“You don’t need to change your mind. I’ve changed mine. I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t know what I was thinking all of those years ago when I left, and I don’t know what I was thinking when I drove you out of my house. All I know is that there’s nothing out there better than you. There’s no place, no person, nothing in the world better than you. And I love you. God, I love you so fucking much.”
“But we hardly know each other. It’s only been a little more than a month.”
“We know each other. It’s been a month and our whole lives. I’ve loved you for all of my life, and if you’ll let me, I’d like to keep on loving you for the rest of it. I’d like it very much if you would marry me, Fay Turner. I want you to be my wife.”
I popped the velvet box open and waited, every organ and blood vessel inside of me waiting to see what answer I would get before getting back to work. For a minute, I was sure she would say no. I’d been too much of a prick to deserve a yes from her, and she knew it. I had no right to even ask, but I had to do it. I had to know if there was a chance for me, even a small one, or else the rest of my life would be ruined.
“Yes.”
“Wait, what? Yes? Did you just say yes?”
“Yeah,” Courtney chimed in, her face as shocked as my insides felt. “Did you just say yes? Are you sure, Fay?”
“I’m sure,” she said in a sweet, wavering voice, her eyes never leaving my face. “And my answer is yes. I’ve loved you for all of my life, too, Neil Driscoll, and I can’t imagine marrying anyone else.”
Then she was in my arms, and Courtney was cheering, Courtney and Eli, too, who had followed me to the diner without me knowing. After ten years of fighting against it, I finally understood what home meant for me. It was Fay, and there was nothing else I could ever really need.
Epilogue: Fay
“Are you sure about this? You can always say no, you know that, right? It’s not like this is written in stone or anything.”
“Courtney! Come on now, you know I’m sure. Wouldn’t you be if I asked you? When we get to your and Eli’s wedding day, do you think you’ll just turn around and say no, never mind?”
“Hell no!” Courtney grinned, looking at me through the mirror while she made sure my veil was pinned properly into place. “Are you kidding me? We’ve been together since you two got engaged, and that’s been what, a year now?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“Exactly! If I can make something work for a year, there’s no way I’m giving it up. Besides, if there’s any chance that romance shit is legit, for me, it’s with Eli. And if you tell him I told you that, I’ll murder you and make it look like an accident.”
“Ha! Okay, your secret’s safe with me, I promise. Now would you get my locket?”
“Are you sure you want to wear that? You wear it every day, you know? Don’t you want to wear something extra special?”
“This is special,” I answered softly, fingering the smooth, worn metal as Courtney fastened it into place. “This is the most special piece of jewelry I have, and I can’t imagine getting married with anything else.”
“All right, if you say so, but why? Why is it so special to you, I mean?”
I smiled and thought back to my thirteenth birthday, so long ago, but so clearly imprinted in my memory that I was sure it would never fade at all. Neil had given me the locket for that birthday. He had walked from his house on the hill to my front door with locket in tow, sitting inside of a little velvet box very similar to the one he’d presented my engagement ring with.
My mother had answered the door and had retrieved me for the red-faced, nervous boy standing there and waiting for me. As Courtney led me to the vast backyard of Neil’s family home, the scene for our small wedding, I could still see that little boy version of Neil standing there and waiting for me. I could see him in the man that was waiting at the end of the aisle. He had waited until my mom had left the two of us alone and then he had shoved the box towards me, asking me if I would be his girlfriend at the same time.
“Do you, Fay, take this man, Neil, to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
“I do.”
“And do you, Neil, take this woman, Fay, to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
“I do.”
“With the power invested in me by the state of Alaska, I now pronounce you man and wife. Neil, you may kiss your bride.”
As Neil leaned in and kissed me, kissed me as he officially made me his wife, I could still see that time so long ago when he had leaned forward and kissed me chastely after I had told him that I would love to be his girlfriend. I realized in that moment that he was still at least some of that little boy, while I was still some of that little girl. We were those versions of ourselves as well as the versions we were now, and we would be both and more as we went about the process of growing old together.
I kissed him back, and as he took me by the hand and led me down the aisle and back towards the massive house the two of us would live in now, I thought I might have just caught the faintest glimpse of what it meant to love a person for the span of a lifetime. It was too big to hold onto, and I was sure that I would lose sight of it sooner rather than later, but in that moment. I felt that I understood everything. It filled my heart with joy.
“Follow me,” he said.
“Follow you where?”
My thoughts had been such that I had been paying more attention to what was in my head than to where I was going. When I looked up, I saw that he was in the process of leading me to the master bedroom. Over the course of the last year, Neil had seen to it that almost the whole interior of the house had been made over, and the master bedroom was now where we slept. It was a lovely room, and one I still felt grateful to be able to call my own, but I wasn’t too sure why we were going to it now. All of our friends were still downstairs, getting ready to party and celebrate our wedding, and our bedroom had nothing to do with that. Still, his fingers were intertwined with mine, and he was leading me towards the bed, his intentions suddenly crystal clear.
“But Neil, we can’t! There are people waiting for us down there!”
“Let them wait. I love you, Fay. I love you, and I want to show you that.”
The part of me that wanted to play a good hostess was anxious to fight him and insist that we go downstairs and save what he had in mind for later. But there was a whole other part of me that I wasn’t sure had even existed before this second relationship with Neil. In so many ways, it was a continuation of the relationship we’d been a part of for almost all of our lives. This was the part of me that wanted to let him love me, that wanted to love him back, and this was the part of me that won out.
I didn’t put up any kind of fight. Instead, I raised my hands over my head in a submissive gesture that made him smile a little. He took the simple white shift I had chosen as my wedding dress and pulled it over my head, laying it out gently so that I could put it back on again when we were done. My arms came down, and I stood before Neil, naked. I stood before my husband and looked up at him with wide, expectant eyes. His face looking back at me was all sweet smiles and tender lines, and when he kissed me, it was after cupping my face in both of his impossibly large, strong hands.
He kissed me slowly. His lips moved on mine with something approaching timidity, feeling for my reaction as he went. Practically on my tiptoes to do it, my arms moved up to his neck and plunged into his slightly disheveled hair. I pulled him toward me as I used my tongue to separate his lips. I slipped it inside of his mouth, smiling as we continued to kiss. He groaned into my mouth.
I could feel him growing hard against my hip, and one of my hands began to slide down his chest, taking my time to unbutton his shirt as I went. He wore no undershirt beneath, and very soon, I had his bare chest exposed so that I could run my hands along the length of his muscles and feel his heart hammering underneath his skin.
“Are you nervous?” I asked with a smile, half joking and half serious as I peered into his eyes
intently.
“Of course, I’m nervous.”
“Are you?” I asked again, genuinely surprised by his response. “But why? How could you be nervous about being with me when we’ve been together so many times before?”
“I’m always nervous when I’m with you. Every time I look at you, every time I touch your skin, there are always nerves.”
“But why?” I laughed, my hands still moving over his skin, moving down to the buckle of his belt as I liberated him from his pants. “I don’t want to make you nervous! That’s awful!”
“It’s not awful. I’m glad you make me nervous. It reminds me of how special you are. Every time I’m with you, I get to remember how lucky I am to have you. I get to remember how lucky I am that you took me back. I swear to God, Fay, I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to show you how happy you make me. There’s nothing I won’t do for you, nothing I won’t give you. I get nervous when I’m with you because you’re the only thing in this world I know I can’t live without.”
Without realizing it was happening, tears had begun to slide silently down my face, but they were happy tears, and my own little reminder of how much I had gained over the past year. I kissed him on the place where his heart lay and then pulled at his pants, standing back a little as he removed them the rest of the way.
My hand went to his long, throbbing member. My fingers ran along the length of him slowly, savoring the feeling of him beneath my fingertips. He gasped, then shut his eyes and threw his head back while my hand moved steadily. I could feel him growing slick as I grew slick at the same time. When neither of us could take it any longer, he gently removed my hand and led me to the bed.
He climbed on top, and then I climbed on top as well, moving my body so that I was hovering above him. When I was in position, I stopped and looked down upon him, surveying all of the wonderful things he was and reveling in the feeling of his eyes roving over me. The two of us had built quite a history for ourselves together in his bed, and despite that fact, there was something about this time that felt different to me.
This time when I looked down upon him, I knew not only that I belonged to him but that he belonged to me as well. It was the most empowering feeling I had ever experienced, and when I reached down to guide him inside of me, I cried out with immediate pleasure, already so wet I wasn’t sure that I could take much more. I hadn’t planned this interlude, hadn’t thought it was the best idea, but now that we were in the middle of it, there was nothing in the world I wanted more.
“God, Fay,” he sighed, his hands moving to my hips while his thumbs traced little circles on the sensitive skin that lived there. “God, I love you so much it hurts me.”
“Don’t let it hurt. Just love me. Just love me and let me love you back.”
We began to move at the same pace. His dick was deep inside of me. The feeling caused me to moan.
I sat up so he was deep inside of me, and I began to move my hips back and forth, rolling my body as I did so.
“That feels so good,” he said to me as his hands reached up and grasped my tits. He squeezed them, and the feeling caused me to move faster. I felt myself getting closer and closer to my climax. Then he stopped me and grabbed my hips, pulling me down so our chests were touching.
He began to move his cock in and out of me quickly.
“Oh fuck,” I moaned into his ear.
“Are you gonna come for me?” he asked.
It turned me on, and I felt myself getting closer to my release once again. Neil started moaning more, and even though we’d only had sex a few times, I knew he was getting close. “Come for me,” he said into my ear.
He moved faster, and I moved my body with him. In an instant, I felt the best release of my life. Neil wrapped his arms around me as he had his climax, and I had to admit the feeling made the end of my orgasm even more intense.
I climbed off of him and laid next to him on the bed.
“I love you, Fay. You know that, right?”
“I do,” I answered dreamily, fighting off the sleep that threatened to come in preparation of the celebrating still left to do. “I really do.”
“And do you know what else?”
“No, I don’t. Tell me?”
“This is it, Fay.”
“This is what?”
“This is it. This is the fairytale. It’s what everyone is looking for, what you were looking for. It’s the fairytale, and you and I actually found it.”
Rescue Me
Chapter 1
Blaine
I was posted up at the bar, having some drinks and scoping out chicks, like any other night for me. However, this Friday, I’d decided on a bar in West Palm Beach, an area a bit rowdier than the bars in Palm Beach that I normally frequented. I came here because I needed a change of pace, and I didn’t feel like dealing with stuck-up bitches who were only looking for one thing, deep pockets.
This bar, the Restless Wind, was a cool place to hang out in a relaxed atmosphere. It was a little dirty, a little shady, and full of normal, everyday people. West Palm Beach was a working town with lower to middle-class surroundings, people that worked hard for their money, and who liked to play just as hard. Palm Beach was for the rich people, the ones who owned companies, worked directly for the owner, or were trust fund babies.
I was a little of both. I’d taken over my parents’ law firm, and I had a trust fund, but that life bored me. It was the same thing, day in and day out. Coming out to the Restless Wind was exactly what I needed to break the monotony.
It was likely that I would see a fight while I was here, and wading through the chicks for a good one was definitely an interesting affair, but I didn’t have to worry about the silicone honeys only talking to me once I told them about the firm. I hated the damn business, anyway. I only worked their out of guilt and a sense of obligation. It had turned into a hassle and a headache.
I hated going home alone and that was precisely why I was here, to pick up my next honey to keep my bed loud and my loneliness at bay. Every night, I had a new chick. It had been a really long time since I’d picked up a woman that I kept around for more than a night. Finding a girl out here took some time, but getting them in my bed was easy, especially when I told them where I lived.
These chicks were the same as the Palm Beach ones, looking for their ticket to a more lucrative future. Only they didn’t have the fake tits and expensive makeup to get them there faster. Man, they had spirit, though. I loved a girl that was sassy and ready to give me some shit before I got her back to the bedroom. The girls out here were way more assertive as well, not just lying there with their tits bouncing up and down and their feet over their head. These girls liked to take control and get on top, riding me until the sun came up.
Tonight, I was determined not to let the loneliness get ahold of me. I would definitely take some beautiful broad back to Palm Beach with me. Hell, I might just take a girl across the street to the beach and bend them over the rocks out by the water. It would keep me from having to get them out of my place in the morning, something I didn’t feel like dealing with.
One thing all these chicks had in common was the fact that they were looking for their next husband. But not me. I wasn’t looking to find love and settle down. I had seen the family thing in motion, and I was not interested in becoming part of it in the least.
I had much better things to do with my time than raising some snot-nosed kid while my wife bitched at me for going to the bar. Besides, no commitment meant no stress and no heartbreak, which to me, sounded like the perfect kind of lifestyle.
These days, I had a hard enough time getting up and getting out of the house in one piece. I was surprised some days that I remembered to eat, much less take care of anyone else. I liked my freedom, I liked my quiet, and I liked to be able to combat any lack of companionship with a good amount of alcohol and a girl with her panties around her ankles, bent over a box in the back of the club. It was easy, clean, and simple, and I never had
to worry about the drama and emotions of it all.
I learned very quickly, when you let your emotions, good or bad, rule your existence, you were easily fooled into thinking life was long and good. I knew all too well that it was total bullshit, and no one really got to live the dream with the people they loved. It was a fairy tale, and I hadn’t seen the least bit of proof to show me otherwise.
I was perfectly happy living off my inheritance, regardless of how dwindling it was, and not ever seeing the damn law firm again. My parents had been lawyers, and I had gone to school to become one because that was just what our family did. I could still remember the day so clearly in my mind.
I was off for spring break, and I decided to go home to Palm Beach instead of joining my friends in the islands. I hadn’t seen my parents since New Year’s, and I thought it would be nice to surprise them and see how their firm was holding up. I also wanted to get some rest before starting to gear up for finals.
My parents decided we should all go out on the sailboat, something my father had been dying to do all winter, but the storms had been so bad, he didn’t take the boat out of dry dock. We had spent hours getting the thing ready. When it was all set, we boarded her, and the three of us spent the day on the water.
That night, though, as we headed back to shore, a group of kids were partying too hard and hauling ass through the waves without their lights on. Before my father could react, we were on them and both boats capsized. I was the only one still breathing when they pulled me out of the water. I didn’t remember anything after the crash, but I did know that I was lying in the hospital, an orphan and the inheritor of my parents’ estate, including B & B Law Firm.
I picked up my whiskey and took a sip. My thoughts were drowned out by the shrieks and yells from across the bar. I turned around on my stool and looked over, realizing that those noises were coming from a very drunk bachelorette party. I loved these damn things. They were full of drunken women, hopeful for the future because their girlfriend was getting married, and ready to get laid by random guys, just like me. I turned back around and smiled, thankful that these chicks pulled me from my thoughts. I nodded to the bartender, and he walked over.
Yours Forever: A Holiday Romance Page 44
