand that says everything.

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