by Lee Heaven
Before long we were standing in front of each other. Listening and reciting our vows. Telling each other how much we loved each other. How much we planned to love each other for the rest of our lives. How we planned to cherish and take care of each other. Then he had me in his arms, lifting me off the ground and kissing me like it was our first time. Kissing me like he would never kiss me again and wanted to remember what I tasted like, what I felt like. When Tyler finally pulled away our guests were clapping and a blush spread across my cheeks.
“Come, Mrs. Ellis, let’s go dance the night away and party with our friends,” he whispered as he placed another swift kiss on my lips.
My shoes have long been abandoned under the table as my girls and I got busy on the dance floor. Currently Flo Rider is singing Low. The first time the line, gave her big booty a slap played I looked right at Tyler who was sitting around the table with the guys and slapped my ass. Tyler stood suddenly and as the song sang about going low, I lowered myself on Sarah’s leg, as she laughed at me. Tyler was suddenly behind me pulling me into his body, hips moving to the music we dirty danced our way through song after song.
Dinner was served on gleaming white plates. Ratatouille for a starter, followed by a choice of Creole snapper topped with a tomato and pineapple-ginger relish, carrot and potato mash, and baby broccoli or an artisan peppercorn dusted beef filet, a fancy expensive steak sauce, duck fat rosemary roasted fingerlings potatoes, and cauliflower.
The cake was a square five tiered red velvet cake covered with a white fondant, pearls and crystals. White hyacinth flowers wove their way around the cake. Along with the cake were hundreds of different types of truffles and chocolates. Wine and champagne flowed out of bottles and into crystal stemware all night. It was a night I would never forget.
When it was time to go Tyler swept me into his arms and laid one last kiss on me for show to our guests. Our bags were waiting for us in the car and as Jimmy whisked us across a few blocks to a small hotel for the night I couldn’t have been happier.
We were staying at a small hotel in the SoHo district, aptly named The SoHo house. Our room wasn’t very big, maybe only eight hundred square feet, but it was perfect for the night. A large carved wooden king bed sat against one wall, covered in white cotton sheets. A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. Across from the bed was a large free standing bathtub. A bathroom was off another wall and hosted a huge walk-in rain shower. Honestly, I could honeymoon in this room. Never leave this room for a week if I wanted to.
Tyler stepped up behind me unzipping my dress. Slowly he peeled the dress down my body, revealing the light blue strapless bra and matching panties and garter belt. I stood there in my lingerie and heels and Tyler’s eye’s took in my body. Slowly my hands rise to his body and I slid his coat off his shoulders, letting it fall to the floor to join my dress. Taking the cufflinks out of the shirt sleeves cuffs I place them on the small table in the sitting area. Pulling his shirt from the waist of his pants I undo the buttons and push it off his body till it joins my dress and his jacket. Tyler toes off his shoes and socks as I unbutton his pants and pull down the zipper. Letting go they fall to the ground and he’s left standing there in light blue boxer briefs.
Tyler pushes a strand of hair behind my ear and then drags his fingers across my jaw. I stepped up to his body and crushed my lips against his. Tyler picks me up, instinctively I wrapped my legs around his waist as he walked over to the bed, making sure to sit down and then roll over on top of me. His fingers pulled my breast from the cup, his lips leave mine and attach onto my breast, sucking and licking my nipple to a fine point. Releasing my other breast from my bra he did the same thing to the other nipple.
“Tyler,” I whispered his name in a plea.
His hands moved south slowly, releasing the straps from the garter from the pantyhose’s his fingers run down both my legs at the same time pulling the silk stockings down my legs. He reached back up and pulled my panties off tossing them somewhere on the floor to join the rest of our clothes. He licked and nipped at my skin as he made his way back up my body.
“Beautiful wife,” he whispered as he pushed himself into me, filling me with his huge cock.
Slowly he made love to me. Not rushing through anything, looking into my eyes the whole time. Slowly he thrust in and out of me. Bringing me to orgasm multiple times. Even as he got closer to his release he never moved faster than the loving pace we were going at.
~~~
I sit on beach lounger in front of the infinity pool overlooking the white sand beach and blue ocean water in Jamaica. The house is on a private beach and the neighbors on each side are a few hundred yards up. It’s a very private area. The house is gorgeous a white Caribbean style house with red slate roof tiles. The warm eighty degree weather is so much better than the freezing weather we left behind in New York.
“Here my darlin’” Tyler said as he placed a glass of cold iced water on the table between us.
We didn’t have time to exchange gifts last night. Between the wedding and then the wedding night there just wasn’t time. I didn’t want to give him the present on the plane, so here we sit just an hour after we got here sitting in the most perfect spot to give our presents to each other.
He hands me a teal Tiffany box. Inside was a beautiful necklace in the shape of a Faberge egg. It was covered in diamonds and eighteen karat gold. It hung from a sixteen inch gold chain. I don’t think I even want to begin to imagine how much this cost him. He took the box from my hand and handed me a red envelope. It was made of silk and the flap was held by a giant round pearl button. I opened the envelope and pulled out three folded bundles of paper, all individually paper clipped. I opened the first one and tears filled my eyes threatening to break over. I quickly looked at the other two bundles.
“The whole floor?” I whispered.
“Yes,” he said back with a smile. “I told you, I’ll do anything to make your dreams come true. You want a big family, I’m going to give you one. When I get home from spring training we’ll look into contactors. I figured we can turn two of the apartments into more living space and bedrooms for us and the other apartment we can turn into living quarters for a couple of nanny’s.”
I smile up at Tyler. God I love him. I reach over and grab the little black box that I had part of his gift in. Handing it to him he smiles at me and places a small kiss on my lips. Inside was a pair of cufflinks. On one it said ‘Meet me at the altar 4:30pm’ on the other it said ‘Love me forever 2/6/15’.
“If I had a shirt on I’d put them on right now,” he said with a huge smile looking down and his bare skin glistening in the sun. I hand him the envelope that Theo had handed me before the wedding. He opened it and took the papers out. His face froze in a bewildered look as he read the first page. He must have stared at that page for five minutes without saying a thing. Finally, he flipped through the rest of the papers. He must have looked at the packet three times before he turned to me, tears in his eyes. “Seriously?” he finally asked.
I shook my head yes.
“How?” he questioned.
“He knew it was for the best.”
“They’re really mine?”
“Yup,” I smiled at him.
Tyler sat there looking at the papers. The papers that Jeremy signed willingly. The papers that made Tyler able to adopt Kris and Felicity. The papers that made us a complete family. The papers that allowed Tyler make them his own.
I called Jeremy one day and we had a good talk. He was finally able to admit that he needed help. That there was something wrong mentally with him. He finally went to the VA and started getting help. He admitted that he did care for me, but he never really loved me, everything was born from jealousy over Kristopher. Jealousy that I chose Kristopher that first night, that I married him first, that I was so lost without him. Jealousy that I was having Kristopher’s son. That all the beatings and cheating were because even though we were married for years and I stuck by his side through a
ll of it, he was still jealous. Jealous that I would never love him the way that I loved Kristopher, so he coped with the beatings and cheating hoping to scare me into loving and needing him the way I had loved and needed Kristopher. That by signing Kris’s birth certificate he was in a way of sticking it to Kristopher and saying ‘ha ha I have your family now’. Even discovered that he never really wanted Felicity, just felt it was the right thing to do. I remember crying as he told me that, but then he softened the blow by saying that he was sorry for everything and he was signing papers over to me so Tyler could adopt the kids.
“What are you talking about? You’re giving up your kids?”
“Chrissy, I was never really their father,” he whispered. “I watched you guys when I came to the city all those months ago. I followed you guys for weeks. I saw how he was with the kids. I saw how he treated them, how he played with them. How even though he is this big famous guy he would take the kids into the park and play with them. He’d run around in the grass playing soccer. He was showing Kris how to hit a baseball. He was doing all the things I should have done all those years ago. All the things I should have thought of myself, but was too busy screwing around to do. He’s who you should be with. He’s who should be raising your kids.”
“Jeremy, if you sign those papers you won’t have any rights, any say over the kids.”
“I know. It’s better this way. It’s been almost two years since you left and I haven’t actually seen or talked to the kids once, except for that day on the street, and they said nothing to me, they cowered away from me. I haven’t made contact with them or they with me. Giving him my kids is best for all of us.”
“We’ll start all the paperwork when we get back,” I smiled as I crawled onto the lounger he was sitting on, settling between his legs. “They will be the first ones we adopt and then we’ll move on to finding more kids to fill our home once it’s completed.”
“I will love you forever darlin’” he whispered as he planted a kiss on my shoulder.
I couldn’t wait to start my life with Tyler. I couldn’t wait to give my kids the life they deserve. I couldn’t wait to adopt more kids with Tyler and give them a life they deserve and need. I was finally happy. I was finally getting everything I had ever dreamed of. But all that was going to start after we spent the next ten days relaxing in the sun, loving on each other and being in love with a man who is willing to give me everything and anything my heart and soul wanted. A man who gave me my life back, one smile and laugh at a time.
~~~
I’m standing on the edge of the sand, each wave nipping at my toes. I can’t find one single thing to complain about these last few days. Sleeping in late, lounging on the beach or by the pool, eating local food, and scuba diving.
I can remember the first time Tyler took me scuba diving. It was our second day here. After a lunch at a local restaurant we walked through town and over to a pier. When Tyler saw the sign for scuba diving his eyes light up and he looked at me like a little boy seeing an ice cream shop.
“I’ve never been before,” I said as I looked in the store window.
“We went snorkeling yesterday. It’s just like that except you get to go deeper in the water and see more. It’ll be fun come on,” he said as he pulled me into the store.
We spent the next twenty minutes getting into gear and going over safety guidelines. Finally, we got on a boat and motored out to the SS Kathryn Wreck. The tour guide explained that the SS Kathryn was an old minesweeper that was sunk off the coast back in the 90s to create an artificial reef.
Once in the water I was breathless. Fish swam around us, some coming up right to our faces. I didn’t get close to it but off in the distance there was sea turtle and even closer a huge octopus. As we swam around I was amazed at everything. I didn’t want to stop exploring. I wanted to stay in the warm water forever. We went scuba diving five more times after that. Each time exploring a new place and seeing different fish and sea life.
But that’s all over now. In just a few hours we’ll be headed home. We’ll stop in Florida and I’ll leave Tyler there so he can join the team for spring training tomorrow, then I’ll be headed back to New York and life without my husband for six weeks.
“Darlin’” he whispers in my ear as he wraps his arms around my waist. “What are you thinking about?”
I smile out into the blue ocean, “How perfect this place is. How warm and sunny it is. How I could just stay here forever. Do we have to go back?”
His chuckle is deep as he plants a kiss on my temple. “Someday we can move here, okay?” I nod my head. “We have about an hour before we have to leave.”
“What’s the weather back home?”
“You really want to know?” He laughs as I nod my head. “It’s fucking cold. Twenty-eight degrees and their calling for a few inches of snow tomorrow.”
“Ugh, are you sure we can’t stay here?” I am not ready to go back to the cold weather. As much as I love the city, I can’t stand the brutal cold at times. Snow, ice, whipping wind, sub-zero temperatures, it just gets to be too much, it gets old and tiring, and stuck indoors all day it brings on cabin fever like you wouldn’t believe.
But this is my life, my life that I love. My kids, my family, my friends, my husband, all there to help me put my life back together and start over again. I smile at the thought of my future with this man who loves me beyond anything I could ever dream of.
And now it’s time to start that life.
EPILOGUE
“MOM!” Bronx screamed for me as the front door slammed shut. Bronx’s is our youngest, he came to us at one years’ old and we adopted him when he was two, and tomorrow is his eighteenth birthday. He was also the tenth kid. True to Tyler’s word we had ten kids.
Kristopher now thirty-two, Felicity now twenty-nine, Payton now twenty-one, Cage now twenty-two, the twins, Noah and Quinn now twenty-one, Brooklyn and Niko, while not twins are only a few weeks apart at twenty, Lizbeth is now nineteen, and Bronx, ten kids in all. How I made it through the past thirty years of raising all these kids and not going insane in beyond me. While the first ten years of raising kids wasn’t always the easiest , getting beat by Jeremy, but I survived and I found the man I love and have been with for the past twenty years.
While we didn’t buy a house in Jamaica like we had talked about on our honeymoon, we did retire to the Bahamas, a nine bedroom villa right on the beach. With a guest/pool house with three more bedrooms. I wanted a smaller place, but Tyler took the time to point out that with ten kids and five grandkids already we’d need a big place in order to house everyone when they come to visit. So he won out and got the big house, but got me a maid to help with the cleaning also.
“Bronx, I’m in the kitchen,” I yelled out to him.
Bronx came strutting into the kitchen with that teenage swagger that they all have. I remember when he came to us. Kristen Lewis, who was our social worker from the first day Payton and Cage were at our door, called in a panic. They had just found a one year old little boy in a cardboard box. He was filthy and sitting in a two day old diaper so filled she said she was surprised it was still attached to him. Tyler was away at a game and I rushed to the hospital with Sarah by my side. One look at his dark hair and crystal blue eyes I was in love. He reminded me so much of Tyler.
Bronx’s was so dirty, covered in flea bites and had a diaper rash so bad that he couldn’t even stand to lie down because his butt hurt so bad. His was screaming like a maniac as the doctors looked him over, trying to escape everybody, but he took one look at me, calmed down, held his arms out to me and then snuggled into my arms. Tyler and I had talked about adopting more than ten, but I took one look at Bronx and I knew he was going to be my last.
“Dad just called, Uncle Theo and Aunt Mary landed about five minutes ago and he said that Uncle Daniel’s plane should be landing with everyone else in about fifteen minutes,” he said as he grabbed a chunk of the pineapple I just cut up on the plate.
I
was happy Theo was still in our lives, that he made something of himself and pulled himself out of the destructive behavior he had before I gave him a chance. After my cousin gave him a job and Theo proved himself to Tyler life just got easier for him. He finally saw the way that Mary Beth looked at him and started looking at her the same way, they were married less the six months later and are still together. Theo and my cousin took the small business that my cousin was running and grew it more than either of them could ever dream of. They are so big they moved into a twenty thousand square foot building where they have over two hundred employees. Theo got his finances in order and two years after he started his job, he was living completely on his own money and made an offer to buy the house from Tyler. Tyler pulled a pile of papers from his safe and handed them to Theo, as Theo looked them over his eyes bugged out of his head. Turned out when Tyler bought the house he had it put in Theo’s name. Tyler had always planned on giving Theo the house, he just wanted Theo to grow up and prove himself first. And that is exactly what Theo did. Theo became the man that everyone could be proud of.
“Thank you, baby,” I smiled at him and got a typical eye roll.
It’s been close to a year since I’ve seen everybody. When the boys retired from baseball we all sort of spread across the world in our own way. Sarah and Decker stayed in the city, partially because Shawn wouldn’t let them take Josie to another state and partially because a few years after he retired Decker was offered the manager’s job, Tyler played two seasons for Decker before retiring and making our move down here. Decker managed the team for ten years before finally retiring for good, they’ve settled down in Miami, Florida for the past five years. Maggie and Tobias settled in Rancho Santa Fe, California. Roman and Laura moved to Colorado and bought a ranch out there big enough that we could all own a house on the land and never see each other. Jimmy and Chelsea stayed with Sarah and Decker in New York at first, and then finally moved to Palermo, Italy. Maggie’s neighbor Jacob and his wife, stayed at their house on Long Island, the same house at some point almost all of us escaped to, to get away from something that had happened. Tristan, who had rented Maggie’s house before another neighbor went crazy and later, became part of our group moved to Chicago. Daniel is traveling the world and never really settled anywhere.
