Not just by the guests.
By Wes in particular.
Her focus is razor-sharp, though her lips form a gentle, almost mysterious smile. This is something the wedding planner mentioned at the rehearsal dinner and Whitney has taken to heart. She’s an actress. I’m not surprised it’s so good. I am surprised she’s able to maintain it all the way down the aisle with the energy coming off Wes in spears.
He takes a deep breath in and lets it out like it’s his wedding.
What happened between the two of them?
I have the strangest urge to stop the proceedings and ask them both right now. But it’s only nerves. It’s nerves, because the music changes and swells and Summer appears.
My breath stops. My heart stops. The entire reception hall, the entire hotel, falls away. There’s nothing left but my own heartbeat coming to life and the smile on her face. The tears in her eyes. My heart, my heart.
She looks like a princess on her father’s arm. Her blonde hair is a cascade of curls and seed pearls, a lacy veil making her an ethereal creature and the dress—sweet Jesus, I can’t even describe the dress. Something out of a magazine. Something out of a dream. A live man’s dream. I’m living now, like I’ve never lived before.
This is different from every other time I’ve seen her. Watching her give birth to our daughter was like watching a goddess come to life on earth. God, she was so powerful and strong. And now that goddess has clothed herself and graced us with her presence.
My heart is a forest fire. It would burn down a thousand times for her.
Summer’s dad brings her to me, his own eyes shining, and that’s the first time I notice my own blurred vision. I try to blink away the tears while I shake his hand and take Summer’s in mine. “Hi,” she whispers.
“Hi,” I whisper back. And then I guide her up into her place beside me. Really, it’s me who’s lucky to be standing next to her. It’s me who’s been given a second chance at life. It’s me who has been given much, much more than I’ve ever deserved.
The sunlight streaming in through the windows catches on the pearls in Summer’s veil.
She squeezes my hand.
“We’ve come here today in celebration of the union between two people,” says the officiant, her voice warm and rich. “Summer and Dayton. Their entry into the bond of marriage today is like the awakening spring. New. Fresh. Eternal.”
Eternal.
Chapter 3
Dayton
We’re married and I can’t stop kissing Summer’s hand.
Her fingers wind tightly through mine, and she at least has the presence of mind to smile and wave at our guests.
I can’t take my eyes off her.
The vows were a whirlwind of words and love and I’ve never meant anything I said so much as I mean it when I tell her I’ll honor her, cherish her, and love her all of my days. My own voice disappears into the feeling of loving her.
Of wanting her.
All I can do in front of all these people is raise her hand to my lips and kiss her knuckles, so I do it. Again and again. All the way back down the aisle in a sea of applause.
By the time we pass through the double doors and out into the fresh air of the hall I’m all twisted up inside with need for her. My skin is too tight and my muscles are too tense and if I don’t have her now—if I don’t have my wife—there’s no way I’ll be able to sit through the reception. It feels shockingly close to being in battle. The only choice is to fight it off. I have to fight it off.
For her.
“This way.” The determination in Summer’s voice pulls me out of the internal war and back into the present. She’s hustling me downstairs, in the direction of the bridal suite and then past it. Behind us, cheers and clapping spill out from the reception hall. The swarm will follow us soon. The wedding planner will be herding people to the bar for a cocktail hour while the main room is transformed into a place for dining and dancing and not just watching us get married.
“This way for what?”
Summer pulls on my hand and we make a sharp left into a small room, dusky from the curtains over the windows. She slams the door shut behind us, and then she’s on me, this princess in a white gown. She’s all over me. Her hands come around my neck and she pulls me down into a kiss that’s so hot and so sweet that it pulls a groan from my mouth.
“How did you do it?” She nips at my bottom lip. “How did you stand up there so long without breaking?”
“Because I love you.” I’m delirious with her. I’ve been delirious from a lot of stupid shit in my life, but with Summer—with Summer, it’s worth it. “I wanted everything to be perfect for you.”
“You’re the thing that’s perfect.” She grips the front of my jacket and pulls back to look at me. “God, you’re so perfect, Day. Look at you. Look at you.” The sound she makes next is like a sob, only sexier. “Please, please fuck me before we have to go to the reception. I can’t stand it otherwise.”
“You can’t stand it?” I wrap a hand around the back of her neck and tip her face up toward mine. “You think you’re the one who’s going to die? Jesus, Sunny. You’re an innocent angel if you think I’m not having the same problem.”
“Let’s fix it then.” She pouts a little, wriggling her hips in that dress.
My god.
She really is going to kill me.
“You don’t have to beg, sweet thing.”
I’m so hard for her I can’t breathe. The room she’s pulled us into is an in-between space with a chaise lounge and an armchair, and it’s the chaise lounge I go for.
Summer hits it knees-first and sits down. I keep my hand on her throat and tip her backward, all the way backward. I only let go so I can shove my hands up underneath the cloud of her dress. All the way to her waist. It’s so dirty like this that my cock pulses in my pants. Two minutes ago we were the picture of classy wedded bliss, a cake topper come to life, and now I’m looking down at her bare, glistening pussy.
She wasn’t wearing anything underneath the dress.
My blood pounds its way through my veins. “Damn it, Sunny.”
Her eyes are so innocent, even while she clutches the bottom of her dress to keep herself exposed for me. “What?”
“You didn’t tell me you were naked under all this fabric.” I test her folds with two fingers and find her already slick and swollen, like she’s been waiting for this. Planning this. “Naughty.”
“You can teach me a lesson about it later.”
“How about now?”
A grin flickers across her face, followed by pink heat. “What lesson, do you think?”
“That naughty brides like you get fucked.”
She barely gets a hand up to cover her mouth before she moans. I delve into her with two fingers, and damn, damn, I might get her pregnant right now. Nothing would be hotter. Nothing would be hotter than to know she’s sitting at our wedding reception with my release inside of her. She clenches around my fingers, ready as always, and opens her legs to me.
“Don’t do this again,” I warn. “Otherwise I’ll have to stop the ceremony and fuck you right there.”
“I wish you would have,” she pouts. “I wanted you.”
I lean down and press a blazing kiss to the side of her neck. “I’ve always wanted you.”
I finger-fuck her for a few strokes just to hear her gasp, teasing at her clit with my thumb, and then I can’t take it anymore. I cannot take it another second. I undo the zipper on my tuxedo and let my cock free from the boxers Summer picked out herself. I’m pulsing, painfully rigid. Summer gasps as I guide my crown to her opening.
And wedge myself in.
Slow.
Much slower than I want.
Slow enough that she can feel every inch going in. Slow enough that I can feel how tight she is, how sweet. How she’s already shivering around my cock. The little flutters of the muscles deep inside her.
There’s nothing like it.
There’s nothi
ng like sinking myself into her sweet pussy while she’s got her wedding dress hiked up around her waist. Even now, even while I’m pushing into her with slow precision, she looks like a magazine editorial. She could sell a million of these dresses. The delicate flush of her face is the prettiest color I’ve ever seen. The needy part of her lips makes me want to kiss her.
So I do.
I kiss her and I thrust in the last few inches.
Home.
Chapter 4
Dayton
Summer holds her breath and I freeze here, feeling her tense and clench around me.
“Are you—are you—” She can’t get the words out. Oh, it’s lovely. It’s fucking lovely. I’ve never heard a better sound than her struggle to beg. “Please, Day—”
“Am I going to make you come?” I murmur into the shell of her ear. “Like this? In this room, with people looking for us and my cock buried inside you?”
Her lips form the word yes but no sound comes out.
“Of course I am. What wouldn’t I do for you? You’re my wife.”
On wife she clenches hard.
I know what she wants.
I cover her mouth with one big hand and she whimpers into my palm. Summer loves this. She loves having my hand over her lips. She loves it when I’m in control. For a long time I was missing from her life, leaving her to find her own way, and damn it, she did it. Of course she did. She’s no shrinking violet. But she craves this. Needs it. Needs it as much as I do.
I reach down between us, under all that tulle and lace, and press a thumb to her clit.
Oh, I could fuck her. I could fuck her so hard, and so deep, but what I want in this moment is to feel every part of it. It’s already beginning, in those small jerks of her hips. I circle her clit once, then twice, keeping the pressure teasing and light. Summer bucks her hips to get closer and I reward her with a thrust that makes her gasp against my hand.
“Look,” I tell her.
Her eyes meet mine.
It’s so difficult. I can tell how much she wants to close her eyes and ride it out, but she doesn’t. My sweet bride doesn’t. She lets me see the pleasure building in her gaze while I wind her up.
Higher and higher and higher.
I hold my body still and let her fuck me. I coax her hips into a rhythm she can’t control, and I watch her expression for the heat in her face and the long blinks and the panting, god, the panting, under my hand. “That’s it. That’s a good girl.”
This is Summer’s secret craving, the one that she won’t tell anyone about. That she never has. It’s so common, she would say, wrinkling her nose. I don’t know why I like it so much.
But she does.
The phrase earns me a burst of wetness around my cock, another frantic rock of her hips, and then Summer comes.
She comes with a cry muffled by my own hand and waves upon waves of muscles working around me. Her hands come up and take my wrist, pinning me in place so I have no choice but to silence her.
What a wedding gift.
And it is, because with her quiet like this, I can fuck her like I want to.
I hold her in place with my other hand, the naked flesh of her ass completely in my power, and fuck into her like this is the last time we’ll ever have. It’s not. I know it’s not. I know Summer would fight tooth and nail to stay with me. I know she’ll wring every moment out of this life we have together until we both tumble into the dark at the very end. But this—this is holy. This is special. This is something else, something apart from everything we’ve done before.
Fuck, it’s so right, and so dirty, and so illicit and so perfect that pleasure wraps itself around all my muscles and pulls them in. Summer takes my thrusts with a series of small grunts that tell me exactly how hard I’m claiming her—hard enough to drive the air from her lungs, hard enough to make her hold onto me for dear life.
I love it this way.
I love her this way.
I will always love her this way.
“I’m going to come inside you.” The words fall out of me and her eyes go wide. “You’re going to keep me inside of you all through dinner, and while we’re dancing. You’re going to know how much I need you, Sunny, you’re going to feel me there with every step you take—”
This makes her clench again, makes her come again, a smaller peak but just as powerful as before.
It draws my own orgasm out of me.
It’s a release like I’ve never experienced. It’s the release of all the tension of the wedding planning and the first few months of January’s life and this day, this long and exhausting and perfect day. I come in huge, hot spurts, feeling my own slickness mix with hers.
I fuck her all the way through it.
My vision goes dark at the edges, then bright. So bright that for a dizzying second I think maybe I’ve done it—I’ve died doing what I love the best. But then the room comes back into focus. My heart settles back into place. I brace myself over her with both hands and Summer reaches up to stroke my face.
“Wow.” The curl of her voice is the thread that keeps me here on earth instead of wherever I’ve been, away in the stratosphere.
Summer keeps me here on earth.
“We’re married,” she says, and she blushes—actually blushes, even though we have a child together, even though we’ve just fucked while our wedding guests wait upstairs. “You’re my husband.”
“You’re my wife.”
Summer throws her arms around my neck and kisses me. It’s the sweetest possible kiss, hopeful and hot all at the same time.
She tastes like a plane touching down after a year in the desert.
She tastes like mint and sugar and hope.
She tastes like love.
Chapter 5
Dayton
We linger on the chaise lounge for exactly as long as we can. It’s not long—about five minutes, and then I hear Whitney’s voice in the hallway outside.
She’ll be looking for Summer and me. The reception can’t start without us. Well—the reception can start without us, and probably has, but it would be appropriate for us to go. We’ve got a first dance planned.
I help Summer off the chaise lounge and her dress drops back into place, somehow looking exactly as perfect as it did when we walked in. The only hint of our little detour is the mussed hair on the back of her head. I turn her around and run my fingers through it until she laughs and reaches up for the clips and the pearls. It’s magic, what she does.
She’s magic.
That’s not something I’m used to thinking about people. I was always aware, on some level, that all humans are flawed. If Summer has flaws—and I’m not convinced she does—then they only make her more of a goddess.
My new wife turns back toward me, a wide smile on her face and gorgeous color in her cheeks. “You ready to go to the reception?”
I put a hand on her waist and pull her close. Soon we’ll be dancing in front of too many people, family and friends and everyone crowded close. For this moment it’s the two of us alone.
It feels right to dance with her.
I take her hand in mine and hold her close, swaying to the silence. “I’m ready to be married to you.”
“Good thing you already are.” She rises on tiptoe to kiss my cheek. “I could stay in here with you forever.”
“In this room?” I run my hand along the curve of her hip and turn her to face the door. “Here, when we have such a nice bed at home?”
“Let’s skip the reception,” Summer laughs, and I almost pick her up in my arms and run.
Almost.
Our families are waiting upstairs, and our friends, and our baby daughter. There’s no running off into the sunset for us now. But that’s all right. My running days are over. I was only ever trying to get back to her anyway.
Summer opens the door, back straight and smile on, ready to hug anyone who’s waiting outside.
No one is.
Not Whitney, not Wes, not anybody. I gu
ide her out into the hall and she takes my arm. It’s so natural and intimate that it takes a minute to catch my breath. “Your brother seemed hung up on Whitney,” I tell Summer. “Before you came out. It was like he was waiting for her.”
“Well, yeah.” Summer snorts. “He was waiting for the wedding to start so he could get it over with.” She shakes her head, worry and affection in her eyes. Wariness, too. I wonder what that’s about. I’d sit down and talk to Summer about it—about anything—but if we get to talking we won’t make the reception.
It wasn’t just waiting for the ceremony, though. There was that energy between them. “When she came out and walked down the aisle it was like...” I search for the words. “Like something was pulled tight between them. Ready to snap.” A shiver runs down my spine. It didn’t remind me of the way I feel about Summer—not exactly. But it did remind me of possibility. “Do you think they had a moment?”
“A moment?” Sunny’s laugh is so musical when she’s delighted, and my comment delights her. “Wes and Whitney? No way. No. They’re way too different. You know that. You’ve met them both.”
I have met them both. “Opposites attract,” I tell her sagely, then lean down to nip the shell of her ear.
Summer yelps and presses herself closer in. That’s the girl I’ve always known. The one who thrills to risk and adventure, even when she shouldn’t.
I’m not a risk to her anymore. It’s the thing in my life I’m proudest of.
That, and January.
I’m seized by the desire to see her and hold her and dance with my wife and daughter at my own wedding. Summer picks up the pace alongside me. “You really think they had a moment?” she asks as we go up the stairs. The hum of conversation is already loud, music filtering out, and when we’re back in the hall it’s clear the reception has started without us.
“Maybe. But you know what?”
“What?” She takes my hand and threads her fingers through mine. In a minute, we’ll be into the chaos of the reception, and the evening will carry us away.
I Have Lived And I Have Loved: A Charity Romance Collection Page 28
