The Forgotten Bride

by Marquita Valentine

  “You feel so damn good,” he growled. “I can’t…I won’t last long.”

  Slipping a hand under her, he easily found her swollen clit and began to stroke her, just the way she wanted. He thrust into her deeper, harder, his breath harsh in her ear as he leaned over her.

  Her body, once hers, was now completely his to command.

  Pleasure sparked hard, radiating out from her clit to her entire body. She cried out his name over and over as her orgasm made her come undone. It washed over her, making her body shudder and shake, making her inner muscles clamp down hard on his cock as she came and came.

  He didn’t let up though, his fingers still stroking, still applying just the right amount of pressure to set her off again.

  “Luke,” she moaned. “I—Oh my God—I love you.”

  This time, her second orgasm didn’t just wash over her; it flattened her to the bed. He followed, pounding into her until he roared her name and the hot spurts of his orgasm filled her. He continued to move above her, continued to slide his cock in and out until every bit of his orgasm was done, and she was boneless.

  Hot, sweet kisses were pressed to her back, and as he lifted her hair from her, the nape of her neck. “I’ll be right back.”

  A few minutes later, he returned with a warm cloth and proceeded to clean her up, kissing her every so often. Turning her onto her back once more, he stared down at her with those fathomless eyes of his and said, “How do you feel?”

  “I don’t remember anything, if that’s what you’re wanting to know,” she said softly.

  “It wasn’t.” He rubbed his ear. “I’m not sure if I did the right thing. We hadn’t had sex before now.”

  Her eyes widened. “We hadn’t?”

  “Not if you don’t count the time I went down on you.”

  “Oh.” She knew how good that must have felt because she could remember that. He was extremely talented with his tongue. “Lucky woman.”

  He smiled a little. “I think you mean I’m a lucky man.”

  She sat up and hugged him. His skin was still hot while hers had cooled considerably. “I don’t care about our past at this moment. I’m lucky to have you right now.”

  He scooted down and under the covers, pulling them up and over with one hand before beginning to rub her back. “Go to sleep, sweetheart. I’m here to chase away the nightmares.”

  Her eyes heavy, she fell asleep in no time at all. This time, she didn’t dream.

  *

  Whistling while he made breakfast, Luke flipped the pancake high into the air and caught it in the pan. Last night had been amazing, but he’d woken up feeling slightly guilty. Which was why he’d gotten out of bed and immediately started cooking while he attempted to figure out what to do next.

  Obviously, Lily loved him and he loved her, but her love came from a different time, and if she could remember everything, would she still love him right now? Did the woman who had wanted to start over love him?

  He’d never know because she had never told him.

  “Hi.”

  He turned around, a smile kicking up the corners of his lips. Lily stood at the island, wearing a towel around her hair, a yellow tank top, and white pajama bottoms with flamingos on them.

  “Guess I’m not really that different.” She tugged on one pants leg “These are pretty spectacular.”

  He bit back a grin. “You look adorable.”

  “About last night,” she began and for once, he kept his mouth shut so he could listen and not assume a damn thing. “I hope you don’t think what happened was a mistake. I don’t regret it.”

  “I don’t either, but I did wake up feeling guilty.”

  “It’s the doctor in you,” she pointed out. “You care about people who are unwell.”

  “You’re not unwell,” he said, making her argument for her.

  “I know, but I wanted to hear you say it.”

  “Touché”

  “So where do we go from here?” she said and sat down on the barstool in the middle.

  “You wanted to go to work today, so I printed up your schedule—as best as I could put it together with help from Denise and Willow. It’s on the coffee table.”

  “You did all that for me?” Her head tilted to one side as she gazed at him.

  “I thought it would be helpful,” he said.

  “That’s more than helpful. That’s incredibly sweet and thoughtful.” She left the kitchen and moved to the living room, grabbing the paper.

  Flustered by her praise, he turned his attention back to the stove, taking the pan and letting the pancake slide onto a plate already filled with bacon and fruit. “Here you go—tofu bacon, fruit, and pancakes. No syrup,” he said, pivoting around to place it in front of her.

  “What?” Setting the paper down beside her on the counter, she grabbed the bacon and eyed it, her nose turning up a little. “I like tofu bacon?”

  “Yeah, you gave up meat years ago,” he said with a straight face.

  “Oh.” She took the smallest bite he’d ever seen and began to chew, her facial expression one of confusion. “This doesn’t taste any different.”

  “That’s because it’s real bacon. I was kidding.” He grabbed a glass and the container of OJ.

  “Wow. I think that was worse than telling me we’re divorced,” she said.

  He stopped in the middle of pouring her glass of orange juice. “You have me at a loss for words.”

  “It’s a joke.” She hopped off the barstool. “I need to get ready for work.”

  “What about breakfast?” he said, his heart sinking to his toes.

  “I always eat an omelet and drink green tea before class in the morning.” Her mouth dropped open. “I remembered again.”

  “That’s great.” He lifted his arm to pat her on the back, or something, but he let it fall instead.

  “Yeah, it is.” She searched his face, for what, he wasn’t sure, but apparently, she didn’t find what she was looking for. Or she wasn’t happy with the answer. “I’m going to get ready for work.”

  “I can drive you.”

  “I’ll manage.”

  “But you just got home.”

  Her jaw turned stubborn. “I said I’ll manage. If you weren’t here, I would have to do it.”

  “But I am here. I’m here for you,” he insisted.

  “So you say.” Then she strode down the hallway and shut the door to her bedroom behind her.

  Chapter Nine

  ‡

  Dialing Dance to the Beat’s number, Luke waited impatiently for someone to answer. Denise picked up the phone on the second ring.

  “Hey, this is Luke. How’s Lily doing?”

  “Beautifully. She had a little bit of a rough start but then something just clicked for her and the kids came in…then they were dancing.”

  His throat thickened a little. “That’s great. I’m really glad.”

  “Want me to tell her you called?”

  “No…actually, yes, I do. Please tell her I called to see how her day was going and to not worry about dinner. I have that covered,” he said.

  “God, she is so lucky to have you. We’re close, but not close close since I usually kick her ass three days a week at boot camp and she’s my boss, so I wasn’t sure what to do or say. Especially since she doesn’t remember me yet. So don’t worry, if she needs anything and I can’t help her, you’re the first point of contact.”

  He smiled. “I’ll make sure to leave my phone on vibrate for this number and her cell phone only while I’m at work.”

  Denise ended their call. He went back to work, taking a chart from the shelf by the patient room and opening the door. Switching to Spanish, he said, “Mr. Montoya, it says here that your stomach has been bothering you. Have you eaten something you normally wouldn’t consume?”

  *

  She was being unreasonable and she knew it. Luke had taken weeks off to sit with her at the hospital when he had no reason, or obligation, to do so. It h
ad all been done by choice, and because he cared for her.

  Only cared for her wasn’t satisfying to hear. She wanted the words.

  She sank down onto the sofa and rubbed her temples. He’d always given her the words in the past and look how that had turned out.

  This time, it seemed he was doing more than just giving her pretty phrases.

  The door opened. Luke walked inside, a cautious look on his face.

  “Hey you,” he said. “I got done early, so I picked up some fish tacos for us.”

  “Fish tacos?”

  “Trust me, you love them.”

  “This isn’t a joke, like tofu bacon, is it?” she asked, following him to the kitchen.

  He got out plates and made two glasses of tea for them, then sat down with her at the bar. “Try it. If you don’t like it, then pizza is just a phone call away.”

  She eyed the taco, muttering, “I’m surprised we can’t just text them.”

  “You can.”

  “Right.” Praying that the fish taco didn’t taste as gross as it sounded, she took a healthy bite, and was pleasantly surprised. Wait, she was more than pleasantly surprised. “Ohmygosh, I love it. So good.”

  He chuckled. “There’s more where that came from,” he said with a wink.

  “I want to take things slow, too, for sex,” she blurted, and he choked a little on his taco.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I thought about our discussion this morning, and I was wrong to walk out on it. So, I’d like to take things slow with you, too.”

  The look in his eyes was nothing like she’d ever seen. It was as if he’d never seen her before. “That’s…that’s the best news I’ve heard since you woke up.”

  “This makes you happy?” she asked, knowing the answer.

  “As long as it makes you happy.”

  Okay, so that wasn’t the answer she expected from him, but he wasn’t the same guy anymore. And she wasn’t the same girl either.

  “Would you…” She bit her bottom lip and looked away. “Would you go with me into the bathroom.”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t you want to know why?”

  His head cocked to one side. “Because you want me there so you can finally face the mirror head on.”

  It was scary, yet entirely comforting how well he knew her. Today, she barely looked at herself while she danced, something that was incredibly hard to do since that was one of the ways she gauged how well her students were following her.

  “I’ve only seen glimpses. It wasn’t too bad.”

  He touched her face, caressing her cheek. “You won’t be shocked. Unlike me, you don’t look haggard.”

  “Well, I did mistake you for the Crypt Keeper when I woke up,” she teased.

  Laughing, they walked to the hall bathroom. With a deep breath, she flipped on the light and moved to stand in front of the mirror. Luke came up behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders.

  “See, just as beautiful as ever. More beautiful even.”

  Turning her head this way and that, she gazed at her reflection. She looked the same, yet different. There was maturity about her features, her cheeks were leaner, and that baby-faced look of youth that had fled Luke’s face, had fled hers as well.

  “I like this face,” she said, her eyes meeting his in the mirror.

  “It’s a very nice face,” he agreed. “It reflects your heart.”

  Chapter Ten

  ‡

  Over the next couple of weeks, they spent as much time together as their schedules would allow. Even though Lily knew they weren’t married, it was as if they were—except it was the marriage of her dreams. Well, if the marriage of her dreams was sex free.

  But still, Luke was attentive, sweet, considerate, and tried everything he could to get her to remember the past, even going so far as to fly her to New York City so she could check out their old apartment building and favorite haunts, along with a Broadway show.

  She had drawn the line at meeting old cast mates since Luke said she had dated a couple of them.

  As long as she was as healthy as the doctors and nurses had assured her—something they had no reason to lie about with all the blood work and tests that had been run—she didn’t want to know anything about the men she’d slept with in the past ten years. They didn’t matter to her, not like Luke did.

  He was perfect.

  Although, she had to admit they didn’t always get along. Occasionally, she would get so frustrated with meeting someone she should know or technology she should already be able to use that she would literally have to excuse herself to go cry and Luke would trail after her, offering his shoulder, words of comfort…whatever she needed while she attempted to push him away.

  He didn’t get angry with her like he used to and in return, she didn’t respond to him the same way either when his temper would flare. He was human after all.

  Perfectly human, just like she needed him to be.

  But it was like a switch had been permanently turned off for them in that department. Screaming and calling him names wasn’t her first response, though she might have been silently cussing him up one side and down the other.

  All in all, her transition into a world a decade older than she remembered was easier than Dr. Jeon had warned, and she knew that was due in large part to Luke.

  Her phone made a noise as a notification popped up. “Uh…some guy is poking me on Facebook. What should I do?”

  “Hit ignore or poke him back,” Luke said from the living room.

  She sat at the bar in the kitchen, trying to figure out how to work in Microsoft Word on her MacBook Air. She needed to make a recital playlist and schedule for her students before it was too late in the year.

  “I don’t want to poke him back. I don’t even know what it means,” she said, still staring at the screen.

  “It can mean anything from ‘hi’ to ‘want to suck face’?”

  “What happened to people calling or paging each other?” She blew out a breath. “Facebook is so strange, and this one guy posts a new selfie each day. I don’t get why he does it.”

  “Because that’s what people do. You should get on Instagram if you really want to see selfies.”

  “Yeah, I’m going to go check out Myspace and play some Barenaked Ladies while I’m at it.”

  “Zuckerberg won’t be happy,” Luke teased, coming up behind her. “Even Tom’s on Facebook now.”

  “Myspace Tom has a Facebook account?” She shook her head in disbelief. “What is this world coming to? Next thing you’ll tell me is that Napster’s been bought by Metallica, or something legitimate.”

  “Best Buy bought it,” he said.

  “The world sucks.”

  “You have other options.” He kissed the back of her neck. “So many options, baby.”

  She shivered and spun around on the barstool. “Why don’t you show me?”

  He stepped away from her. “Baby, I can’t. When you first came home, I know that you needed that closeness from me, and I was perfectly happy to give it to you. Actually, I was more than happy. Happy is a ridiculously inaccurate description. But now…we’re taking things slow, like we should, and…”

  She tried not to let the hurt show on her face. “I don’t understand. Shouldn’t intimacy be a natural progression of working things out?”

  “We are physically intimate.”

  “You barely kiss me!” Though the kisses he did give her made her head spin and her pulse race. They made her nipples hard and she was always aching afterwards, always feeling empty.

  “We are, but… damn it. I have no idea what I’m trying to say other than I don’t want to hurt you.” He shook his head. “You don’t understand how tempting it was for me to lie to you, to pretend that everything between us was fine. I could have.”

  “Until I remembered otherwise,” she pointed out.

  “See, that’s what you don’t understand. Until I spoke with your doctor, I was seriously co
nsidering taking that chance. That’s how selfish I am. That’s how wrong I am.”

  “Then I’m wrong right along with you.” She bit her bottom lip, something he hadn’t seen her do in years. “Let’s make us work. It should be really easy on my part. I already think you hung the moon.”

  “Even though we’re divorced.”

  She nodded. “It doesn’t seem real to me. At all.” Wrapping her arms around him, she looked up. “But you’re here. You’re real. And you want me…you say that you care for me.”

  “I do.” I love you. Luke couldn’t bring himself to say the words. What if she remembered all the bad stuff and rejected him?

  But hadn’t she told him how she felt knowing he’d most likely reject her? He was such a coward.

  All she wanted from him was what they used to have, and while he couldn’t give her exactly that, he could love her, he could be there for her, and let nature run its course… with some guidance from him.

  Forever was the only time frame that was acceptable to him.

  He groaned her name, lifting her from the stool and onto the counter top, then changed his mind and picked her up once more.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, breathless excitement coating her words.

  “To the bedroom.”

  “The counter was good for me,” she said.

  “Too high to fuck you properly.”

  She blinked up at him as he lightly kicked open the bedroom door. “Wow. Okay.”

  “Too much?” he asked, laying her in the middle of the bed.

  She shook her head, her auburn hair fanning out around it like a starburst. “Just different.”

  “Good different?” he asked, divesting her of her guitar-themed pajama bottoms. “Have I told you how sexy I find these?”

  “No.”

  “Well, they are. They look so damn hot on the floor.” He leaned down to kiss her, and she laughed against his lips. He reveled in the sound. “Know what’s even hotter?”