by S. K Munt
Ahem! Add ‘Weaver’ hmm? Think, woman! How can he give you a name he doesn’t legally have? No library card means no marriage license or wife, comprende? This is an act to get you into bed- a fantastic one, no doubt- but a ruse all the same!
‘Leigh, honey… please…’ Ryan pressed kisses all over her chest and began to work his way up to her mouth again, his breathing so erratic that it jolted all of her senses apart until they couldn’t find one another. ‘I need you to say yes! I need to know you feel this too!’
Leigh closed her eyes to hold back tears. Her beautiful, romantic, scheming man! Oh, how she wanted to be his, and her hers! ‘I feel it,’ she whispered, opening her eyes and staring into his. ‘But I can’t say yes, Ry. I can’t marry you- logically it’s just not viable and emotionally, neither of us is there.’
Ryan’s face fell, and his hand slipped from her wrists. ‘You don’t want to be with me?’
Leigh almost burst into frustrated tears. ‘In every way I can be…’ her voice wobbled, and she trailed her fingers down the sides of his perfect face. ‘Which is why I want you to make love to me.’ She reached up and kissed him chastely, the wobble working its way into her limbs as she gave in the ground she’d been holding for so long. ‘Make love to me, and we’ll see what we have after.’
Ryan sucked in a breath. ‘No!’ He shook his head, rearing up and staring down at her with eyes bright with accusations. ‘That’s what you think this is? That I’m asking you to marry me so I can get you into the sack?’
Leigh winced. ‘No…’ she bit her lip, not sure how to explain her complex feelings without insulting him. ‘I just don’t think you’d be asking if we had already… I…’ she blushed and looked at the cuff around his wrist- the one concealing the bandage. ‘You’re trying to be a gentleman and that’s so wonderful but-’
A hand gripped her chin and yanked her head up, almost savagely. ‘This has nothing to do with being a gentleman. You have something you need, and I have something I need- they both happen to be the exact same fucking things- so say yes already so we can have everything!’ He kissed her fiercely, making her whimper and kiss back just as passionately, hoping that his arousal would outweigh his offense.
Kiss me! Take me! Just please god, don’t break me!
But he tore his mouth away from hers and groaned into her hair, breathing haggardly. ‘Don’t,’ he panted. ‘Don’t fucking push me Leigh. I’ll take you now and make you agree to become my wife after- the order doesn’t really matter to me. But it’s the sentiment that counts- you need to give yourself to me because you trust me, not because you think I’m playing you right!’
‘But your memories-’
‘No memory in the world can compare to the ones I already have of you.’ He rocked up, dragging her with him, and forced her to straddle his hips and meet his gaze. ‘I’m in love with Leigh Dallas-Hone and not a woman whose name I don’t even know.’
‘But you don’t know my name!’ she whispered piteously, framing his jaw with her hands and watching his eyes bulge. ‘That’s just one more problem! How can two people who don’t even know each other’s real names know anything about what it takes to make a marriage work? And how can I believe the words: ‘I love you, Leigh,’ or ‘Marry me, Leigh’ from a man who I don’t even know well enough yet to have confessed that that’s not even my name?’ She nodded towards his cuff. ‘And what the hell is going on there? Ryan I don’t know anything about what it takes to make a person leap off Niagara Falls or cut themselves when they’re overwhelmed, but I do know that throwing yourself into another romance without testing the waters first is just reckless!’
‘What do you mean, I don’t know your name?’ Ryan’s eyes were wide. ‘I’ve seen your passport a few times now!’
‘I had it changed when I was eighteen,’ Leigh confessed, pressing her face into his hands to shield herself from his blazing eyes. ‘It had always been an issue at school and I didn’t want it to carry on once I started looking for work so I dropped it and made my middle name my first name instead…’
Ryan pried her hands away from her face. ‘Are you serious? I can’t believe you haven’t told me, given everything I’ve gone through over my own damn name!’
Leigh nodded in miserable agreement. ‘I know and I’m sorry. It’s just that... well, most people back home know it, so there’s not much I can do about that, so when I have a chance at a blank slate, like you said before with strangers- I leave it out of conversation because...’
‘Because...?’ He made a face. ‘Leigh you don’t honestly believe that having a dull name like Meg or a crazy one like Sunflower Bohemia actually changes who you are, do you?’
‘It doesn’t change a damn thing for me,’ she said, lifting her chin. ‘I love my name. But unfortunately, it makes people treat me like even more of a baby than the bug eyes and the blonde hair and the five feet of nothing I am…’ she bit her lip and looked into his eyes. ‘Can you imagine what it was like being all that, and having the moniker of ‘Honey’ to boot?’
Ryan sucked in a breath, his hands tightening around her biceps. ‘Your name is Honey? Like in the song?’
Leigh lowered her lashes. ‘Honey-Leigh Dallas-Hone.’ She cringed, as she always did when forced to say the whole thing out loud. ‘I was named after that song. Apparently it was playing on the radio in the hospital when I was born, and mum and dad took it as a sign so-’ she stopped talking when Ryan lifted his wrist to her gaze and tore the cuff off it, his fingers tearing at the bandage until it fell away as well revealing the fresh black markings that had been engraved into his slightly red and swollen flesh. They were in Greek, like the last, but there were more letters in two lines, smaller and smeared with blood and black dust.
‘W-what does that…’
‘I got it this afternoon,’ Ryan said softly, his eyes trained on hers, bright with conviction. ‘It says: Property of my Honey. If lost, return to Honeybee 7926.’
Leigh’s mouth fell open. ‘What?!’ She couldn’t believe it! ‘You put my username on your arm for ETERNITY?!’ She stared up at his face, wondering if he really was crazy. ‘Why would you do that?!’
Ryan smiled fondly down at his wrist. ‘So that if I ever relapse… I could Google you…’ his eyes moved back to her face, and the adoration within them was as clear as the diamond facets in his eyes. ‘… and get back to where I know I belong.’
Leigh’s heart cracked open, and she knew it would never, ever be closed to him again. ‘Ryan you…’ her eyes spilled over and she laced her fingers through his hand, kissing his knuckles. ‘7926 spells Ryan on a keypad…’ she bit her lip when his eyes widened. ‘Those numbers are right through my life. My ATM codes, my passwords, on all of my usernames I…’
Ryan swallowed, as though he too were choking on the beauty of the serendipity between their lives. ‘So I’ll have my own name on me, as well as yours?’
Leigh nodded, turning his hand so that she could look down at the tattoo again. ‘Yeah… yeah I guess you will.’ Leigh leaned down and kissed his skin, then lifted her eyes to his. ‘You are all sorts of incredible, do you know that? I can’t believe you did this!’ She wiped at her eyes but that didn’t shift any of the crippling emotion within her chest. ‘All because you read my review?’
‘You love me.’ Ryan lowered his arm so that he could take her by the hips with both hands. ‘Everything you like the most about him, are the things I think I like the most about me. Sure, he and I have a lot of surface qualities and hobbies and interests and stuff in common, so it was easy to get mad at the idea of you projecting other stuff onto me but…’ he leaned in and kissed her breastbone, lifting his lashes to gaze up at her from beneath them. ‘But you love the little things, sweetheart, and that counts for me.’ He cupped her face. ‘I don’t want to be the tortured artist Leigh, or the sullen bad boy. I like being happy! I like taking care of you!’ He brushed her hair behind her ears. ‘That’s where he and I differ, really, and I’m glad that you li
ked the cheerful bits the best. I don’t intend on getting a broken heart, here… I don’t want to sing the blues, even if it works for ninety-nine percent of the female population, I like sentimental songs like Honey. And funny songs like, like The Tribute.’ Leigh grinned and he responded with a brighter one. ‘And you get that about me. Just because I can play For Whom the bell Tolls and get a rush from it…. doesn’t mean I want to live with that sort of gloomy heavy metal perspective.’ He hugged her tightly. ‘Sometimes, I wonder if I want to be a rock star at all, you know? Why can’t I try country? Why can’t I try painting something or be an Innkeeper, like Imogen suggested?’
Leigh raised an eyebrow. ‘Because the world would hurt without your voice?’
He smiled, pleased and obviously flattered. ‘And I’ll hurt without you, at my side all the time- because I like this.’ His hands swept up her back. ‘I want to be your husband, Leigh.’ His hands rolled over her shoulders and slid down her biceps. ‘I want to put babies in your belly and meet your parents and holiday here and live wherever the hell we want to.’ He leaned in and kissed her collarbone, then fluttered his eyelashes along it, making her gasp. ‘I want to live the books, like you- but all of the romance ones.’ He tilted her chin up, kissing the sensitive skin beneath it and making her tingle. ‘Including Fifty Shades, by the way, because I cannot wait to spank this pretty ass of yours...but maybe starting with something a little sweeter…’
Leigh’s eyelashes fluttered shut as one of his hands began to fondle her breasts while the other cupped her neck, arching her back and supporting her while he moved his lips everywhere else. ‘Like what…?’ she breathed, her nipple hardening in his mouth while he toyed with the other.
Ryan hummed and shifted beneath her, and she felt her sex pulse as his erection strained through his denim jeans and into her. ‘What’s your fantasy…?’ he asked, taking her waist and bowing her back so that she regarded the fireplace upside down. The blood rushed to her head as his lips slid down between her breasts and to her belly button, making her suck it in to flatten his path.
‘You are...’ she moaned, running her hands up her face and into her hair. ‘Every time you so much as smile at me, I come up with a new one...’
‘Yeah?’ His hands slid up her abdomen and grasped her breasts with both hands, cupping them and kneading them with his firm, long fingers while his tongue tickled her pelvic bone just above her pale pink satin and lace thong. ‘Like what?’
‘Like you taking me backstage. Like you making out with me in your hot tub and playing with me underwater…’ Fingers twisted her nipples gently and she gasped.
‘Like that?’ Ryan demanded huskily, kneading her again.
‘Yes!’
‘Or like this…?’ A finger traced a line down the centre of her body and then nudged her clit and she tingled all over, convulsing when it slid over and pressed between her folds and up into her.
‘Yes! Yes like that! Oh… when you had me in that boat all I wanted you to do was throw the damn paddles and push me to the floor and- oh!’ The finger hooked her panties to the side and a whisper of a breath slipped over her humid sex, making her see stars. ‘Ryan… please!’
Ryan replaced her panties and groaned, taking her waist again and rocking his hips into her. ‘Oh fuck… Leigh you’re so wet that I can see through your thong…’ he flipped her upright suddenly, holding her flat against him with one hand while kissing her passionately. As his tongue worked its way into her mouth, his thumb stretched down between them and began to rub her wildly making her hips slide back and forth on his groin while her belly filled with heat and pressure. She slung one arm around his neck and pulled him closer, and then began to tear frantically at the buttons of his shirt and vest with the other, desperate to have him as naked and sweaty and out of his mind as she was as she slid her tongue along his teasingly.
‘Marry me!’ Ryan’s hand slipped into her panties and began to stroke her twice as intimately, sliding his fingers up from her slit and against her clit, using her slickness to lubricate his fingertips while he circled her lavishly. Leigh cried out as an erumpent orgasm went from threatening to imminent due to the embrocation, ripping his sleeves off his broad shoulders and down to his elbows. His muscles bulged, not allowing her to budge the stubborn fabric past the buttoned cuffs that he’d rolled up and secured above his elbows, but she already had the best part out and so she slid her hands down his abdominals, earning a guttural grunt from him that became a pant when she hooked her fingers around his fly and popped the button open.
‘Fuck me!’ she whispered back, and Ryan gasped and rose to a standing position slowly, looping her thighs around his waist and shifting in position, running his teeth along her jaw.
‘Oh, I’m going to...’ He tugged on her earlobe with those teeth, and suckled on her pulse as he stepped out of his shoes. ‘But only if you agree to be my wife first...’
His wife.
The word sounded more beautiful passing his lips than any other word ever had. Leigh glanced down and saw that he’d kicked his shoes off and a wave of excitement washed over her. She could have him now, only on the condition that she kept him forever! It was Ryan’s version of doing her a deal and Leigh couldn’t believe that she’d messed with this beautiful man’s head so much that he was now under the impression that he had to talk his way into her life. He wanted her to give him her heart but how could she? She’d surrendered it to him when he’d produced the toffee apple! There wasn’t a thing she could say to articulate that, and her love for him wouldn’t change if he used her now and discarded her tomorrow morning, or married her six months from now and divorced her a week later. If all she had in the world was this moment with him, it was enough. She felt like Juliet with her Romeo, and her heart thrummed when the right quote came to mind:
I gave thee mine before thou didst request it!
‘Leigh… please! Please Honey… say yes!’ Ryan hoisted her higher, kissing her with abandon and possession and Leigh sighed into his mouth, for the way he’d dragged her hips up along his abdominals had felt heavenly and the pressure within her was about to make her combust. She used her bare feet to ease his jeans down, inch by inch, gasping when she felt the thick, hard length of him slip out and rub against her tummy. Then his jeans were out of the way and Ryan’s muscles grew hard and aggressive beneath her hands as his cock flopped free then bounced up, stroking her accidentally, nudging at her entrance and making her wild.
‘Oh god! Put it inside me please, before I lose my nerve!’ She caught him and stroked him slowly and firmly, pulling back the sheath of foreskin and feeling him throb and bead against her palm. ‘You’re so fucking big!’
Ryan growled and threw her backwards, and she landed softly on the couch. Excitement, adrenalin and fear flushed all of her petty insecurities out of her system, and left her only with enough consciousness to feel gratitude for the moment as he stepped out of his jeans and then rested one knee on the arm of the sofa near her feet. He was so glorious naked that there were no words for it that hadn’t been wasted on lesser mortals before and rendered useless.
‘I’m huge,’ he whispered, reaching down and sliding his hands up her thighs, staring at her with arrogance, frustration and flagitious intentions for what he planned to do with both. ‘And I’m going to bury it all the way inside you Leigh- and come hard with nothing between your skin and mine.’ He wriggled his eyebrows at her as she gasped and began to wriggle back, her fear going up another level now that she understood that he didn’t plan on using protection. ‘But I can’t do that unless you agree to marry me first, can I?’
Oh fuck me!
Leigh reached between her legs and stroked herself, deciding to toy with him, safe in the knowledge that she’d accept his proposal if his seed spilled inside her. ‘You can do with me, what you’d like.’ She bit her lip and hooked her thumb under the strap of her thong. ‘Or I can do it myself if you insist on teasing me…’
Ryan’s eyes flared an
d as she’d hoped, he fell on top of her, groaning and moaning as he kissed hot streaks of passion and warmth up her legs and then reared up on her, slapping her hand out of the way. His lips slanted against hers, drawing all of her focus until she felt his fingers slip under her thong and twist, shearing the satin boundary.
‘You love me!’ He leaned down and suckled on her breast urgently, then whipped the tip of his tongue around it. ‘Why can’t you say yes?’
Leigh cupped his face to whisper in his ear: ‘Because the knowledge that my life will never be more perfect than it is right now, makes me want to throw myself over the edge so that this is the last moment I know...’
Ryan moaned, hearing her or rather, Kathryn Praser, loud and clear. He pressed his mouth back against hers, his kiss slower, wetter and lazier. ‘Yes, or no?’
Leigh gasped when she felt him position himself between her legs and then began to shake when he pushed her knee up and began to work her clit with the lubricious tip of his imane erection. The world spun, and breathing became a quaint notion.
I want him! If I don’t feel him inside me I’ll die! I just know it!
‘Yes, Ryan!’ she dragged her hands down his back as the moist tip of his cock whipped her clit and all of her nerve endings into a frantic frenzy of feeling. ‘Yes, I’ll marry you!’
Ryan’s head lifted to the ceiling and he let out a raspy, happy sound and then stared down at her with a look of such wild need that she truly understood the words: ‘You are so fucked now!’ and felt only a primal thrill and no fear in response.
‘Mine!’ He came down over her and slipped a finger inside her, and that pushed her over the brink. Leigh felt her sex clench around it and hold on tightly as the first wave of release washed over her. He withdrew, whispering his love and Leigh felt bereft and hollow. He laced his fingers through hers, spreading them, and then slipped something warm and hard onto her ring finger. She glanced at it, confused, and then felt her soul lift and brighten at the sight of the beautiful, platinum ring on her engagement finger. It had a cluster of tiny diamonds around one solitaire, and more diamonds seemed to bloom from it and wind down the band like vines. It was delicate, antique and divine- and like the man who had given it to her, Leigh had never seen its equal.
