He leaves with a parting wink.
I take the four-wheeler up to the house, where I find Grady on the couch.
“You look relaxed,” he says with a wink.
I’m glad one of us is.
Sitting up, he laughs. “Think I’m still hungover. Your old man knows how to throw one hell of a bachelor party. Poor Weston made the mistake of challenging him to a drinking contest and lost.”
Smiling, I sit down next to him. “Speaking of my dad...he said you let him help with our honeymoon?”
He winces. “Yeah, he insisted on throwing money at it, and I’m not looking to do battle with my future father-in-law over it. Figured he’d know where you always wanted to go for a few ideas, too. Why?”
“Have you ever heard of an extended honeymoon?”
He frowns. “How extended?”
I open the folder. “Dad spends seven or eight months a year traveling, so his itineraries cover everything.”
“Okay,” he grunts, hiding a smile. “Wait. You’re not talking about spending almost a year away from—”
I laugh.
Shaking my head, I start flipping through pages. “Just one amazing month, roughly. He has the bar completely covered with West, the rescue center running like clockwork, and he’ll stay with the girls here at home for two weeks before flying to South Africa. If you’re down for it, I’m hoping that’s where we’ll spend some time before they join us. And from there, all five of us can visit several countries for the next two weeks before coming home by summer.”
“Damn, woman. You sure the Land of Oz isn’t on that trip?”
I grin and set the folder on the coffee table.
“Shit,” he rumbles, hooking me around the waist and lifting me onto his lap. “Whole weeks together, alone in places where we’ll be lucky to even have cell service? Whatever will we do?”
The knowing glint in his eye has me laughing like a schoolgirl.
“Not until tomorrow, handsome. Remember what you promised.”
His teasing smile sinks. “Yeah, fuck. I said three days without getting busy so we’d be explosive on our honeymoon. Remind me to never make that promise again.”
Falling against his chest, I run my fingers through his beard, gazing into his eyes. “It’s a one-time deal, mister. Less than twenty-four hours to go.”
“Guess forever has its price,” he grumbles. “Let’s at least practice the sendoff, after our vows.”
I have no objection.
I never will when the man who moves heaven and earth brings his searing lips to mine and reminds me how deeply I’m about to be his.
Most weddings are a recipe of big promises, hot tears, and endless laughter between kisses.
Ours is mostly endless kisses between promises, so many shameless tears, laughing until my sides hurt, and yes, tigers.
No, we’re not crazy enough to dress up Bruce and bring a Bengal tiger strolling through a massive crowd in his own little tux.
Yes, we’re just the right kinda crazy to say our I do’s in front of his fenced-in enclosure, where he sprawls out on the huge rocks, sunning himself and wondering why humans are so unbelievably strange.
Another thing nobody tells you about weddings, even the ones with huge happy tigers—time breaks down into this intense, warm fizzy blur that feels like forever and not nearly long enough.
It’s over before it starts.
One minute, I’m lost in my own gaze, my eyes stuck to my epic beast of a husband as he’s standing at our makeshift altar, waiting for the pastor to finish in the sexiest old-fashioned brown suit ever.
I barely remember walking up the aisle through at least a hundred friends, relatives, and smiling Dallasfolk. How my creamy bell plume of a dress floated behind me, feeling every bit the princess riding a cloud.
I don’t even know what happens when I hear kiss the bride.
Because the first kiss with my husband—my husband!—rockets me right into the stratosphere on hungry wings of his lips, and then I’m gliding back down in this wonderful giddy mess I’m proud to call mine.
Now and forever.
Mostly, time is measured in my pulse, my heartbeat, every freaking second I get to hold Grady’s hand.
And that huge, masculine grip unlike anyone else’s never lets go for a second as we’re making our way out after dinner. It feels like the heat death of the universe might happen before throngs of smiling people stop wishing us well, and before Sawyer and Avery let go of Grady’s legs before saying their goodbyes.
As soon as they’re skipping back over to a gaggle of my dad, Joyce, and a very lovely and attentive Aunt Faye, our chariot awaits.
The Barnets’ valet, Tobin, insisted on doing the honor of taking us into town with several magnificent black steeds pulling our white coach. It’s like something out of the Wild West as we clomp away, make-believe made real, and we kiss like there’s no tomorrow the whole ride...
Of course, tomorrow will come, and with it the rest of our amazing lives.
We’re just spending our first night as man and wife at the finest hotel in Dallas. It’s this beautiful place full of old-world charm and modern details that tickle my soul.
I can’t stop laughing as the front desk gives us two bubbly glasses of champagne in a salute, while bellboys appear from nowhere to snatch our bags, and my husband—oh God, will it ever feel normal?—carries me into the elevator, down the hall, and over the threshold to the Executive Suite.
“What’s so funny, Willow Wisp? Don’t tell me you’re already that drunk on champagne,” Grady says with a smile.
I’m busy working my hands under his vest, obsessed with the moment he tumbles me down on the huge Victorian-style bed.
“It’s hitting me now. A few weeks traveling sounds heavenly. Alone with nobody but you.”
He sinks down on top of me and pulls me up by both hands, a second before he begins unwrapping me. Until today, I always thought the phrase 'blushing bride' was just a saying, and not something I’d ever become.
My face feels hot. It’s cherry-red by the time I slide out of my dress, naked before his hungry eyes. They ignite so hot I feel braised the second he sees what I’ve been hiding under my wedding dress.
“Fuck. Tiger print?” he rasps. “You’ve got to be shitting me, gorgeous.”
I grin, folding an arm around his neck and bringing my hand down to start working at his buttons.
“I’ve been dying to show you all day. You have no idea,” I whisper, ending my words with a lingering kiss that feels downright sinful.
“Bull. You know what I’m eager for?” he growls, his fingers sliding into my orange-and-black-striped panties, forcing a moan from my lungs as his thumb rakes my clit. “Being married to you for the rest of my life, for one. Also, ripping this the fuck off you right now,” he says, fisting the fabric and throwing it down my legs in one jerk. “Love you, darlin’.”
“I know,” I say, locking eyes as he frees himself from his suit. “And that makes me love you even more.”
With hurried breaths, we finish stripping each other, then take our sweet time in languid kisses and caresses that might never end. Each and every inch of my exposed skin bristles under his touch, his kiss, his pitchfork of a tongue.