“Why? Did she want to ruin my day?”
“Mom, this isn’t about you,” Brie says. “This is about me, don’t you see that?”
As I watch my mom trying to process this whole thing, I can’t help but be a little relieved over the fact that she’s no longer freaking out about my wedding. Her level of general anxiety has always been very difficult for me to live with and I’m glad that her present freak-out is actually as a result of something legitimate for once.
A few hours later, after a big lunch and a decent amount of champagne, Mom and Brie are friends again. I’m glad that Arlene is here because she actually managed to put my mom at ease over the whole Brie thing. Actually, I’m shocked by how accommodating and kind she’s being. I haven’t forgotten what happened when Aiden was in a coma, but a wedding day is not the time to hold on to grudges.
“Okay, it’s time to go,” I say, glancing at my phone. Everyone stands up and takes one last look at themselves in the mirror. They all look beautiful. My mom is dressed in a flowing lilac dress which is a complement to Arlene’s caramel floral dress. Brie is dressed in a sophisticated pant suit, which accentuates her waist and ridiculously long legs, making her look like a runway model. Finally, I look at myself in the mirror as my mom pins my veil.
Everyone inhales simultaneously when I ask them what they think.
“Stunning.”
“Gorgeous.”
“Absolutely beautiful.”
Yes, I think this will do, I say to myself.
Chapter 22 - Aiden
When she walks down the aisle
The wedding planner and her team did an excellent job of setting up the venue. Since neither of us are particularly religious, I decided to skip a church wedding and instead have it at the Old South Meeting House. It’s one of the oldest venues in town and remains largely unchanged from 1729 when it was built. As one of the most important Colonial landmarks, the inside looks a lot like a simple white Protestant church or an old style courthouse. It’s arranged in the traditional New England meeting house style. It has simplicity of line and symmetrical proportions, which give a quiet, elegant type of beauty that I hope Ellie will love.
I am standing at the end of the aisle with the officiant. The wooden benches inside the meeting house are adorned with flowers. Most of the flowers are daisies and daffodils, Ellie’s favorite. They are not fancy or imported, but they are her favorite and they are a perfect complement to this understated setting. Just as the guests are all settling in their seats, my heart jumps into my throat. My thoughts drift back to the last time I was waiting for her at the end of the aisle. And then the doors in the back open and the music starts. Brie comes down the aisle. There’s a brief pause while she takes her place across from me. I hold my breath. And then I see her.
Ellie appears at the far end of the aisle. She looks effervescent walking toward me. It’s almost as if she is sailing toward me. As she inches closer, my breath gets caught at the back of my throat. Is this really my bride? Bathed in candlelight, she arrives at her place next to me a goddess.
I take her hand in mine and we turn to look at the officiant. Since I did not want to put any more pressure on Ellie than necessary, we did not write our own vows. I knew that she would not want to, so I didn’t even ask. Instead, I chose wedding vows out of the Buddhist tradition. After reading over all the vows from various religions, these are the ones that spoke the most to me.
The officiant says the vows and asks me to repeat.
“I, Aiden Black, take you, Ellie Rhodes, to be my wife, my partner in life, and my one true love. I will cherish our friendship and love you today, tomorrow, and forever. I will trust you and honor you. I will laugh with you and cry with you. Through the best and the worst, through the difficult and the easy. Whatever may come, I will always be there. As I have given you my hand to hold so I give you my life to keep.”
Through the veil, I can see tears appear in Ellie’s eyes. One breaks free and rolls down her cheek. The officiant asks Ellie to make the same vow to me and she does, no longer fighting back tears.
“Recognizing that the external conditions in life will not always be smooth and that internally your own minds and emotions will sometimes get stuck in negativity,” the officiant says. "Do you pledge to see all these circumstances as a challenge to help you grow, to open your hearts, to accept yourselves, and each other; and to generate compassion for others who are suffering? Do you pledge to avoid becoming narrow, closed, or opinionated, and to help each other to see various sides of situations?”
She squeezes my hand and we both say, “We do.”
"Understanding that just as we are a mystery to ourselves, each other person is also a mystery to us. Do you pledge to seek to understand yourselves, each other, and all living beings, to examine your own minds continually and to regard all the mysteries of life with curiosity and joy?”
Now, I squeeze her hand as we say, “We do.”
“Do you pledge to preserve and enrich your affection for each other, and to share it with all beings? To take the loving feelings you have for one another and your vision of each other's potential and inner beauty as an example and rather than spiraling inward and becoming self-absorbed, to radiate this love outward to all beings?”
We squeeze each other’s hands simultaneously as we say, “We do.”
“Now, repeat after me, in unison,” the officiant says.
I look into Ellie’s eyes and suddenly we are all alone in the room. The entire outside world falls away and disappears completely.
“Knowing how deeply our lives intertwine with each other and with all beings, we undertake the practice of protecting life,” we say at the same time. “Knowing how deeply our lives intertwine with each other and with all beings, we undertake the practice of taking only what is offered. Knowing how deeply our lives intertwine with each other and with all beings, we undertake the practice of cultivating loving-kindness and honesty as the basis for speaking.”
“I now pronounce you husband and wife, and you may kiss each other.”
I lift up her veil and peer into those dark understanding eyes that see me like the man I only hope I can become. I run my fingers along her jaw and pull her closer to me. When our lips touch, I lose all sense of time and place. Then I see fireworks.
Just as I’m about to pull away, she kisses me again. Pushing herself closer to me, she whispers, “I love you always and forever.”
The rest of the wedding is a blur. The wedding planner did a good job in making it look like a dream wedding, good enough for a bridal magazine. We sign our marriage license and we are introduced as husband and wife to the reception guests. Cocktail hour and the reception are held at the Four Seasons hotel ballroom not far from the wedding venue. We dance, and eat, and twirl the night away. We cut the cake and kiss each other on command whenever anyone makes a toast or clinks glasses. I resist the temptation to mush the cake into her face and ruin her makeup, but I know that it’s not really the sort of thing that she would like. No matter how much I try to enjoy each moment of this special day, all I can think about is to just be alone with Ellie once again. And it’s not that I just want sex. It’s more than that. I want everyone else to go away. I want it to just be her and me.
Chapter 23 - Ellie
After the I do’s…
The partying lasts way into the night. I’ve never been to a wedding that went past eleven because the venue was only rented until then, but this one just keeps going and going. Despite the fact that I don’t know many of the invited guests, they are friends and colleagues of Aiden’s, along with his parents’ and my parents’ friends and acquaintances, that doesn’t stop me from having a good time. Around two in the morning, I take off my heels and continue dancing barefoot. Aiden is here with me every step of the way.
Dancing the night away to one of the most common and strangest choices for a wedding song out there, Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive, I start to laugh watching Aiden mouthing the words
along with me.
“I don’t want this night to end!” I yell on top of my lungs, so that he can hear me over the music.
“Me either,” he says.
“How long do you think the party will go on?”
“As long as the bride and groom are here.”
“You know, just because we leave the dance floor, it doesn’t mean that the night will end,” he says coyly, taking me by my waist. I smile at him and take a few steps away as the song goes into its chorus.
“What do you mean?” I ask coyly.
“I hear our bridal suite calling us,” he says as he twirls me away from him and then back toward him.
After close to forty minutes of goodbyes, we leave the party while it’s still going strong. As Aiden leads me upstairs to our penthouse, he wraps his arms around me.
“Thank you,” I say. “For planning this beautiful wedding. For marrying me. For everything.”
“Thank you for being there for me. And for bringing happiness into my life.”
And suddenly, in this quiet moment on the elevator, I feel at peace. My life feels complete. Full. The man of my dreams is my husband. He loves me as much as I love him and that means everything will be okay. Right?
I know that I will follow him wherever he will take me. He doesn’t need my permission, not that he ever did. I don’t know what the future will hold, but tonight he leads me inside the room and straight toward the bedroom.
Putting his arms around my lower back, he turns me around to face him. His eyes turn a deeper shade without giving that familiar mysterious quality that I’ve fallen in love with. He brushes his fingers along my bottom lip. His fingertips feel both rough and soft at the same time. He leans closer to me, his breaths colliding with my face. Each breath is like its own kiss, kind and sweet and yet dangerous. After everything that we have been through, we are still standing here. More in love and more in lust than ever before.
Aiden tilts my head slightly to the side. He buries his fingers in my hair. Our lips touch and I see flashes of light. Every part of my body is giving off sparks in anticipation.
As he pushes me down on the bed, our tongues collide. His feels foreign, yet familiar at the same time. One kiss turns into the next, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Slowly, his lips start to make their way down my neck.
My stomach feels a bit heavy and cumbersome and I have to lie on my side to fully enjoy the moment. After I adjust my position, Aiden runs his hands down my back and then back up to my shoulders. Shivers run down my thighs and up my arms. I open my legs a little bit wider.
“What do you want?” I ask. “Do you want something kinky?”
Aiden shakes his head, kissing my collarbone. “No, not tonight,” he says. “Unless you do.”
I shrug.
“Tonight, I just want to make love to my wife,” he says, unzipping the back of my dress. With my corset undone, my breasts pop right out and into his mouth.
“Mmmm,” he whispers, licking my nipples. I moan from pleasure and in anticipation of what’s to come.
“If this is how you make love to your wife, I’ll take it.”
“You haven’t seen nothing yet.”
Suddenly, the tone of his kisses changes. Before they were soft and careful, but suddenly, they are forceful and unapologetic. They become bordering on pain, but the good kind. Each one sends electric impulses through my body. Zap. Zap. Zap.
Towering over me, he pulls off my dress. It slides off without much struggle, leaving me in my panties and bulging belly. He kneels down over me and kisses my belly button.
“I don’t have that quite flat belly anymore,” I say.
“I know.” He kisses me along my panty line. “But you will later. And even if you don’t, this is the most beautiful belly I’ve ever seen.”
I blush at the compliment. All this time later, after everything we have been through, Aiden Black is still capable of making me blush. It’s a bit hard to believe.
As he undresses, I watch as each one of his muscles tenses and relaxes. His six pack glistens in the twilight and I run my fingers over each individual bulge. I can’t help but lick my lips.
“Like what you see?”
“Yes.” I nod. “It looks delicious.”
Through his pants, I can see the girth and the substantial size of his cock. I run my fingers over it and pull Aiden closer to me.
His hands make their way down my body with expert precision. My legs fall open on their own after he pulls off my panties and he slides in between. Aiden slides his hands back, across the curves of my hips, and up my hipbones.
He runs his tongue along the inside of my thighs and inhales me. I get even more wet than I was before. My body rises and falls with each kiss. I pull my legs closed to try to stop myself from getting too aroused, but it’s too late.
As Aiden continues to tease me, my mouth dries up, along with all moisture in my body. I tilt my head back and Aiden continues to play with me.
“Oh, Ellie,” Aiden moans. I like the way he says my name. It’s comforting and sexy all at the same time.
After giving me one long, wet kiss in between my thighs, he pulls himself up and climbs on top of me. He’s about to thrust himself inside of me when he changes his mind. A moment later, he is lying behind me. Cradling me. Sliding inside of me, I feel him fill me up. The area in between my legs is begging for him. I don’t think I’ve ever been so wet before.
“I crave you,” he whispers. “I love you.”
I let out a moan of pleasure.
He moves swiftly and elegantly. After a few thrusts, we are moving as one. Dancing an invisible dance. My feet start to tingle and I know that I’m getting close. I point my toes. Electricity courses through my veins.
“Oh, Aiden,” I moan, biting the edge of the sheet. A wave of pleasure comes over me and I hear him moan my name. His movements speed up the closer he gets, driving me wild.
“Ellie! Ellie!” he yells in my ear. A few moments later, he stops moving and collapses into me. I turn around to face him and snuggle up against his powerful and protective body. I close my eyes and relax. Everything is going to be okay. I just know it.
Chapter 24 - Ellie
When we have a sit-down…
The only thing that would make my wedding more perfect is a dream honeymoon somewhere where the water is crystal clear and the sand is as white as snow. Unfortunately, real life isn’t like that. The thing that awaits me not long after the wedding is that sit-down with the Assistant DA and the main detective along with who knows who else. But they are the main people who will be sitting in judgement and deciding whether this case will indeed go to trial.
Thurston and the rest of my legal team have postponed the sit-down for as long as possible. In fact, it has been more than a few weeks. Luckily, the DA himself postponed the meeting a full month because of another trial that he was prosecuting. Well, here we are. It’s finally here. The morning of.
Luckily, the meeting is scheduled for one in the afternoon. I’m not a morning person in my normal life, but this pregnancy has really taken it out of me. I spend most mornings sleeping in until well past nine and then walking around in a daze for close to an hour as I try to do anything to keep the nausea at bay. This morning is no different except that I have the strong suspicion that my bout of morning sickness has something to do with possible doom, which may result from the sit-down.
“You’re going to be fine. Everything’s going to be fine,” Aiden keeps saying over and over. He’s pacing the room. Cracking his knuckles. Drinking about five cups of coffee. All signs that everything is not alright. I’ve never seen him this nervous before. And the more he tries to cover his tracks, the more obvious his anxiety becomes.
When I’m finally ready, I glance at myself one last time in the mirror. I’m wearing a flowing above the knee floral dress. It’s business casual and maternity, of course, since it’s thirty-nine weeks today. At first, I thought about going for a traditional
gray suit with a pencil skirt. You know, the works. But it was so uncomfortable to sit in that I had to go with something that gave my body room to breathe. I have no idea how long this meeting will go for, but I have to be comfortable. At least, as comfortable as possible.
“Aiden, no matter what happens today, it’s going to be fine,” I say.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve decided to make it so. No matter what. What I mean is that we will get through this.”
This makes him feel a little better and that in turn makes me feel better, too. Maybe I can get through this with just some positive thinking.
We arrive at a nondescript office building downtown fifteen minutes before our appointment. Someone shows us inside and toward the right office. It’s a large conference room with a big view of the city through the wall-to-wall windows along the far side. I hope that I get to sit on the side facing the view.
As soon as we come in, everyone introduces themselves. All the names get jumbled together except for two. Thomas Mann, the Assistant District Attorney, is a large intimidating man in his late forties. He has a big frame and about fifty additional pounds on him. He sits directly across from me at the conference table and buries his head in paperwork. His appearance is somewhat disheveled, almost sweaty.
He whispers something to the guy next to him as I shake Detective Egan’s hand. The DA is asking him something about another case. His words are frantic and disoriented. I can’t quite make out what he’s saying, but it doesn’t sound good. It sounds like their case is falling apart.
“I thought that we were going to see Detective—“ Thurston starts to say, but Detective Egan interrupts him.
“I’ve taken over the case from him,” he explains. “He has taken a leave of absence.”
I was wondering why Egan didn’t look familiar. I thought that too much time had passed or I didn’t have a great memory of him before, but I guess not. Getting even more agitated and flustered, Mann excuses himself for a few moments. We all sit here in silence until he comes back.
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