B my Forever: Wedding Novella (Sticks & Hearts)

by Rhonda James

  Scotty chuckles before turning to Brantley. “Engaged all of five hours, and she’s already breaking out the ‘Momisms.’ Better watch it, Cage, or a year from now, you’ll be the one back there in the delivery room.”

  Brantley threads his fingers through mine before dropping a kiss on the back of my hand. “I don’t know. I probably wouldn’t object to that.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I rear back to get a good look at him. “Are you, like, half asleep or something? Babe, we’ve already discussed this. No babies for the first four years. Remember? We want to enjoy being newlyweds. Vacations alone.” I lean closer to whisper in his ear. “Sex anytime and anywhere. Any of this ringing a bell? If you need a baby fix, you can just go spend an afternoon at Derek and Laney’s. Hell, I’m sure they would love having you babysit for them.”

  “I’d make a great babysitter,” Brantley says with a big smile.

  I chuckle at his enthusiasm. “I totally agree.”

  “Shit, I’ll babysit anytime they want. I’m just ready to meet this baby,” Scotty quips.

  “Aww. That’s so sweet that you’re both excited. I can’t wait to see the two of you with a little baby,” I answer dreamily, already picturing how a small baby will look nestled in Brantley’s strong arms. I may not be ready for babies just yet, but I have a feeling the sight of him holding one will be a definite turn-on.

  “I just want to find out if it’s a boy or girl. I bet Cage a Benjamin it’s gonna be a boy.”

  “No way, bro’. It’s definitely a little girl,” Brantley yawns.

  I playfully slug him in the bicep. “You two are terrible! You shouldn’t be making bets on a defenseless little baby. Tell me, what do either of you plan to do with the money if you win?” I purse my lips and look back and forth between the two of them.

  “I don’t know,” Scotty shrugs, “probably open a savings account for him. Never too early to start saving,” he says, sounding very much like our father.

  “Well?” I turn to my fiancé. Whoa. I just realized how much I love the way that sounds. “If you win, are you planning on doing the noble thing and opening a savings account on the baby’s behalf?”

  “Nope.” He sits up straight and stretches his back until it cracks a few times; I wince at the offensive sound. “When I win, I’m buying the kid one of those cool rocking horse thingies. Do you remember those? They make noise and everything! Man, I remember trying to knock Chris off so I could have a turn. Mom would get pissed and tell me I was too old to ride it.” He stares off distantly as if replaying the memory in his mind.

  “Um, B.” I giggle and reach again for his hand. “You do know the baby won’t be able to ride something like that for at least a year. Right?”

  “Doesn’t matter. I still want to be the one to buy it for her. That way, I’ll always be her favorite uncle.” He lowers his left lid in a jaunty wink.

  “I swear this baby is going to have the four of you wrapped around her little finger. I can picture it now. Growing up, she’s going to have four superheroes always at the ready to come to her rescue.” A smile fills my face as I look ahead and envision the guys dressed in their respective superhero costumes for her birthday parties.

  “What is it with you and this superhero fixation?” Scotty frowns, and about that time, Skylar sits up and rubs the sleep from her eyes.

  “I rather like Cassie’s superhero fixation. After all, it’s because of her that you showed up in Atlanta dressed as Captain America.” Skylar runs a hand over Scotty’s chest before resting her head on his shoulder. “You know I have a mad crush on him.”

  “No. Do you?” He feigns surprise. “What about me? Still have a mad crush on me?” He pulls her onto his lap and her arms go around his neck.

  “Most assuredly,” she giggles between a rain of kisses.

  Brantley curls an arm around my shoulder and pulls me in for a soft kiss. “I love it when Cassie calls me her Superman. In fact, it kind of turns me on.”

  “Is that so?” I tease my lips over the smoothness of his cheek as I make my way to whisper in his ear. “Well, then, Superman, why don’t you tell me more about what it does for you?”

  “I can do that, but not here. It’s too naughty.” He captures my mouth with his then proceeds to give me a kiss that leaves my head spinning. “But later, when we’re all alone, I’ll not only tell you what it does to me, I’ll take my time showing you.”

  The door to the waiting room suddenly bursts open, and a very enthusiastic Davis comes barreling into the room grinning from ear to ear.

  “It’s a girl!”

  “She really is beautiful,” I gush as I stare down at the infant cradled in my arms. I’m holding her close, just the way Davis demonstrated for all of us. Not once, but four times, before he finally agreed to part with her. Yeah, this baby girl already has her daddy wrapped around her tiny little finger. “So, have you decided on a name?”

  Davis, who’s sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, gazes down upon his tired wife, and they share a smile.

  “We’ve decided to name her Hope, because that is what she represents to me. Derek and this tiny baby, they’ve both given me hope at a time when I thought there wasn’t any left,” a teary-eyed Laney informs us.

  “Well, I think it’s a perfect name for her,” Brantley says enthusiastically as he carefully reaches over to take her from me. He holds her close, supporting her little head in the crook of his arm while gently rocking her from side to side. “Hello, Hope. I’m your Uncle B, and from this point forward, we are going to have so much fun together. I’m going to be your favorite uncle. What do you think about that, Hope?” At this point, Hope’s eyes flutter open and she seems to be staring straight into Brantley’s eyes; neither looks away for a few seconds.

  I don’t care how adamant I am about waiting to have kids; watching the man of my dreams with a precious little baby is enough to make me weak in the knees.

  Hell, who am I kidding? It makes me weak in other areas as well.

  CHAPTER THREE

  CASSIE

  We were both quiet on the drive home from the hospital. I think we’re a bit overwhelmed by everything that’s happened today, but I also blame it on how long the day has been. It’s a good thing neither of us have obligations first thing in the morning, because right now, it’s four a.m. and the idea of spending the next eight hours in bed with my fiancé sounds pretty damn appealing.

  “Exciting day.” Brantley yawns as he reaches for me.

  “Very exciting,” I agree before he drops a kiss on my lips. “I think I’m going to take a shower before crawling into bed. I feel a need to wash away the hospital germs.” I wrinkle my nose and shiver as if to further express my disgust.

  “Don’t be too long. I want to fall asleep holding my future wife.” He lowers his mouth to mine.

  “I promise to be quick.” I giggle and scurry toward the bathroom.

  Before turning on the water, I power up my favorite romantic playlist and get undressed. I’ve barely finished washing my hair when I hear him enter the room. Seconds later, he comes up behind me in the shower and two strong arms wrap around my middle.

  His lips connect with my skin, and I angle my head, making it easier for him to kiss his way up my neck, which drives me absolutely crazy with lust. Despite the temperature of the water raining down on both of us, his kisses generate shivers that go straight through me.

  “You okay?” I ask when he nuzzles behind my ear then remains unmoving.

  “Yeah. I just missed you.” His hands brush over each breast and he breathes out a long contented sigh.

  I smile dreamily, soaking in the attention I’ve been craving. “I’ve only been away five minutes.”

  “That’s four minutes and fifty-nine seconds too long,” he growls hoarsely before tracing the tips of his fingers over my skin.

  “Mmm. That feels nice.”

  For the longest time he says nothing, at least not with words. Instead, he allo
ws his body to do the talking by rolling his hips inward until I feel his arousal pressing against the cleft of my ass. His hands tease over my skin. Hips. Thighs. My breasts. His touch is quick, fleeting even, while his lips continue to press and suck my tender flesh, bruising me in their wake.

  “I love you,” he murmurs ever so softly into my ear, and the sentiment laced beneath those three little words is so sweet and tender it rocks me to my core. I know Brantley loves me. In fact, I’m pretty sure I knew long before he did. But every now and then, those words have a way of hanging in the air between us and it’s as if he’s falling in love with me all over again.

  I’ll admit it’s a pretty heady feeling knowing someone like Brantley is so deeply in love with you. I hope it will always be this way between us.

  “I love you, too.” I profess between tentative kisses. “I love you so much I agreed to marry you.” I reach behind me and circle my arms around his neck.

  “Mmm. And I’m a luckier man for it. I’m just sorry it took me so long to finally say the words. I just wanted everything to be perfect. You deserve perfection. You’re so perfect,” he growls, dipping his hand lower until his fingers part my flesh and his name is a low moan falling past my lips.

  “Fuck. It feels like ages since I last kissed you.” His lips brush tenderly against mine. “Touched you.” The pads of his fingers tease my most sensitive places, and my legs part to grant him easier access. “Claimed you.” I gasp when he plunges not one but two fingers deep inside. He pumps in and out a few times, spreading my arousal through my folds before circling his thumb over my clit. My hand falls between us to cover his, holding him steady as I writhe against him, desperately seeking the release I’ve been craving since the moment he dropped to one knee and slipped that ring on my finger.

  “Ohhh. Oh, God,” I moan deeply. “B. That feels so good.” I rock faster. Needing him. Needing this release almost as much as I need my next breath. “Don’t stop. Please, don’t you dare stop.”

  He pumps faster as he nibbles on my ear. “Never. I need to feel you quivering when you let yourself go.” The pressure on my clit increases as his thumb works the tender flesh into a mind-numbing frenzy. I come with a shout, and B catches me when my legs buckle. “Christ, you are perfect,” he whispers against my trembling lips. “How’d I ever get so lucky?”

  I turn my body flush with his and cup both cheeks in my hands. “I think we both got lucky. Promise you’ll never get enough me. That you’ll always need me,” I plead as his tongue slips between my parted lips.

  “I promise I will never get enough of you,” he answers without missing a beat. The kiss intensifies, and now we’re both moaning as he lifts me off the ground. Both hands grip his broad shoulders, and I hear something fall to the floor when my legs lock behind his waist, but whatever it is can wait. I need this man and I need him right now. I drop my hips to line up with the blunt head of his cock and hold my breath, waiting for him to slip inside, but what happens next isn’t exactly what either of us is expecting.

  “Cassie, baby—oh, shit!” B loses his footing, and we both start to tumble backwards. While his strong arms flail to get a grip on something, anything, my legs slide down his thighs and my grip around his neck tightens to the point of near strangulation. The shower curtain breaks free, and he tucks his athletically toned body to absorb the brunt of our fall, and then lets out a string of curse words when his back connects with the hard tile.

  We lie in stunned silence as water bounces off the torn shower curtain, pooling the surrounding floor and saturating the decorative rug in front of the toilet.

  “You okay?” he asks, his voice filled with concern as his hands pat down my limbs.

  I do a quick mental inventory of my body parts. All seem to still be in working order. “Yeah, I think so. What about you? Did you hurt your back when we landed?” My lips threaten to break into a smile in spite of any concern I may have for his well-being. I look around us, taking in the soaked tile and fountain of water that continues to spray us despite the fact we are no longer in the shower, and soon the laughter bubbles over and I fall back against the wet tiles and howl with laughter. Pretty soon, we’re both laughing uncontrollably.

  “What the hell happened?” I ask, wiping the tears from my eyes.

  “Not sure. I think I may have slipped on a bar of soap or something.” We both sit up and peer into the stall. Sure enough, there’s a bar of white soap lying innocently on the floor. That must have been what my foot brushed up against. He rolls to his knees and stands before taking me by the hands and pulling me to my feet. “That’s not exactly the way I saw that moment playing out.” He turns to take stock of the surrounding mess on the floor then picks me up and deposits my naked behind on the bathroom counter. “You stay right here while I clean up this mess.”

  “But—“ I try to protest.

  “Shh,” he silences me with a finger over my lips. “No arguments. I’ve got this.” He shuts the water off before grabbing a stack of towels from the closet, pausing only to wrap one around my shoulders before tossing the others on the floor.

  I run the towel over my hair while simultaneously watching him sop up the mess. By the time he’s done, he’s soaked five towels, but the floor is dry and sparkling clean. He fingers the shredded shower curtain and his lip curls into a smirk.

  “I think it’s safe to say that one is trashed.” I giggle as he swaggers toward me, still naked, and I find myself incredibly turned on by watching him perform household chores. Between the cleaning and the memory of him holding baby Hope, my ovaries are threatening to burst into a million fragments. I lower my voice an octave and trace a finger suggestively over my bottom lip. “I’ll pick up a new one later today.” That last word falls short on my lips when B spreads my legs open and fills the empty space with his wet body. “Want me to finish drying you off?”

  He shakes his head as he reaches up to trace a thumb over both my nipples. A lump of desire lodges itself in the back of my throat, and my breathing becomes more and more ragged with each pass of his calloused pads.

  “What do you want to do? You want to go to the bedroom?” I murmur through my building desire.

  “Nope.”

  “Living room?” I suggest between petal-soft kisses.

  He lowers his stance to line up with my opening and then locks eyes with mine before going any further. “Right here feels pretty fucking perfect to me. This okay with you?” he asks huskily as the tip of his cock teases my wanton flesh. I reach between us and run my hand down the entire length of him, loving the feel of his smooth, taut skin. A low moan vibrates in the back of his throat when I circle my fingers around the base and guide him inside. He surges forward and bottoms out with one powerful thrust of his hips, causing my head to fall back against the mirror.

  “Fuuuuck,” Brantley exhales long and low, never once breaking his rhythm. The sound of our bodies moving together is one of the sexiest sounds I’ve ever heard until I hear the next words falling past his luscious lips. “God, you have no idea what you do to me. How you make me feel. I fucking love you. I want to make love to you every single day for the rest of our lives. You okay with that?” he asks before his head falls forward, lips closing around my breast. I murmur in agreement as I bury my fingers in his thick mane of hair, keeping him right where he is.

  Every thrust of his hips knocks my head against the mirror in a staccato rhythm, and Jason Derulo serenades us softly in the background, while Brantley uses his body to show me how deeply he loves me. I draw my legs up on either side of me, bracing my heels on the edge of the counter for leverage, and soon I’m rocking my hips in time with his, and between our labored breaths and the sound of skin slapping against skin, the room is filled with the scent and sounds of raw, heated sex.

  The intensity inside me mounts as my orgasm hangs right there on the edge, threatening to take me over.

  “B.” My body tightens around his cock, and a possessive growl rings low in the back of his thro
at.

  “Let go, Cass. Come for me, baby.”

  “Ahhhh. Oh, Go—” I choke on my own words as my body tenses and all I see are flashes of pink and white, and B. Seconds later, he reaches his breaking point and joins me in his own release.

  Later, when we’re finally in our own bed, arms and legs entwined, I feel the irresistible pull of sleep, but not before I hear him breathe one more promise of love.

  “I’m going to make you so happy.”

  I reach behind me and stroke a finger down his cheek, hoping to reassure him with my own whispered truth. “You already do.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  B

  “Seriously. Brantley, stop. I need to get ready for class,” Cassie groans after I snag an arm around her waist, preventing her escape. It’s just after ten, and we’ve already spent most of the morning in bed. Truth be told, in the three weeks since I proposed, we’ve spent nearly every available moment right here in this bed.

  “Come on, Cass. I promise, just one more kiss and I’ll let you up.”

  She falls back against the pillows and makes a show of puckering her already kiss-swollen lips. I take a few seconds to admire just how beautiful she looks right now. Her skin’s shiny and pink from the afterglow of our lovemaking, and I admittedly feel a deep sense of pride for being the guy lucky enough to be responsible for giving her that glow. My lips hover a breath above hers, and as promised I keep it to one kiss. One incredibly long and sensual kiss that may include some teasing of my fingers.

  “B?” she breathes out the corner of her mouth. “Shower. Class.”

  “Okay. Okay,” I relent and prop myself on my elbow to admire her naked form while she rummages through her underwear drawer, mumbling under her breath. “What are you muttering over there?”

  She blows out an exasperated sigh and gestures toward the clock on the nightstand. “Look at the time. Now, thanks to your wandering hands, I don’t have time for a shower. I’ll have to go to class reeking of sex and your cologne.”