Neely felt beautiful in her antique dress, and the whole ceremony passed in a glorious haze. When the judge reached the I-now-pronounce-you-husband-and-wife part, and Aidan kissed her, she almost fainted with the joy of it.
Duke held a reception for the bride and groom at the restaurant, complete with wedding cake, supermarket champagne, and lots of rice and birdseed.
“I’ll look after that car of yours,” Duke said when Neely went to him to thank him and say goodbye. He was an old-timer, and it was hard for him to express emotion.
Neely stretched to kiss Duke’s freshly shaven cheek. “When somebody comes through who looks like he needs a dented Mustang,” she said with a misty smile, “you just hand him the keys and tell him to drive it in good health.”
Duke smiled. “You’ve got a generous heart, little lady. I always knew that. I know somethin’ else, too.”
Neely had never been happier, but she felt sad, too, saying goodbye to such a good friend. “What?” she sniffled, still smiling brightly.
The big man planted a shy kiss on her forehead. “That joy will follow you everywhere you go, from now on,” he answered. “You stop in and say howdy to old Duke if you’re in this neck of the woods again, you hear?”
“You can count on it,” Neely answered softly.
A few minutes later she and Aidan left the reception and drove away in their brand-new “caravan,” a couple of very proper gypsies.
Aidan, who had bought a suit and tie for the occasion, looked comfortable behind the wheel of the RV—perhaps too comfortable. He pulled off his tie and tossed it over one shoulder, then quickly unfastened the top three buttons of his shirt.
“Forgive me if I sound like a bumper sticker, Mrs. Tremayne,” he said cheerfully, keeping his eyes on the open road ahead, “but today is the first day of the rest of our lives.” Neely scrambled into the back of the RV to exchange her wedding dress for a pair of jeans, a lavender T-shirt, and sneakers. “That’s very profound,” she responded, trying to keep her voice light. The truth was, she was thinking about the patch of strong masculine chest she’d glimpsed when Aidan opened his shirt, and wondering when the honeymoon would begin.
“What are you doing back there?”
Neely rejoined her husband in the front of the RV, plopping into the passenger seat and giving him a sultry look as she fastened her seat belt in place. “What do you think I was doing?” she teased. “Sipping champagne from my shoe? Sprinkling the bed with perfume?”
A slow blush moved up Aidan’s neck and glowed along his jawline. He gave her a sidelong glance and a high-voltage grin. “I wouldn’t put it past you, you hot-blooded little vixen. You’ve been after my virtue from the first.” Neely felt her own cheeks glow, and she sagged deeper into the seat with a soft but long-suffering sigh. “Now what are we going to wait for? Our golden anniversary?”
Aidan laughed, and the sound was rich and masculine, causing Neely to want her husband that much more. “That or the first wide spot in the road,” he teased. “Whichever turns up soonest. Great Scot, woman, did you think I was going to fling you into the sheets the moment we stepped over the threshold and have my way with you, right there in the steak-house parking lot?”
This time Neely laughed, too; but her blush deepened, and she reached across to give her husband a playful slap on the arm. Then she squirmed in her seat and said, “Are we there yet?”
An hour later Aidan brought the RV to a stop at the edge of a sun-splashed meadow. Then he came around to open Neely’s door and help her out.
She had looked forward to being alone with her husband, yearned for it, in fact, but now that the time had arrived, Neely suddenly felt shy. “Here?” she whispered.
Aidan laid a hand to either side of her face and kissed her lightly, and much too briefly. “Here,” he confirmed. “Look at the way the sun slants between those trees over there. There’s something cathedral-like about the place.”
He was right, but Neely suspected the reverence they both felt came from their own hearts, rather than from the landscape around them.
“It’s beautiful,” Neely agreed.
Aidan eased past her, into the RV, and returned in a few moments carrying blankets, a chilled bottle of very good champagne, and two fluted glasses. Slipping one arm around Neely’s waist, he escorted her toward the trees where the light fell so gracefully onto the fragrant grass.
He put the champagne and glasses aside to spread the blankets over the soft ground, then beckoned to Neely. “Come over here, Mrs. Tremayne.”
She went to him happily, and he took her into his arms and held her close. He kissed her thoroughly, as he had so many times before, but this time he would not be leaving her to merely imagine his lovemaking.
After a while, when Neely was half-dazed with wanting her husband, Aidan began stripping away her clothes. He worked very slowly, tossing aside her T-shirt first, caressing and admiring her for a long time before unclasping her bra and disposing of that, too.
Her breasts stood bare and proud, their tips hardening in the spring breeze, and when Aidan bent with a groan to touch one morsel with his tongue, Neely cried out in hoarse joy and pressed him close.
They sank to the ground one limb at a time, like some graceful four-legged creature, and Aidan continued to enjoy Neely’s full breasts. She kicked off her sneakers and tore at the zipper of her jeans, and Aidan chuckled against her nipple and stilled her frantic hand with his own. He made her wait.
Finally, though, each was bared to the other.
Aidan stroked Neely’s thighs lightly and made teasing circles on her belly with his fingers.
“No longer, Aidan,” she whispered franticly, slipping both arms around his neck. “I’ve waited too long, and I want you so much—”
“And I want you,” he said, his mouth falling to hers. Their tongues battled, then mated. With a groan Aidan mounted Neely, easing her legs apart with one knee.
She cried out and arched her back as he glided inside her and settled deep for a moment, claiming her, letting her body get used to his.
He chuckled as he nibbled at her lips. “Little vixen,” he teased. She struggled beneath him, wanting to thrash and writhe, but he held her firmly in place.
Neely made a sound that was half passion and half frustration. “Aidan,” she pleaded, “make love to me—please— or I swear it’s going to happen on its own!”
Aidan raised himself onto his elbows, withdrew from her, then made a steady, smooth lunge into her warmth again.
That was all it took. Neely’s body was so primed for Aidan’s conquering that one stroke brought on a raging, cataclysmic climax. Eyes unfocused, she jerked helplessly beneath him while a low, lingering wail of pleasure poured from her throat.
Aidan held Neely while she responded, lodged far within her, and murmured gentle, senseless words against her ear. She’d been still, dazed and sated, for some time before he moaned and stiffened and spilled his warm seed inside her.
For a long time they lay there, arms and legs entwined, bodies joined, and their breaths might have been one breath, their heartbeats a single steady meter.
“I’m sorry,” Neely said when she could finally speak.
Aidan raised his head and looked at her with incredulous, ink-blue eyes. “What did you say?”
“I was so eager. It happened so fast.” Tears started in her lashes because she wanted Aidan to be pleased, the way she was, and she thought she’d failed.
He kissed the moisture away, aroused her all over again simply by caressing her eyelids with the tip of his tongue. “No, darling,” he whispered tenderly, “this day has been an eternity in the making.” He slid lower, brushed his lips over her collarbone and the soft rounding of her breasts. “And the best part is,” he added presently, “that this is only the beginning.”
Neely spread her hands over Aidan’s muscled back then, and a sob escaped her, a hoarse, splendid sound born of jubilation, not sorrow. Their souls spoke a silent, private language, and their bod
ies needed no words at all.
When they had spent still more of their passion, they drank champagne from their wedding glasses and, with laughing reluctance, began to dress each other. When it became a game, however, and the players started kissing places before they covered them, the clothes came off again.
“We’re going to catch pneumonia, lying out here in the breeze in the altogether,” Aidan said some time later.
“You’re right.” Neely sat up and started reaching for scattered garments and pulling them on. She was ridiculously happy, and she couldn’t help humming a little under her breath. “I’m glad we didn’t wait for our golden anniversary.”
Aidan, who had dressed more quickly, pulled Neely to her feet and kissed her as they collided. “I could never have lasted past the silver one,” he teased.
Once they’d put away the blankets and glasses and the champagne, Aidan got behind the wheel and started the engine.
“Well, Mrs. Tremayne, where do we go now? South to Mexico, or north to Canada?”
Neely considered, smoothing her hopelessly crumpled T-shirt and straightening her seat belt. “Surprise me,” she said.
Late that night Aidan and Neely stopped in a moonlit RV park, at the edge of a southbound highway. There they grilled hamburgers on their tiny stove, crowded into their minuscule shower stall together, and finally made feverish love on the fold-out bed.
Aidan slept when it was over, but Neely lay curled against his side, watching the stars through the skylight in the roof of the motor home as they did their intricate, shining dance around the moon. If anybody had ever told her she was going to be this happy, she reflected, she would have thought the notion was insane.
After the sky patterns had shifted several times, Neely rose, pulled an oversized T-shirt over her head, and crept to the drawer where she kept her most treasured belongings. Inside were school pictures of Danny, a necklace that had belonged to her mother, and the antique music box that
Aidan had given her the night he proposed.
Holding the box close to her heart, Neely made her way to the door, opened it quietly, and stepped out into the silver-spangled night. She needed to be in the open spaces, at least for a few minutes, because the RV was simply too small to contain all the love and gratitude she felt.
Standing on the metal step, Neely wound the key on the bottom of the rosewood box, then lifted the lid. Sweet, oddly familiar music flowed into the night, and Neely danced in the damp and scented grass, turning round and round, like the stars overhead.
When she had spent her energy, she stopped the music and went back inside to crawl into bed next to her husband.
Aidan slept without reservation, sprawled every which way, with one arm flung back over his head. “Hmmm?” he said.
Neely smiled, kissed the pulsepoint at the base of his throat, and thought briefly of a wondrously handsome, elegant vampire who had once visited her dreams.
How odd, she thought as she toppled into sweet sleep, that she should think of him now.
Forever and the Night (The Black Rose Chronicles) Page 31
