“That’s the only thing you care about?”
I nod. Then, tip my head to the side with a sly grin. “Well, that and getting you alone.” I reach down and cup him over his jeans. “I’m so jumping your bones the moment we walk in that door.”
He bites my lower lip, a sharp, playful nip. “Not if I jump you first.”
I shake my head. “I may not make it home, Wes.” I let it all burn in my gaze. “A whole month, in that hospital, alone in the bed every night, missing you, needing you, barely getting to even kiss you very often.” My voice is husky. “I freaking need you, Wes.”
His eyes devour mine. “I know, my love.” He grins. “Your family wanted to have a party when we got home, but I managed to talk them out of it. I said you’d want some time home alone to unwind before a big party.” The grin widens. “Mainly, I just selfishly wanted time alone with you. If you’re feeling up to it.”
I dig my fingernails into his bicep. “Westley, you never have to ask that again. If I’m up to it.” I clutch him, feeling him respond to my touch. “The question is, are you up to it?”
“Let’s get home and find out, shall we?”
We find out.
Slowly.
Despite our feverish need for each other, by some unspoken understanding, we take it slow. We strip each other, piece by piece, until we’re naked and panting for each other. We stand at the foot of the bed, door closed, lights down. It’s evening, twilight turning to night beyond the windows. A foot separates us. His eyes rake over my body, flitting from my eyes to my breasts to my core, and back up.
“So, so beautiful,” he breathes.
“Thank you.” It’s all I can manage.
His hands clasp around my hips, pull me toward him. “I can’t wait anymore, Jo. I need you.”
I let him pull me closer, and he kisses me. His lips are hungry, his tongue eager. For a long moment, it’s merely our mouths fused, tongues writhing together, and then his hands press me backward to the bed. I fall, and I revel in the fact that I feel gloriously, unusually, incredibly well. Strong, and free.
It really is gone. Not just in remission, but gone.
His mouth touches my breast, and I gasp, back arching at the sting of electricity that sears through me. And then his fingers find my sex and I’m gasping, and his lips and tongue press against my clit and I’m screaming his name as he brings me to the edge of climax and sends me over it within seconds. I fly into paroxysms of ecstasy as he continues to love my sex with his mouth, again and again, as if to make me come once for every tear he shed, thinking he’d lose me.
I lose track of where I am or how many times he makes me come, each rolling wave of glorious bliss blending with the next until I’m a puddle of jellied woman on the bed, gasping breathless and shuddering and shaking.
I pull him up to me. “Love me, Wes.”
He climbs up my body. Presses himself between my thighs. I clutch him and nestle him where he belongs: inside me. His gaze on mine, with our love bursting between us, gratitude and amazement and a million other emotions with it, we join. He plunges into me, filling me inch by slow, stretching inch.
“Oh god, Jo,” he breathes, his voice ragged. “God, I’ve missed this.”
I wrap my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck and cling to him and move with him and pull him closer and press up against him and sink him deeper into me. I’ve never felt so complete, so perfect, so happy.
I’m crying. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I breathe, I sob. To Westley? To God? To both. “I love you, I love you, I love you—God, I love you.”
His thrusts become frantic. He buries his face in the side of my neck and groans as he reaches climax. My name grates from his throat, and I feel him fill me, his hips rocking against mine, rolling his manhood into me again and again, deeper and deeper until I can take no more of him and we cannot become any more united and I climax with him, feeling my soul and my heart bind to his, weave into the fabric of him, the texture of him.
Even after our climaxes have faded, we move together and gasp together, his erection fading inside me, my core clenching and clamping around him.
“I love you, I love you,” he gasps. “My god, my Jo.”
He collapses against me, and I cradle him to me, caress his hair and his shoulders. I nibble the shell of his ear. “Marry me, Westley Britton.”
He rolls, and I’m on top of him. Our hands tangle, palm to palm, fingers twining, and I see my grandmother’s ring on my left hand, and a fresh wave of wild, unadulterated joy sears through me.
“I have a surprise for you,” he says. “Do you want me to tell you about it now, or remain surprised?”
I scoot backward to sit on his thighs. I feel his seed inside me, warm and wet and seeping out of me. “I don’t know. Do you think I’d rather know now or be surprised?”
He shrugs. “I think maybe you’d like to be surprised.”
“Then leave it a surprise.” I gnaw on my lip. “I need to go clean up.”
He topples me playfully to my back. “Let me.”
He returns with a warm, damp washcloth, gently parts my folds and cleans me. Takes care of the washcloth and settles back into bed beside me. For a while, we just look at each other, smiling, almost laughing, noses nudging, on our sides and knees touching.
I can’t go very long without touching him, however. I wriggle closer. Press him to his back and caress his chest, his stomach. His manhood is at rest, curled to the side over his hip bone. I trace it with a finger, slowly, tip to base. He watches as I touch him, doesn’t move otherwise. Gradually, he begins to respond to my touch. A subtle stiffening at first, then a slow, visibly thickening. I don’t hurry, just drag my finger from the plump head to the curls-wreathed base. Now it’s hardening, lengthening. It uncurls, straightening to reach full erection.
I sling my thigh over his belly, rise up on my knees. Grasp him and nestle his tip against my opening. His hands rest on my hips and hold me, but provide no pressure, no guidance. His eyes burn into mine, expression and open and heated and frank and appreciative of my naked body, my curves, my skin—me. I sink down onto him, and he splits me apart as he slides into me. I feel my sex respond instantly, pulsing, rippling. I grind against him, back and forth and then in circles, and then I have to have more. I brace my hands on his chest and lean forward, flex my hips to thrust onto him. Slow. Deliberate. Each thrust a full range of movement, his erection sliding through my clamping sex, head to base in a stuttering slide of hard arousal through wet, slick folds.
He’s breathing hard within mere moments, gasping, groaning. Thrusting up to meet my movements.
And then I can’t merely roll my hips anymore. No more slow finesse. I need the wildness. The abandon. I crash down against him, surge forward and upward, belly and breasts scraping rough against his hard muscles. Faster, harder. Wilder. I groan, and then groans turn to half-feral growls, and he’s taking over the thrusting, hips hammering upward to meet me with a clap of flesh against flesh as I push with desperate abandon downward, taking him into me with a crying scream. Release detonates within me, an unfurling burst of heat in my belly expanding outward and becoming a chest-cracking, heart-rending explosion. I feel him join me in climax, and he’s yelling wordlessly and I’m screaming and he’s surging into me and filling me with hot jets of seed and I’m clamping around his pulsing erection and our gasps are synched, our groans are in unison, and our bodies meet in writhing, sinuous, sensual ecstasy.
There’s only us in this universe. Only this moment. Only our bodies, our souls.
We rest, and we wake in darkness and find each other.
Pain is forgotten. Fear is banished.
There is only us, and our impossible love, our unlikely romance.
With This Ring, I thee Wed
Westley
She sleeps late. I wake up hours before her, but remain in bed with her, dozing, enjoying her presence, her scent, her warmth, the softness of her skin under my hands, against my flesh.
/>
She stirs. I nuzzle her breast with my nose.
Her hand brushes my belly, and her fingers curl against me. She rolls into me, half awake, now, a smile edging across her lips as she tangles her limbs around me.
“Mmmm,” she murmurs, a wordless expression of sleepy happiness. “You’re real. This is real.”
“Yes indeed.”
“I was panicked for a second, there, right before I actually woke up. I was so scared I’d wake up and it would all have been a dream. That I’d be back in the hospital and I’d still have leukemia.” She presses her nose into my throat, lips pressing in a soft kiss to my Adam’s apple. “I can’t even begin to describe how happy I am that it’s real.” A pause, and I can hear the grin in her voice. “That last night was real.”
“Oh, it was real all right.” I kiss her head, her temple, her cheekbone. “It’s the first of a lifetime together.”
She writhes against me. “I know it’s real because I’m a little sore.”
“We did make love like four times.”
“And I still want you.” She grasps me.
I laugh and pull away. “If I didn’t have your surprise waiting, I’d already be inside you. But if let you start that up right now, we’ll spend the morning having sex instead of what I have planned. And in this particular case, I think you’ll want to do what I have planned.”
“Just real quick?” she whispers, stroking me.
I groan, responding immediately and fully to her touch and the sensual, erotic need in her voice. “God, Jo.”
We’re on our sides, facing each other. Her eyes are still sleepy, but sparking with heat.
I push her to her back, and she moves to take me on top of her, but I have other plans. I roll her away from me, and press up behind her. She cranes her neck around, lips hunting for mine as I hook my hand behind the knee of her upper leg. She grasps me and guides me to her seam, and I touch her sex, find her sweet slit wet and waiting for me.
She gasps as I press myself against her. “Wes, god, yes. Please. I want you inside me. I can’t get enough of you.”
I lift her leg up and away, catch hold of her breasts and fill her, feel her tight sex clenching around me. I sink deep, groaning at the wet soft heat of her as she accepts me, deeper and deeper, and she’s writhing against me, silently begging me for more.
“Harder, Wes,” she whispers.
“I thought you were sore.”
She presses fingers to her clit. “Not anymore.”
I give her what she’s asking for—harder thrusts, faster. She groans, loudly, and I clap a hand over her mouth. “Hush, my love.”
“Why? This is our house, we’re home alone.”
I love that she’s taken ownership, that this is our home.
“We’re not actually alone,” I say.
She whimpers, and then, as I continue to crush hard thrusts into her, making her whole body shake, she crams her pillow against her face, bites down on it to muffle her cries as her fingers fly against her sex and I fill her with myself in wild, desperate thrusts.
Her cries become screams, and even the pillow can’t entirely muffle the sound of her screams as she reaches climax, taking me with her.
Finally, after I’ve emptied myself into her and we’ve caught our breath, she twists to face me. “What did you mean, we’re not alone?”
“The surprise,” I say. “It requires some…set up. So there’s people out in the backyard, setting up.”
Her eyes go wide as she catches the implication. “Wes?”
I grin, caress her flushed cheeks. “My love?”
“Are we getting married today?” She asks.
I just grin.
She scrambles to her knees and clutches my hand in both of hers, excitement energizing her. “Wes? Are we?”
It’s too freaking adorable. “I mean. We could. If you wanted to.” I’m teasing her.
She rolls on top of me and pins my hands over my head. “Answer me, Westley Britton!”
I can’t help laughing. “Do you want to?”
She growls in a weird mixture of laughter and frustration. “I asked you to marry me months ago! Quit teasing me and answer my question, you big brute. Are—we—getting—married?” She shakes me to punctuate each word.
I sit up, easily dislodging her, and stand up with her cradled in my arms. I walk over to the doorwall and pull the curtains aside a couple inches, showing her a glimpse of the backyard. Which is bustling with activity.
An archway is being set up, wreathed in white roses and climbing ivy, with rows of white wood folding chairs facing it, cushions being tied to the seat of each chair and a cluster of white roses and baby’s breath fastened to the side of the backrest of the chairs on the aisle. In another area more people are setting up clusters of large round tables, draping them with tablecloths and setting places and arranging centerpieces. There’s a bar, a stage for the band, and a small square of parquet flooring for dancing.
Overseeing it all is Jen, working in coordination with a wedding planner.
Jolene squeals, kicks her feet, and clings to my neck, burying the end of her squeal of excitement in my neck. “Today? How? How could you have arranged this?”
“We’ve been planning it since I put the ring on your finger. I spoke to Dr. Miller and got a pretty firm idea as to when they’d officially, finally release you, and we planned the wedding for today.”
“But just the other day you were talking about me making decisions.”
I grin at her. “A dodge, to throw you off the scent. I knew the only thing that mattered to you was actually getting married, and I wanted you to be able to focus on recovering, not having to deal with the stress of planning a wedding.”
She sniffles, her face still nuzzling my neck. “Oh, Wes.”
“Did I get it right, babe?” It’s hard to tell if she’s happy crying or upset crying.
She nods. “Yes, my love, you got it right.” A hiccup, and a sniffle. “I’m so happy. God, I’m so happy. This is real? This is my life?” She pulls away and searches my eyes. “I really get to marry Westley Freaking Britton? Today?”
“In just a few hours, I get to marry Jolene Freaking Park.”
She arches an eyebrow. “Excuse me, sir. I unofficially already changed my last name to Britton.”
“Well, today, you officially become Mrs. Jolene Britton,” I say. “I have the paperwork ready for you to sign.”
She squeals and kicks her feet again, and then abruptly straightens. “Ohmygod. I need to get in the shower.”
I laugh. “You have time, honey. Here’s how I have things planned out, although you can change it if you want. Right now, I have a chef ready to make us a big breakfast. You get cleaned up while that’s being prepared. Then Chloe, whom I’m sure you remember from our date, for glam. There’s also Frederick, your dressmaker. He’s got a rack of dresses crafted to the fit from the last dress he tailored for you. You pick your favorite, and he’ll tweak the fit so it’s perfect.” I carry her to the bed and sit with her on my lap. “That will happen in here, while I get ready in the guest room. Your mom, Grandma, Macy, and Beth will be here to help you pick your dress, so it’ll feel like a real wedding dress-shopping experience.”
“And then we get married, and I finally get to become your wife,” she finishes.
I cup her cheeks in my hands. “And then we get married, and I finally get to become your husband.”
“I know it’s ridiculous, but it feels like I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”
“And yet, it’s only been a few months since I showed up at your door unannounced.” I kiss her, quickly, softly.
She shakes her head, a tear sliding down her cheek. “It’s hard to even remember my life without you in it. It’s weird.”
“Same.” I pass a thumb across her cheek. “Now. You go get in the shower. I’ll get Chef Maribel working on our breakfast.”
She grabs my wrist, holds my hand as it rests cupped against her ch
eek. “Thank you, Wes.”
“For what?” I ask, laughing. “What if I’m doing all this just for myself?”
She sniffs a laugh. “You’re absurd.” Her lips touch mine. “Thank you. For being brave enough to love me. You took a chance on me, and you…you were there through the scariest time in my whole hard, scary life.” Another kiss. “I won’t ever be able to express how grateful I am to you. For you. I can just promise that I’ll spend the rest of our lives together loving you as hard as I possibly can.”
I’m tempted to make a joke about how she already gave me a taste of that last night—and this morning. But she’s being honest and vulnerable, and it’s not the right moment for that humor. Instead, I kiss her back, as softly and tenderly as I know how.
“I love you, Jolene.”
For a moment, we just hold each other, breathing together.
Then, after a while, she pulls away and stands up. Heads into the bathroom and turns on the shower.
I watch her for a moment, greedy for every glimpse of her naked beauty that I can get, but then I have to get things moving.
We have a wedding to get ready for.
Jolene
Breakfast is the last bit of slow, lazy, leisure of the day.
Westley’s first wedding day gift to me is a knee-length silk bathrobe with an embroidered monogram—featuring my married initials. I put that on, and he ushers in Frederick, the dressmaker and tailor who did my dress for our date. Behind him is my family, and there’s a chaotic reunion. I’ve seen them all every day over the past few weeks before my release from the hospital, of course. But we’re all excited, eager, happy. There’s sparkling juice and coffee and a charcuterie board, and Frederick sets up a three-panel, free-standing privacy screen, behind which I try on dress after dress, emerging to varying reactions from the women in my life. For a while, it’s just fun, the processs of trying on dresses and laughing and joking and telling stories.
But then, I try on The Dress. Sleeveless, with a deep V-neck and a bodice designed to plump and support and display me to sexy but classy effect, with a basque waist. It fits perfectly, molding to my body, feels comfortable, and makes me look like I have more curves than I do. And it’s just…me. There’s something indefinable about it that just resonates.
Wish Upon A Star Page 30
