“Mmph?” He lifted his face out of the pillow and eyed her with a sleepy-eyed possessiveness.
“How are we supposed to tell our kids how you proposed?”
He gave her a devilish grin.
“I’ll ask you again when we’re fully clothed. This one was just for us.”
She sighed. “God, I love you.”
“You better. Because I distinctly remember telling you not to leave this house.” He gripped the curve of her ass just above a nasty bruise.
“You can’t seriously be ready for another round yet,” she said with a laugh. “Where does your testosterone come from? An invisible IV?”
He pinched her skin. “We’ll go to your parents. Eat. Tell everyone a G-rated version of the good news. And then when we come back, I’m going to make you apologize.”
“You dirty, dirty man.” She rolled over him and peppered his face with kisses.
“I’m all yours, Remington. For better or worse.”
“I think we just lived through the worse. Let’s go enjoy the better.”
Epilogue
Two months later
Brick frowned down at the planks of the side porch, wondering if he was wearing the paint off them.
What if this wasn’t what Remi had wanted? He tugged at his collar. A small backyard ceremony had sounded like a good idea at the time. It was easy to throw together. Neither of them wanted to wait, and the reception was at the Grand Hotel so there was still some fuss.
But what if she’d changed her mind? What if between having sex with him last night and putting her dress on this morning, she realized she didn’t want to marry him. What if—
“Psst!”
It was coming from above him on the second floor. Brick stepped off the porch and looked up to see Remi hanging out of a second-story window. Her face lit up when she spotted him.
“I’m not supposed to see you,” he called back, glancing over his shoulder toward the backyard where their closest friends and family were halfway shit-faced on Darius’s Wedded Bliss specialty drink.
“Then close your eyes.”
“What are you doing?” he demanded as she shimmied out onto the porch roof.
“I’m sneaking out,” she whispered back. She wadded the dress up around her waist and nimbly climbed off the roof, dangling her legs over the side in search of the porch’s banister, before he plucked her down.
She’d left her hair down in wild curls. Her cheeks were flushed a pretty pink, green eyes sparkling. She looked like a mischievous fairy. Her dress was… Wow. She’d gone strapless with a fitted corset. There was lace and skin, which he liked very much. The full skirt billowed out in a pinky kind of wash, almost like watercolor.
“Wow,” he said out loud this time. There was no way he was lucky enough that this woman belonged to him.
She made a curtsy. “Thank you. You look pretty wow yourself.”
“If you run away, I’m just going to drag you back,” he warned her.
She slapped him in the chest. “I’m running away to you,” she clarified. “This is our last chance.”
“At what?”
“Unmarried sex.”
He relaxed. Only Remington Ford—soon to be Callan—would run away from her own wedding just to have sex with the groom before he became her husband. “You’re kidding me right now. I thought last night was our last chance at unmarried sex.”
“I figured we have fifteen minutes before the ceremony starts. This is our last last chance. Besides, I look sexy as hell in this dress and I don’t want one of your spectacular hard-ons stealing my bridal thunder in all our wedding photography. The flower girl is the right height to lose an eye.”
“Jesus, Remi,” he groaned. “What am I supposed to do? Pull up your skirts and fuck you right here between the azaleas?”
“Yes.”
He was instantaneously hard. It was the spell she had him under.
“See?” she said, pointing at his crotch. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. We’re saving a little girl from an eye patch for the rest of her life.”
Who was he to argue? If his bride wanted a quick fuck against the house minutes before she became his wife, he would deliver.
He reached for his belt and watched her eyes go glassy. “Turn around,” he said. When she complied, he used one hand to hold her against the cedar shake siding while he freed his cock with his other.
“Hold up your skirts,” he demanded.
She was already breathing heavy as she gathered the material at her waist.
“You dirty little girl,” he said, running his fingers over the sexy, silky red underwear that rode high on her cheeks.
“I thought you’d like it,” she whispered, a shiver running up her spine.
He dipped his knees to drop a kiss on her shoulder and then yanked the underwear down so he could line up the head of his primed cock with her entrance.
“Oh, God,” she breathed when he settled between her legs.
He couldn’t help himself. He landed a short, sharp slap on her ass and felt his dick thicken at her breathy little gasp. Her opening quivered around his tip. He did it again, then growled as she clenched around him.
Without warning, he dipped lower and surged up, fitting himself halfway into her tight channel.
He squeezed her shoulder when she gasped, a warning to stay quiet.
She tilted her ass toward him, welcoming his invasion. It was so fucking hot. Fucking the bride with a few dozen people close enough to catch them.
“Say your vows,” she begged.
“What?” He gritted his teeth as his dick pulsed inside her, already close to release.
“Say your vows while you make love to me. We have a secret engagement. I want a secret wedding.”
“Remington,” he rasped. “You are one of a kind, and I’m the luckiest man on the planet.”
“If that’s not in the vows it should be,” she said on a breathy whisper.
While the band warmed up. While their guests took their drinks to their seats. Brick gave his bride everything she asked for. Dark promises just between the two of them.
“Now you,” he whispered, yanking her hips back.
She gave a soft cry.
“Promise me, you’ll always need me like this. Promise me that your hand will be in my lap under the table. Promise me that you’ll love letting me make you come. Promise me that you’ll never let me make you unhappy.”
“I promise, Brick,” she whispered. He felt her body priming for release. He felt her fighting it.
“Don’t fight it, baby. Give it to me.”
“I want to give you everything, Brick,” she said on a broken cry.
She already had. She’d given him everything he’d been missing and more. She’d given him light in a gloomy existence. Purpose. A reason to embrace chaos and color. She was the puzzle piece that held everything else in his world together.
He told her so with his words. With fast, hard thrusts that her body accepted with gratitude. And when he felt her let go, he poured himself into her, whispering his vows to her as she trembled around him.
He loved and was loved. They were united, joined, partnered, paired. And that was without the words of the reverend or the piece of paper filed at the courthouse. By the end of the day, Remington Ford would belong to him in every way possible. And his heart would remain in her possession for all the days of his life.