What is going on?
13
I leave the drinks line, unable to pretend everything is normal. Vaguely, behind me, I can hear Paul calling out after me, asking if I’m okay. I just wave and shout over my shoulder that I’ll be right back.
I won’t be, though.
I stumble blindly through the sand, tears stinging at the backs of my eyes. Luke lied to me? This whole time, he’s had me acting up a storm, all for some bet he claimed he had. If that didn’t exist… why did he do all of this? Why bring me here?
Was he trying to get me to make a fool out of myself? Trying to push me, to see how far I’d let him go? Was he just taking advantage of me, the dumb office secretary who clearly had a huge crush on her boss?
I can hardly see anything; my eyes have blurred so much. I stumble along the beach wiping at them with my palms, but it doesn’t do any good. The tears just keep coming, as I imagine every terrible reason Luke could have for tricking me into doing this.
I hear footsteps, and I whirl around. I recognize the silhouette of the figure jogging toward me immediately. He’s impossible to mistake, even in the falling dark, even out on this dimly lit beach. “Go away,” I shout, before Luke has even reached my side.
I whirl back around and continue to stagger away. But it’s getting darker, and I can’t always see the dips and hollows in the shifting sand. I stumble, and almost fall, before I feel warm hands close around my arm and haul me back upright.
I brush Luke off with an effort. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Celia…”
I wrench my arm free from his grip and whirl on him instead. “Have you just been playing games with me? This whole time, has it just been one big mind game to you?”
He stares at me for a long moment, eyes inscrutable in the dark. Finally, he sighs. “You must have figured things out.”
Tears start to track down my cheeks. I’m powerless to stop them, no matter how much I hate to cry in front of him now. I rub at my eyes, my voice choked. “How could you lie to me like this? What were you trying to do, just humiliate me, see how much I’d do for you?”
“No, Celia, that’s not it at all.” He reaches for me again, and this time I don’t have the energy to push him off or back away. I let him wrap his hands around my shoulders, strong and steadying. Even now, furious as I am at him, his touch feels reassuring, safe somehow. It makes me angrier than ever, knowing he still has that effect on me, even though he shouldn’t.
“Then explain it to me,” I whisper, tilting my head up so I can see as much of his face as possible in the dim light.
He reaches one hand up to brush stray strands of hair back from my forehead. The wind is stronger down here on the beach, and it’s worked its wildness into my hair, blowing it every which way as I ran up the beach away from the party. Away from everyone. Away from him. When he’s finished brushing my hair back, he leaves his hand cupped against my cheek. His thumb catches a stray tear, and he brushes it away. “Celia, I…” He takes a deep breath. “I found your fanfiction.”
Whatever I thought he was about to say, it wasn’t that. My heart sinks straight through my stomach and into the ground. “Oh, no…” I start to back away, but he tightens his grasp on me.
“No, it’s okay. It was my fault. I was working late one night, and I was trying to find something I emailed to you, but I accidentally deleted it from my sent folder. I turned on your monitor thinking I could just grab it from your recent messages, and the fanfiction was open on your screen.” He winces a little, teeth a flash of white in the growing starlight. “I shouldn’t have snooped, I know that. But once I started reading, I couldn’t stop. Celia, you’re a really good writer.”
I laugh, and it comes out choked and teary.
“Not to mention, you have a dirty as hell mind.” He smirks.
I manage a watery smile in return.
“From the moment you first walked into my office, I had a crush on you,” he says, and my heart leaps back out of the floor into my chest with a thud. “I didn’t think you were interested in me in the same way, though. I never saw any indication from you of anything like that.”
My jaw drops open. He liked me? All along he liked me?
“I… I started following your account. On the fanfic site where you write. I’d read every new thing you posted.”
Now my face flares hot again, as embarrassment floods me. Oh God. I would have written things differently if I’d known he was reading. But then… isn’t it better I didn’t edit myself? That he knows what my deepest fantasies are now? “Did… did you…?”
“Jerk off to them?” He lifts an eyebrow. “Oh hell yes, Celia. All the damn time. The things you’d imagine me doing to you… Fuck, I wanted those stories to be real. I wanted to do all those things to you and more.”
My lips part just a little in shock, as I study him in the dark. “But you never said,” I whisper.
“I’m your boss,” he points out. “I couldn’t exactly just make a move on you. It wouldn’t have been proper.” He cocks his head to one side, and I can feel rather than see the way his eyebrow must be lifted in sarcasm right now. “And I also knew, with equal certainty, that you were too shy to ever make a move on your own. Weren’t you?”
I swallow hard and let out a slow sigh. “Probably.” I did spend an entire year just wasting away in fantasy land after all, didn’t I?
“So…” He shrugs, and spreads his hands wide, gesturing around us. At the beach, the waves. The falling night, the distant bonfire and music. The hotel on the cliff high above us here. Everything. “I thought if I could convince you to spend time with me outside of work, with a good enough excuse for why you didn’t need to stick to the rules of office propriety anymore, then maybe that dirty girl from your fantasies would come out to play.” He steps closer, until he’s just an inch away from me, warm heat radiating from his chest, from his arms where they encircle me. “I thought maybe you’d relax this weekend. Come out of your shell.” His smile deepens. “Come in general, a lot.”
I huff out another laugh, this one much breathier than the first.
“Was I wrong?” he asks, head tilted to one side.
I suck in a deep breath. My tears are gone, replaced by… well. So many feelings I’m not even sure which ones to focus on. Happiness. Giddiness, really. But he still lied to me. He still manipulated me, even if it was to get me to come out of the shy shell I have myself constantly trapped inside.
“Are you mad?” he whispers, his breath soft on my cheeks.
“Mad?” I repeat. I gently break free from his arms. He lets them fall to his sides, limp with worry. “Mad?” I repeat, taking a few steps to one side, toward where the ocean waves have begun to encroach on our spot. Without any more warning, I kick at the water, sending a wave of it cascading onto his body. “Of course I’m mad!” I yell, laughing. Then I run at him, while he’s still wiping the salt water from his face. I grab his face in both my hands and pull him, both of us laughing, down into a hard, deep kiss. “I’m furious at you for lying to me,” I whisper, once our lips part again. “That’s no way to treat someone you care about. But…” I hesitate. Lick my lips. “This was also the best weekend I’ve ever had.” I search his eyes. “It’s been like living in a dream…” I swallow around the lump of embarrassment in my throat. “It’s been like one of my fantasies come to life.” I tilt my head, studying him. “Until now.”
He cups my cheek. “The dream doesn’t have to end, Celia,” he whispers. “Not now… not ever.” Then he leans in to kiss me again, slower this time, and I taste salt on his lips, heat on his tongue. We break apart, and he’s smiling, huge and real. “I love you, Celia,” he says, and everything in me lights up, like fireworks going off.
I wrap my arms around his neck and let him lift me off my feet.
14
I don’t even remember how we found the cave. I just remember running across the sand, my hand in Luke’s. Every few feet he’d stop and pick
me up and whirl me around, kissing me, before he’d set me back down again to run some more. When we finally stumble across the cave, set deep into the cliff face, we can’t even hear the music down the beach anymore, or the crackle of the bonfire. There’s just the slow, steady crash of the waves, and the whisper of the wind between the rocks over our heads.
He spreads out his coat again, and this time he’s the one who sits down, right before he pulls me onto his lap, holding one of my thighs to each side of his waist so I’m straddling him, my hike splayed over his lap. He wraps strong hands around my waist and draws my hips down against his, until I can feel the hard throb of his cock beneath me.
“I love you, Celia,” he repeats, and it feels more meaningful than ever now, everything we’ve done, all the sex we’ve had.
I arch my hips against him, dragging my crotch against his, savoring the hard press of his cock against my pussy, through the fabric of my panties. “I love you, Luke,” I whisper back, just like I have a million times before in my head, in my fantasies of this moment.
It feels so much better in real life than it ever could have in my imagination.
He uses his thumbs to hook under my panties and tug them down. I reach down to push off his pants at the same time, and it doesn’t take long before we’re naked again, skin to skin, me poised over him on the sand. He guides me toward him, until I feel the press of his cock against my lower lips, and then between them.
“I love you,” he repeats, just as the tip of his cock finds my entrance and presses inside. I let out a little half-moan of pleasure and sink lower against him, lowering myself onto his cock inch by inch.
“I love you,” I whisper back, once he’s fully inside me, every inch of him filling me up, stretching me, making me feel full. My pussy aches from last night still, but it’s a pleasant, bone deep ache. The kind that only makes me want more.
But it’s different this time. He guides me, setting the pace, and we move together slowly, sweetly. It’s not a searing hot, rough wildfire like our sex has been before. It’s a slow build. He holds me tight against his chest, so I feel every inch of our bodies pressed together, his naked skin against mine, his cock buried deep inside me. He drops one hand between us to run his thumb gently across my mound, before dipping it lower to graze my clit, until I gasp.
He smiles, watching me. “So fucking sexy,” he whispers, as he strokes me, gently at first, then a little faster, enough to make my head fall back as I arch my back into him, nearing a peak. “God, I love watching you come, Celia,” he murmurs, even as I let myself go, let the orgasm sweep me away for a second, rushing through my whole body.
He keeps going the whole time, gently rocking up into me, slow and steady until neither of us can stand it anymore. “I want to feel you come,” I murmur. “I want to feel your cum inside me, Luke.”
He obeys me this time, tightening his grip on my hips and speeding up his thrusts until he’s driving up into me, again and again, until I can feel the shudder building in him. When he comes, I pull him against me, kissing him hard to muffle his groan. I feel it in every inch of his body, the pleasure, the release. The way he breaks apart to gaze at me with awe, like I’m some kind of magical, beautiful creature who he can’t quite believe is with him right now.
I know the feeling. I slide off his lap, and we lie side by side on the sand, face to face, on top of his coat. He traces my lower lip with his thumb. I reach up to run my fingertips along the sides of his face, his jawline, the edges of his lips.
“Did you mean it?” I whisper, eventually.
“Did I mean that I love you?” he responds, reaching up to pull me against him more tightly. His lips find my temple, my cheek, my jawline. He nudges forward, kissing the spot where my neck meets my jaw, and I gasp a little before I sink into him, surrendering.
“No,” I breathe, trying to keep my heart rate steady, my breath from hitching. “Did you mean it… when you said that the dream doesn’t have to end?”
He pulls back, and I freeze, worried I’ve done something wrong. He shifts me off him and stands, and then he wraps both hands around mine and tugs me to my feet.
“What are you doing?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer me. He just takes my left hand in his, ever so gently.
“Can I have the ring back, Celia?”
My heart sinks. So, no, he meant. He didn’t mean it. The fantasy does have to end. Trying to ignore the sting in the back of my throat, I reach up with shaking fingers and slide the ring off my finger, before I pass it to him. I hold my breath, unsure what he’s doing. Unsure what any of this means now.
“I don’t want you to be my wife for now, Celia,” Luke murmurs, and my heart starts to stutter, to beat faster with fear. But then he sinks down in front of me, onto one knee in the sand. He’s still holding my left hand in his—he never let me go. “I want you to be my wife forever,” he says, kneeling in front of me, looking up at me in the dim glow from the moon that’s starting to rise outside our little cave. “Will you marry me for real, Celia?”
My eyes sting with fresh tears all over again, but these are happy tears, tears of joy. It takes me a moment to find my voice. I just start nodding at first, and he laughs, and then I laugh too, and it all bursts out of me at once. “Yes. Yes, Luke, I’ll marry you for real.” He slides the ring back onto my finger and stands, picking me up in his arms and spinning me around, sand flying around our feet.
He kisses me, again and again, and I smile into the kiss, unable to stop. When he finally sets me back on my feet, we’re both breathless, laughing. I lift my hand and wiggle my ring finger, studying the diamond in the light.
“It feels heavier now,” I observe. “Like it really means something this time.”
When I glance over, I find him studying me closely, through hooded eyes. I recognize that look. It’s the look he gets when he wants me, so badly he can hardly stand it.
It’s one of my favorite looks.
“That’s because it does,” he replies, taking a step toward me. He catches my hand and brings it to his lips, kissing the ring first, and then each of my fingertips in turn. “It’s because this time, the ring was given with intention,” he says, smiling. I smile back. I wonder if I’ll ever stop doing that instinctively, smiling at him whenever he does. I hope not.
“I love you, Celia,” he whispers. “I can’t wait to be your husband for real.”
Copyright © 2019 Penny Wylder
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or businesses, organizations, or locales, is completely coincidental.
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1
Mara
“To girls’ trip!” My best friend Lea laughs and raises her shot glass to clink it against mine.
I take a deep breath, trying not to let the cloying scent of tequila or the stickiness of this nightclub floor get to me. Or the absolutely terrible layout and lighting situation. Did they really think blue underlighting would flatter anybody? Amateurs. I knock my shot—calling it a glass feels far too classy for the plastic neon glowing-in-UV-light container—against Lea’s and toss it back without breathing again. That helps to dull the immediate throat and nostril burn of the tequila as it slides down my throat.
With a triumphant “Ha!” I slam my second shot down against the countertop. The cheap plastic container promptly breaks in two pieces. I shoot the bartender a wry smile as he reaches over to scoop it up, rolling his eyes.
Lea, on the other hand, elbows me, looking for all her worth like a proud mama bird who’s just shoved its poor fledgling out of the nest headfirst. “Look at you! Mara Greene, a regular party girl. Who’d have thought.�
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I roll my eyes. “This is not going to become a trend, Lea.”
“Hey, a girl can dream.” Her grin widens as she grabs my hand and tugs me toward the dance floor. This particular overly loud beat does sound pretty familiar, in a way that reminds me of college, where Lea and I met. She was the loud and bossy socialite majoring in acting, I was the nerdy shy girl on stage crew who preferred to operate the spotlight rather than stand in front of it. Normally you wouldn’t peg the two of us as being a good match, but Lea marched right up to me after I worked on a background set for her solo tryout, wrapped me in a hug and announced that anyone as good with staging as I was had to be her friend.
We’ve been close ever since. Even if we don’t share too many weekend activities—Lea’s more of the club scene girl, and I’m more of the “in bed by 9pm so I can wake up pre-dawn to go fishing with my father” type.
A pang that has nothing to do with the tequila strikes me right in the chest. Right above my heart. I rub at it, wincing, and try to force my thoughts away from my father. It’s been two years since he passed, but it still hurts just as much as it did on the day he died.
“Are you gonna start dancing, or do I need to buy you another tequila?” Lea shouts in my ear over the heavy thud of the bass.
I sway my hips in tune to the music and she flashes me an approving grin. I have to admit, after the tequila works its way into my bloodstream and I start to work up a sweat on the dance floor, it does feel nice to cut loose.
“So?” Lea calls again, when that song peters out and before the next one gets up to full speed. “How are you loving Vegas?” Her eyes twinkle with amusement.
I laugh and roll my eyes. She talked me into driving out here from LA where we both moved after graduation last summer. Lea’s waitressing and going on auditions every spare moment. And me? I just landed my dream job. Like an actual, honest-to-goodness stage coordinator gig, designing and building props for a huge media company, Pitfire Media, hosting their first play at the biggest theater in the city.
Marry Me Now: An Arranged Marriage Collection Page 23