She couldn’t hold back a chuckle this time. “No, I think it’s safe to say you saved the day, Brice Casey.”
“You sure did. Thank you,” Jordan added as the passenger door flew open.
“Pumpkin! What are you doing in a pest control van?”
Georgie scanned the sidewalk in front of the gardens’ main entrance to find her mother, looking sorceress elegant in a flowing rose-colored gown. Howard stood beside her with Mr. Gilbert and Jordan’s dad close by. Maureen and the twins waved to her as the girls spun in circles in their matching flower girl dresses, while Irene, her husband, Becca, and Mr. Tuesday, adorned with a smart doggy bowtie, brought up the rear of the entourage with Barry, phone in hand, filming their unorthodox arrival.
“Is the whole crew here?” Jordan asked.
Georgie gazed at the group. “Yep, and Barry’s here livestreaming, and FYI on the dresses—my mother and bridesmaids are all in—”
“Rose-colored gowns,” Jordan replied. “Hans dropped that important piece of information while you were having your hair done, so I wouldn’t make the mistake of calling them pink.”
She smiled, taking it all in.
“Hans and Cornelia don’t miss much, do they?”
“They sure don’t,” he answered.
“Well, come on, pumpkin! I still need to check the harpist’s psychic energy before she begins to play,” her mother exclaimed.
Georgie caught Howard’s eye, and her stepfather tossed her a wink.
Jordan’s father offered her his hand and helped her from the van.
“You look beautiful, Georgie,” the man offered with tears in his eyes.
“You sure do,” Mr. Gilbert added, pressing a kiss to her cheek as the ding-ding of a bike bell rang out.
“Georgiana Jensen?” called the young man, pedaling the Schwinn.
“That’s me!” she said, glancing around, but everyone looked as confused as she was—except Jordan, who sported a cocky grin.
“Delivery, here you go,” the kid replied, passing her a small box.
“Who would send me something?” she asked.
“It’s your bride’s gift. Open it,” Jordan answered, still wearing her garter over his eyes.
She lifted the lid and found a rose gold charm bracelet.
“What is it?” Becca asked.
Georgie lovingly touched the charms. “It’s us.”
One by one, Georgie ran her fingertips over the number eight, the number ten, a sweet little computer mouse, a tiny book, a miniature cookie, an adorable barbell, a Birkenstock sandal, and a dainty trowel.
Her heart felt as if it were close to bursting.
“When did you do this?”
“Hans helped me design it while you were still getting ready, and then he had a jeweler put it together. The reach of the Denver Wedding Frau has no limits,” he added.
“I love it, Jordan,” she said, then gasped. “But I didn’t get a gift for you.”
He gathered her into his arms. “Georgiana Jensen, in a matter of minutes, I’m going to take this damn garter off, and you’re going to give me the best gift I could ever receive.”
“And what’s that?” she asked, forgetting the group gathered around them.
She stared up at this man, who’d changed everything for her. When she’d met him, their lives had collided like a tornado crashing into a tsunami. But no matter what life put in their path, they always found their way back to each other. The obstinate eight and the perfect ten, who once were ready to claw each other’s eyes out, had found a love ready to last a lifetime.
He raised her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her palm.
“The most important thing. Something I’ll guard and protect every day for the rest of our lives. Your heart, Georgiana. Your beautiful, caring, cardigan-wearing, sixty-nine-loving, vegan-chocolate-chip-cookie-eating, book-obsessed heart.”
She could hear her mother and the rest of the group chattering away, reminding them they needed to get moving and that the guests were waiting.
But none of it mattered.
Not the cake or the flower arrangements or the twinkling lights.
While all that would certainly be wonderful, this would be the moment she’d carry with her for the rest of her life.
Here, on the sidewalk, standing next to a pest control van with her fiancé wearing her garter over his eyes. This was the location where she’d surrender her heart to the person who knew it best and loved it the most.
Epilogue
Jordan
“The bride was a vision in white, dressed in a stunning ivory gown,” Georgie read, glancing at her phone.
Jordan rolled over, took the device from her hand, and set it, face down, on the bedside table.
His gaze lingered on his wife’s naked body. “I agree. You were a vision in white, but I’ll take you like this over a dress any day.”
She raised her hands over her head, presenting her beautiful breasts and lick-worthy torso as if it were his birthday.
Actually, it was better than his birthday. It was their honeymoon.
With the hypnotic ebb and flow of the ocean meeting the sun-kissed coast just a few feet from their private bungalow, two days after they wed, they’d traded the Colorado mountains for the stunning beaches of Fiji.
“I could get used to this,” she said, then frowned.
“What is it?” he asked.
She glanced over at a plate of fruit. “I am a little hungry.”
He reached over and plucked a piece of pineapple from the plate. “I can’t believe you like this stuff now.”
“It must be the island vibe,” she answered before he placed the tropical bite of fruit into her mouth.
Georgie hummed her delight, and the sexy sound went straight to his cock.
After a whirlwind engagement, culminating in an unforgettable wedding ceremony, covered by CityBeat, viewed by millions around the world, and attended by all their friends and family—including at least five hundred of Georgie’s mom’s closest acquaintances, all he’d wanted was to be alone with his wife.
Wife!
He loved the sound of that.
And, clocking in at over six thousand miles away, a secluded beach house at an exclusive Fiji resort was just what they needed.
“I can’t believe you didn’t know your mom and Howard had this place,” he said.
“There’s a lot I didn’t know about my mother and Howard, but I don’t want to talk about my parents at the moment,” she answered as her gaze hungrily traveled down his naked body and settled on his hard length.
That was the other thing. He might not have been wrong about making her out to be a sex maniac.
Honeymoon Georgie was downright ravenous—not that he was complaining.
After two weeks spent pining away for her, he was damn near ready to explode. Luckily, all that pent-up sexual energy wasn’t going to waste.
She sat up and arched her back lazily like a satisfied cat.
“Do you know my favorite thing about lounging around all day in paradise?” she purred.
“All the pineapple you can eat?” he teased.
She shook her head, then reached for a strip of the sheer fabric hanging from the canopy bed. Slowly, she wrapped the lace curtain around her wrist.
“All the creative ways we can fuck without even leaving the house,” she answered.
Yep, Honeymoon Georgie had a dirty, dirty mouth when it came to getting down and dirty.
He reached over toward the other side of the bed and pulled another sheer strip of fabric over. He brushed the lace across her torso before wrapping it once, then twice around her other wrist.
“I’ve got you right where I want you,” he said, prowling the length of her body and dropping kisses between her breasts.
With the lace wrapped around her wrists and her body glistening in the sun-dappled light cascading in through the bungalow’s open windows, Georgiana Jensen-Marks looked good enough to eat.
/> He worked his way down, licking a heated trail from her breasts to her navel before settling between her thighs. Georgie writhed beneath his touch and cried out as his tongue found her most sensitive place. He gripped her ass, pressing his fingers into her soft skin, then gazed down at his beautiful wife.
He’d never tire of this view.
He tightened his grip on the perfect globes of her ass, then glanced up and met her gaze. “Are you ready for an earth-shattering orgasm, wife?”
“Are you up to the task, husband?” she asked with a sexy as sin smirk.
“You tell me,” he breathed against her tight bundle of nerves.
She gasped as he feasted on her sweet center, working her with his mouth and setting a seductively slow rhythm.
Georgie’s chest heaved with each breath as he set a pace to drive her wild. This wasn’t going to be a quick fuck—not that there was anything wrong with a quick roll in the proverbial hay. They’d started the day with a little yoga on the beach that quickly turned into an erotic downward-facing doggy-style sexual melee. But this sexcapade was not going to end in a matter of minutes.
Georgie moaned, and a surge of possessive desire coursed through his body. With her arms restrained, he had complete access. He was in charge of making every cell in her body beg for his touch.
He dialed up the pace, savoring her scent, her taste, and her heated, breathy cries.
“Jordan, I want you inside me. I need you now,” she said, gasping for breath and balancing on the edge of oblivion.
Who was he to deny her?
Sweat coated their bodies as he slid his cock inside her and released a primal growl. He gripped the top of the mattress while his other hand tightened its hold on his wife’s ass. With their bodies flush and his hard muscles meeting her soft curves, he captured her mouth in a scorching kiss.
“Jordan, please,” Georgie pleaded against his lips.
She rolled her hips, and he couldn’t hold back. The sultry scent of sex and steamy slap of skin on skin permeated the room as he rocked into her, filling her to the hilt with each thrust.
The coil within him tensed, growing taut as if he could explode at any moment.
Georgie tightened around him, calling out his name, and crashed into her release.
Pistoning his hips, he joined her, flying over the edge and soaring through an orgasmic cosmos where only the two of them existed. He couldn’t tell where his pleasure stopped, and hers began. They were one, all sweaty limbs and heated breaths—all gentle caresses and sensual, lingering kisses.
She belonged to him. Her heart was his to guard, honor, and protect. As she gazed up at him with a sweet, sated expression, his heart was home.
“You get more beautiful every day, did you know that?” he asked, brushing a strand of hair from her face.
“Do I?” she replied through her lashes.
He drew his fingertips across her kiss-plump lips. “And every day, I find something new to love about you.”
“What did you find today?” she asked on a sated sigh.
He kissed a line to her shoulder. “This freckle right here,” he answered.
“It’s a ticklish freckle,” she replied with a giggle.
He reached over and unwrapped the lace curtains from her wrist. Georgie sank back into the pillows and stroked the back of her hand down the scruff of his jawline.
She gazed up at him. “I like you a little rough around the edges, husband.”
He ran his hands through his hair, mussing his usually coiffed style. “We can’t all have Brice-Casey-perfect hair all the time,” he joked, and Georgie shook her head as her phone pinged.
She glanced over at her cell. “It could be Irene with a Mr. Tuesday update.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Check it. I’ll get us a snack,” he said, hating to leave the cocoon of the bed but knowing she’d love an update on the sweet pup.
“Let’s do chips and some of that amazing pineapple salsa. I asked the resort concierge to send some over every day,” she called.
He glanced at his wife, who was positively glowing.
“Pineapple salsa it is,” he said, sauntering into the kitchen and procuring the snack staples.
“It is Irene,” she said, holding out her phone to share a picture of Mr. Tuesday nestled in next to their friend’s pregnant belly.
“How are they doing?” he asked, setting a bag of chips and the bowl of salsa onto a tray.
Georgie sat up and smoothed a spot for him to set their post-sex snacks, and he joined her back in bed.
“First, pineapple salsa,” she said, loading a chip with more salsa than one would think humanly possible before crunching down on the sweet and salty treat.
“Wow!” he said, both amazed and a little intimidated.
She swallowed the bite. “Okay, Irene says Mr. Tuesday is doing well. He’s very protective of her and loves her baby bump. And they got nine inches of snow last night,” she finished, then typed out a message as her lips twisted into a naughty grin.
“What are you writing back?” he asked.
Georgie licked her lips. “I told her I got nine inches, but it has nothing to do with snow.”
“Georgiana, what would your trifecta think?” he shot back, teasing his very naughty wife.
She gasped. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me! It’s like I’m becoming a—”
“Sex maniac?” he mused.
“Yes,” she answered, crunching into another pineapple salsa-laden chip.
He kissed her cheek. “You may also want to look into competitive eating.”
“Oh, and look at this, Jordan!” she continued, ignoring his comment. “We have tons of posts on our blog, wishing us well on our honeymoon. Even the Belgian Waffle Princess sent us a message.”
“How is her royal waffle-ness doing?” he asked, sinking into the pillows.
Georgie rested her head on his chest. “She says congratulations, and I quote, ‘Georgie and Jordan’s unorthodox courting and engagement has been a delight to read about. I can’t wait to see what it’s like when the two of them have a baby,’” she finished, then popped another chip into her mouth.
The breath caught in his throat.
Holy pineapple salsa!
He glanced around the bungalow. There were pineapples everywhere. She’d literally been eating pineapple nonstop since they’d arrived on the island. If it wasn’t for all the sex, taking her away from indulging in the tropical fruit, she might have turned into one by now.
“Georgiana?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you want any vegan chocolate chip cookie dough? The staff stocked the fridge with about twenty tubes,” he asked.
She shook her head. “It doesn’t sound appealing.”
He twisted a lock of her hair as his mind went into overdrive.
They’d been having lots of crazy, mind-blowing sex.
His wife now positively glowed as if she were part firefly.
And she suddenly loved pineapple more than anything—even, it seemed, more than her beloved cookie dough. And, slightly more concerning, she’d wolfed down those chips like a teenage boy hitting a growth spurt.
“A baby! Isn’t that crazy? Can you even imagine, Jordan?” she said, reaching for another chip.
He smiled at his wife. If these signs meant what he thought, the Belgian Waffle Princess may not have long to wait.
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The Bergen Brothers Series
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The Inside Scoop
The Denver Wedding Underground
I was chatting with my friend, Rochelle, about Own the Eights Get Married. She’s a Colorado gal, too, and we chuckled about a line in the book that talks about how one can experience all four seasons in the span of a week (sometimes, even
a day) in our state.
Well, that got me thinking about some of the antics from my wedding that inspired many of the scenes in Own the Eights Gets Married.
While there isn’t a real Denver Wedding Underground (that I know of), I stumbled upon something close to one when searching for bridesmaid dresses.
Just for fun, I’d gone to a bridal shop in a posh part of Denver. The place was in a tizzy because a fancy-pants wedding had been canceled at the last minute, and they had a bunch of bridesmaid dresses that the client no longer wanted.
I told them that I was looking for bridesmaid dresses, and they ushered me through the store, away from the high-end showroom, and into the wedding underbelly. It was like stepping into another world. Dresses were piled up like used beach towels, and there were rows of seamstresses bent over sewing machines, lit by naked lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling.
The salesclerk led me to a row of gorgeous periwinkle floor-length dresses. I couldn’t believe it. The dresses were perfect! Even better? They sold them to me for twenty-five bucks apiece. Any bridesmaid out there will tell you, that’s a steal of a deal!
And, they were well worth it.
My cousin spilled an entire glass of red wine on her dress, and the material sucked it right up!
We still laugh about that!
Also by Krista Sandor
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Own the Eights Series
A delightfully sexy enemies to lovers series
Book One: Own the Eights
Book Two: Own the Eights Gets Married
Book Three: Coming Soon!
The Bergen Brothers Series
A steamy billionaire brothers romantic comedy series
Book One: Man Fast
Book Two: Man Feast
Book Three: Man Find
Bergen Brothers: The Complete Series+Bonus Short Story
The Langley Park Series
Own the Eights Gets Married Page 22