by Aubrey Dark
“Candles?” I asked, confused.
“I thought I should stay awake this time, so the squirrels wouldn’t come in and burn the place down.”
William wrung his hands together. His gray eyes stormed with a troubled look. I shook my head, my heart beating even faster. I could have blamed it on the steep hike, but I knew that wasn’t it.
“Where’s the judge?” I asked shakily. “What is this, William?”
“It’s me saying I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” My jaw dropped, hanging loosely as I tried to understand what he was saying. “Sorry?”
“Don’t—please don’t stop me. I have to say this, and it’s hard enough for me to put it into words. Here—sit here,” he said, leading me over to the pine bench. “And just listen.”
I nodded dumbly. This…this wasn’t at all what I had expected. My heart pumped loudly, so loud that I thought it would echo in the tiny cabin.
“Sierra, I need to apologize. I’ve been selfish, and stupid, and I think I’ve made the worst mistake that I’ve ever made in my life.”
“Marrying me?” The question came out before I could stop it. William knelt in front of me.
“No! No—the exact opposite. Marrying you was the best thing that ever happened to me. I screwed it up, though. I took you for granted. I thought that I could control everything. But there are some things that you can’t control. Love is one of them.”
William paused, looking into my eyes, as he took my hands in his. My heart swelled and my throat thickened.
Love? The way my whole body reacted to his touch was indescribably powerful. It was as though something pulsed between us, an energy that surrounded us with crackling strength.
“Sierra, I love you. When you told me about the baby, I didn’t know what to think. I was so confused. I thought you’d lied to me.”
“I did lie to you,” I managed to choke out.
“You had to. I understand. I pushed you too far, too fast. I never gave you a chance to explain.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks, but I couldn’t wipe them away. I couldn’t take my hands from William’s. He reached out and brushed them lightly away with his thumb.
“I lied to you too,” he said.
“When?”
“When I told you it was all pretend. I lied when I told you that this was going to be a fake marriage. It was always real, and I must have known it deep inside from the beginning. There was nothing I could do to stop myself from falling in love with you, and I should never have tried.”
My shoulders shook with the sobs I had been holding in. The candles blurred and shimmered through my tears.
“Why?” I asked. “What—what made you decide to tell me this now?”
William’s face contorted with guilt.
“Sanders and Dexter came by last night. They were pissed. Really angry.”
“Why?”
“Because they thought I was making a big mistake. Apparently my mom went and chewed them out about the voting shares, told them about us. They said that I was an idiot for marrying you for the shares. Not because it was a stupid idea, or because it didn’t work, but because I should have married you anyway. In Sanders’ words, it was ‘super obvious’ that I was head over heels for you.”
I couldn’t help laughing through glistening tears.
“Anyway, they told me that I could have the voting shares if I wanted them, if it was so important. And I told them that I would read through their proposal with an open mind. So that’s taken care of.”
“And now we’re here.”
“Yes,” William said. “We’re here.”
“There’s no reason for you to stay married to me,” I said.
“I can think of one big reason,” William said, reaching out. When his palm cradled my stomach, it was all I could do to keep myself from breaking down.
“That’s not enough,” I said. “You can’t—you can’t stay with me just because you got me pregnant. It wouldn’t be fair to me or to the baby.”
“That’s true,” William said. “But there’s also the super obvious reason that I love you, and that I’d be an idiot to let you go.”
“Of course,” I said, laughing. “Super obvious.”
“So listen here: this is a proposal, Sierra.”
“A proposal?”
“A real one. Not a contract, or an agreement. A real proposal, because I really love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, in a real marriage. And I only hope that you feel the same way toward me. Marry me, Sierra. I love you.”
Oh. Oh, my. The whole room seemed to dance with the words.
“We’re already married,” I stammered. The blood was rushing to my cheeks.
“Then stay married to me,” William said. “Do I need to get you another ring for that? Do I need to burn you another pan of bacon? Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it. All I want is to be able to be a good husband to you, and a good father to Kit and to our baby.”
Our baby.
“No,” I said, a smile breaking through my trembling nerves. “No ring necessary. I love you.”
“I love you too, Mrs. Fawkes,” William said. And then he was kissing me, and I was kissing him back, and the room swirled with candlelight and morning sun and the future seemed very, very bright indeed.
Chapter 35
One Year Later
“Good morning, sweetheart.”
A warm hand slid over my hip, waking me up slowly with a gentle caress.
“Mmmmph,” I said.
“I’m going to assume you’re trying to say Happy Anniversary,” William murmured, pressing a kiss to my shoulder blade.
I opened my eyes, first one, then the other. The room was strangely quiet. I could hear William’s breathing behind me.
“Where’s the baby?” I asked.
“I sold him to a gypsy lady who came by this morning. Didn’t think you’d mind.”
Now my eyes opened fully, and I rolled over.
“And where’s Kit?”
“I thought you would enjoy a day off for our anniversary. Teresa and Shawna are watching the kiddos.”
“But when—“
“Just for the morning,” William amended. “I know you don’t want to be without Stevie and Kit for long.”
“He’ll need to eat—“
“They have the bottles,” William said, wrapping me wholly in his arms and pressing another kiss onto my neck. “And Stevie had just fallen asleep when he left. They’ll be fine.”
My breath released, and I nestled back into the strong muscles of William’s chest.
“Happy anniversary,” I murmured. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
I couldn’t shake the strange feeling that had come over me. Squirming, I turned around to face William. His gray eyes fastened on mine, and the slow calm curve of his smile made my heart beat a little faster.
“I feel… weird,” I said.
“That’s called being fully rested. I let you sleep in.”
“Mmm.”
“And I have orders to a personal chef downstairs to send up a plate full of bacon whenever you’re ready for it.”
“Now you’re talking.”
“Do you want me to send our kids away every morning for bacon time?” William’s face was serious, but a twinkle danced in his eyes.
“No,” I said, laughing. “Once a year ought to do it. Maybe twice.”
“Once on your birthday. How about that?”
“That’s a nice present,” I murmured.
“Here’s another one,” William said, turning suddenly away from me. He handed me a gift bag, helping me to sit up in bed.
“Thank you!” I said, eagerly pulling out a small photo album from the bag. I opened the gilded cover with our family photo on it, and my hand flew to my mouth.
“Oh, Will!”
“I wanted to remember the first year we were together,” William said, putting an arm around me.
I flipped through the pages, poring over the images. There was a photo with me and Bobbi dancing at the wedding reception. Another one with Teresa blindfolding me at the baby shower before our baby food tasting game. Every page made me laugh and swelled my heart. By the time I reached the end, I couldn’t stop the tears sliding down my cheeks.
William holding our son, one hour newly born. The look on his face was pure love. And the caption: A new future.
“William…” I said, trailing off. There was too much emotion in me; I couldn’t speak.
I didn’t need to. William pressed a kiss to my forehead.
“I’m glad you like it,” he said.
“I got you something too,” I said, suddenly remembering as sleep faded away from me. “It’s in the drawer.”
William reached over and pulled out a small box in gold wrapping.
“Looks shiny,” he said.
“I stole it,” I said, letting my fingers tease their way down the lower part of his body.
“You better not have. Or else I’m putting your mug shot in the scrapbook for next year’s anniversary.”
He opened the small box.
“Do you like it?” I asked nervously. But the broad grin that swept over his face reassured me.
“Squirrels!”
He lifted the small gold cufflinks to the light. They were shaped like squirrels.
“To commemorate your first proposal,” I said. “I’ll never forget it.”
“And you’ll never let me forget it either,” William said, chuckling. “They’re perfect, Sierra. Thank you.”
“Thank you for not giving up on me.”
“That was never going to happen,” William said. I gazed into his eyes. I had once thought they were storm gray, but they had softened into a calm sea. “You’ve always been mine.”
“Even when it was just pretend?”
“Sierra… it was never pretend. Not from the moment I saw you.”
He pulled me close to him, and as his lips touched mine, I felt the same electric shock of desire that I’d felt the first time we’d been so close together. Even with so much that had happened, my heart still thrilled to the touch of his hands around the small of my back, his hot lips possessing mine.
I hadn’t dared for this to be real. But now that it was, it felt more like a dream than before. Safe and warm and full of love, I leaned into my husband’s embrace.
I was his, truly his, for real and forever.
—
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Rachel
I’m pinned on my back, my dress pushed up to my hips, two hundred feet above the streets of New York City. The floor underneath is all glass: if I crane my head to the side I can see the streets below, the cars moving like blinking white and red ants. It’s almost midnight, and I feel like a lightning bug being held inside of a glass jar, suspended among the stars in the air above the sleepless city that I shouldn’t love, but do.
Terrified. Thrilled. Electric with sensation.
It’s the first time I’ve ever had a man’s body pressed against me like this, the hard muscles against my soft curves sending all sorts of strange signals through me. And his one muscle, there, hard and insistent against my inner thigh. The music in the air is loud, filling my ears with a beat that almost matches my pounding heartbeat. It echoes through me, and I feel hollow, needy.
I shift, and his body shifts with me, pushing us even closer together.
“Rachel.”
The music dissolves in my mind, and I hear his voice under the thrumming bass notes. A growl in my ear that sends bolts of desire shooting through me down to my toes.
He has me tied up with sashes, floating in the air, and he’s floating with me, his sculpted body arched over mine. A red sash around my ankles, two more sashes knotted around my wrists. I’m supported in a dozen places by soft fabric stretched taut under my body, but the only sensation I care about is that muscle, hard and throbbing between my thighs. He wants me.
If you had told me a month ago that Clint Terrance would want me, I would have laughed myself silly. But nothing is silly now. I’m melting with every second that passes, every drum beat that stretches out time. I never want this to end, and we haven’t even started.
When he threads his fingers through my hair, I moan. He’s not touching me where I need it most. I ache for him in a way I never knew was possible. I ache for the kiss he hasn’t given me yet. I ache for his hands on my body. I ache for him, him most of all, him inside of me, filling me the way the music fills my ears.
The tattoo peeking out from under his white jacket is a splash of musical notes, and for a brief moment I want to reach out and touch it with my fingertips, to try and read the music that’s written all over him. I can’t move my arms, though. The sashes are taut around my wrists. I bite my lip in frustration, and he sucks in a tight breath.
“Rachel. Tell me you want this.”
I look back up to see his dark desirous eyes above me, and I’m scared to think about what will happen if I say y
es. My whole life has been a careful, sheltered existence. And now he’s asking me to give it all up. Give up my family. Give up my life.
For him.
The sky is glass, the floor is glass, and all of a sudden I’m scared that we’ll shatter everything if I let him take me now. I’m not supposed to be here, not with this man. I’m not this kind of girl. I never have been.
He’s waiting for my answer, tense and ready, holding himself back even though I can see it kills him to do it. And as the music plays, I know that I’ll never be ready, not really. There’s never going to be a perfect time, a perfect place. There’s only here and now, and I won’t ever know how to fly until I let myself jump.
His lips are close to mine, so close that I am sure he can feel my breath, even if the word is lost in the music.
“Yes.”
Clint
Goddammit. I’m such a fuckup.
I didn’t mean to get into a fight at the studio. I swear I didn’t. But trouble seems to follow me around like a band of underage groupies.
That night, I burst into the studio after-party already buzzed. The show had gone perfect—I couldn’t wait to hear what my pops thought—and I’d been swimming through hot chicks on my way out of the stadium. I hoped Piers had brought an extra limo to hold all the girls.
Something bugged me, though, and I didn’t know what. I was the lead singer of a hot rock band on the biggest tour of my life. Life was good, and tonight was the peak of it all.
Then why did I feel like something was missing?
The music blared from the speakers, but the crowd was so loud that I could barely hear who was playing. I scanned the mob of people, my eyes passing over girls in tiny skirts and men with fading tattoos poking out from their suit sleeves.