I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this girl will be the death of me, but it’s the only way I want to go.
Fuck dying of some shitty disease or the flu, fuck drowning or being hit by a moving truck, if I’m going to die, I only ask for one wish, that I die while I’m inside the woman I love, the woman who is my everything, the woman who is going to be my wife.
I wrap an arm around her back and pull myself up so that I’m sat up, my chest flush against hers as my mouth collides with hers, my tongue invading her mouth.
I tighten my hold on her as I begin to thrust my hips up into her, matching her movements, sending me even deeper inside her.
My mouth travels down to her jaw, to her neck, working my way down to her chest where I take her left nipple into my mouth, sucking on it, nipping at it gently. Her head falls back as she moans my name through jagged breaths. I take her right nipple into my mouth and do the exact same thing to this one. Her hands find my hair, weaving her fingers through it, tugging gently.
I roll her onto her back, her legs widening for me.
“Kyle,” she pants. “Make love to me.”
I kiss her lips as I grip her wrists in my hands, pinning them either side of her head as I work on top of her with long, hard strokes.
Long, and slow.
“Kyle,” she moans as she clenches around me, her walls gripping my cock like a vice as the first wave of her climax rolls through her.
Her legs wrap around my waist, the heels of her feet digging into the flesh of my ass.
“Say it again, say you’ll marry me.”
Her eyes meet mine and she smiles up at me. “I’ll marry you, Kyle. I can’t wait to be your wife.”
I return her smile and dip down, taking her mouth hungrily.
She clenches around me again.
She’s close.
I thrusts a little harder, increasing my pace just a little. “Come with me, Hayley.”
She does.
She comes hard. And so do I.
We fall over the edge together, our moans mixing with each other’s.
A wave of ecstasy spreads out through my body.
My head falls into the crook of her neck, kissing the sensitive skin there.
My thrusts inside her begin to slow, wanting to ring every last spasm of her orgasm from her spent body.
“I can’t wait to be your husband.”
Epilogue
Hayley
2 years later
I turn the page of the photo album, a warm feeling of nostalgia washes over me as I look over the photos from the happiest day of my life, playing over in my mind as if I were back there.
I stare at the photo of Kyle and I embraced in a slow dance at our reception to Is This Love by Whitesnake, my favourite song, the song we danced to in the restaurant of his casino on our first date.
Kyle wore a dark grey tuxedo, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so handsome. Seeing him at the end of the aisle, he stole my breath the same as he had done the first time I ever saw him through that window.
I kept my wedding dress simple, a floor-length, white gown with lace detailing, short lace sleeves, a scoop neckline and a mermaid skirt that flares out towards the bottom.
It’s been two years since Kyle and I got married, seeing no reason to wait, our engagement only lasted a few months. It wasn’t a huge wedding, only reserved for close friends and family. We saw it only fitting to get married at the casino, the place where we first met, regardless of the circumstances that brought us together and everything that followed, there are no regrets when it comes to us, there’s not a single thing I would change.
As expected, Gwen took control over the wedding planning, helping me get everything in order and organised. Despite being just over six months pregnant at the time, something she will never let me forget, the fact that she was my maid of honour and I made her attend my wedding ‘looking like a whale’ as she likes to put it. Three months later, baby Lucas was born, he’s the spitting image of his dad, a true heartbreaker, the cutest little boy I think I've ever seen. As it turns out, she was surprisingly good at arranging weddings and has since started work on setting up her own wedding planning company, which is actually kind of perfect considering she can’t possibly get fired from this job when she’s the boss.
I turn over the next page to a group photo, Kyle, and I side by side, his arm wrapped securely around my back as we are flanked his parents, my dad, Uncle Jack, Gwen and Aaron, everyone important to us were there, though one person was missing.
Luke.
Kyle didn’t let on that he was hurting, but I could sense it. Luke had left behind a wide, empty void when he died, had he still been alive, he would have been Kyle’s best man, there is absolutely no doubt about that, it had only really been the wedding when Kyle felt the full force of his loss, though he tried his hardest not to let it show.
Aaron and Kyle have since become acquaintances rather than full-blown enemies, I think it is wishful thinking in hoping that they could become friends in the future, so I won’t hold out hope. Though they don’t fight whenever they see each other now, they’ve learned to tolerate each other, well, at least around me, except for the scowl that is exchanged between them on occasion when they didn’t realise I could see.
My dad, as I always imagined, walked me down the aisle and gave me away to Kyle, pecking a kiss to my cheek and whispering how proud my mom would have been. Kyle and my dad’s relationship has improved dramatically. Kyle told me that before he proposed, he and my dad talked everything out and he was given his blessing to ask me to marry him. It’s a nice feeling seeing them together, getting along.
Over the past couple of years, my dad has got a handle on his gambling addiction, he’s the happiest I’ve ever seen him. He’s been dating a woman, Trisha from his addiction group meetings for the past year or so. It’s nice to see him with someone, someone that means he won’t be alone forever. As hard as it is to see him with another woman other that my mom, I wouldn’t wish him to be alone.
The front door clicks shut as Kyle arrives home from work. He steps into the living room and saunters over to me, shrugging off his coat and draping it across one of the dining chairs, when he sees me a wide smile stretches across his face. Even now, after two years, the sight of him never fails to take my breath away, never fails to quicken my heart as if I were laying eyes on him for the very first time, that familiar tingle rolling down my spine and spreading through my body, igniting a fire deep within.
“Hey, beautiful,” he says, leaning over me, pressing his lips to mine softly.
I smile against his lips. “Hey.”
“How are my girls?” he asks, touching his fingers lightly against my swollen stomach.
“We’re good. Although, it feels as though she’s trying to kick her way out, she’s wriggling around in there so much. She’s a lively one I’ll give her that,” I chuckle.
Seven and a half months ago I found out I was pregnant, causing me to put college on hold for a little longer. It came as quite a surprise, but a welcome one at that. I can still picture the look of elation on Kyle’s face when I broke the news.
“You all set for college?” Kyle asked.
“Not really, I think I’m going to wait a while, maybe a couple years or so.”
“Why, I thought you were really excited about it?” His eyes are knitted together in question.
“I was, but I can’t really turn up to class with a baby in my arms, now can I?”
Kyle stared at me, unmoving as though he was set in stone, blinking rapidly as if trying to process what I’ve just said. “What?”
A smile slowly spread across my face.
“We’re having a baby?” he asked, his eyes wide.
I nodded.
He choked back a cry lodged in his throat before a wide smile spread across his face.
His steps ate up the floor, closing the distance between us and I’m swept into his arms, lifted off the ground,
as he spun us around, his arms wrapped around my waist, his face buried in my neck.
“I love you, Hayley. I love you so goddamn much.”
“I love you, too.”
He pressed his lips to mine, before he lowered me to the ground and sunk down to his knees in front of me. “I love you too,” he whispered, his face buried against my belly.
“I still can’t quite believe it.” He shakes his head in disbelief, smiling softly.
“What?”
I touch the side of his face, tracing his stubbled jaw with my fingertips as he kneels on the floor, gazing up at me.
“That you’re my wife, that I get the privilege of building a family with you, having this baby with you, growing old next to you. I never imagined that I’d have that, never really wanted that, until I met you.” He reaches up and places his hand over mine.
“Sara Elizabeth is going to be a lucky girl to have a mother like you.”
“And she’s going to be even luckier having you as her daddy.”
He rises from the floor and sits down next to me, wrapping me tightly in his arms, my head on his chest, his free hand on top of both off mine that rest on my huge belly, feeling the little squirms and kicks of our daughter inside me.
We flick through the album together, remembering that day as if it were only yesterday.
“Never let me go,” I say.
His fingers turn my chin so I’m looking at him, the corner of his mouth curving up. He presses his lips to mine gently, resting his forehead on mine.
“Never."
The End
Acknowledgements and Author's Notes.
If you’re here reading this, you made it! I really hope you enjoy 'The Game', and I am eternally grateful to each and every one of you that took the leap of faith and took a chance on me to read this book. Thank you all so much! It means the absolute world. I want to say a huge thank you to my fellow Insta-Authors and the whole community for your support throughout this journey.
Special shout-out to my best friend Meghan. The first person I ever told about writing this book, the first person to read it. Thank you so much for your support and for having faith in me. I love you Angel! I'm so glad you didn't read the original version where I had a little dig at One Direction, you would have killed me, haha!!
This is my first ever book, one that I never had any intention of publishing. I began writing 'The Game' in October 2019 and started writing it in secret, just as a hobby really. It is a story that I have been thinking of for some time, it was only then that I decided to write it down.
I started researching and found that I could self-publish so I looked into it more, it came as a surprise that so many of the books that I have read and loved were self-published. So I threw caution to the wind and decided to go for it. It has been an incredibly stressful journey to get to this point, one that was full of self-doubt as to whether I am good enough and whether you would enjoy my story.
If you did enjoy it, please drop me a review on Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53453480-the-game
You can follow me on Instagram @natalieclarkeauthor, and while you're at it, why not check out my book review account on Instagram too! @fromreader.withlove You can also find me on my website https://natalieclarke98.wixsite.com/website
Thanks again. I love you all!
Gwen and Zachary's story… Coming soon.
Read on for a sneak peak...
Prologue
Gwen
Growing up, like any girl, I imagined what my wedding day would look like. I would spend hours lying in bed, evading sleep, thinking up the most important day of my life, picturing every single detail to the very last flower. I would sit daydreaming out of the window during school, my chin resting in my palm, imagining who of my friends would be my bridesmaids. Hayley, my best friend, my soul sister would without question be my maid of honour.
I would picture the venue in my head, it was so clear it almost felt real, a small, simple wedding, maybe a grand hotel or a registry office, no churches, I am anything but religious. The venue would be minimal and delicate, dressed in white and lilac.
I dreamed of what my dress would be like, for me, it was a white lace gown with full delicate lace sleeves, a low dip in the back that would end just at the base of my spine and a long train. Our friends and family would fill the seats either side of the aisle, watching on as we marry the one we love most in the world, the one we want to spend eternity with. I dreamed of my dad walking me down the aisle where I am met with the man of my dreams, tall, dark, and handsome. My Prince Charming.
But that’s all they were... dreams.
When I was growing up, I had no idea my wedding day was going to turn out like this. Today is meant to be the happiest day of my life, the one where the next chapter of my life begins, but today is not that day.
I will be beginning a new chapter of my life, just a different one to the one I had imagined for all those years. Today is the first day of the rest of my life, one that will be remembered. And boy, will it be remembered.
This day is one that no one will ever forget.
The Game Page 27
