Big Man's Bride (A Small Town Romance)

by Penny Wylder

  “Yes, I know, and we can talk about the extent of my rights tomorrow.” He yanks the final curtain shut forcefully.

  I smirk. “You think the bears are going to get a good show if you don’t close those up tight?”

  “Can’t be too careful.”

  “You probably can be.”

  My suitcase is in the corner of the room, and I realize that he never meant for me to stay in the guest room. He didn’t even think about it. He wanted me here. In his bed.

  Fire sizzles through my veins. “I think we should have that talk now,” I say. “Otherwise we might forget.”

  He doesn’t respond, instead pulling me to my feet and finishing the work that he started in the guest bedroom, pushing the dress off my shoulders and letting it float to the floor. He backs me to the bed, hand on my chest and pushes me back until I’m lying down, and I can’t seem to find my voice anymore.

  Caleb grabs the shoes off my feet and tosses them aside before sliding my panties off. Those disappear too. He’s grinning now. “Seems I learned how to shut you up. Now, let’s see if I can make you scream.”

  I don’t have a chance to protest, and five seconds later I don’t want to because Caleb has pushed my legs apart and buried his tongue in my pussy. “Oh fuck.”

  “No,” he says. “No more talking tonight, unless you’re screaming my name or begging me again.”

  He swirls his tongue over my clit, and I groan. “You’re a bastard.”

  “Every time you talk is one more time that I take you to the edge and leave you there, so we have to start all over.”

  After yesterday, I know enough to know that he’s not kidding. I bite my lip to keep myself from speaking again, and sink into the bliss of his mouth on me, exactly the way I wanted him yesterday. I was right that he would taste me.

  Fucking hell, he’s good at this. I shouldn’t be surprised. Long, slow licks that cover all of me before centering his efforts over my clit and driving me toward the peak. My hips arch up to his mouth like he has a magnet in his tongue. I can’t control how wet I am or how much I want him, it’s already a done deal.

  Caleb’s fingers dig into my thighs and spread my legs wider. I’m so close to coming that my voice is leaking out in moans that I hope he won’t count as speaking. Glorious, delirious pleasure…that’s suddenly gone.

  He’s lifted his mouth away from me and let it all collapse into nothing. Just like he said he would. I grab the sheets in frustration, keeping my mouth shut and my words contained. Because I don’t want him to do that again. I don’t think that I could handle it.

  My husband’s low chuckle whispers across my skin, and just the sound of him makes me wetter. If our nights are like this, I’m not entirely sure that I’ll survive one month of marriage.

  When he’s satisfied that I’m nowhere near my orgasm anymore, he starts again. This time with the softest brushes of his tongue on my clit. A press of lips, and barely more than a breath. Kisses to my inner thighs that make pleasure sink through my skin and that unnamable heat build in my core again.

  Every touch is slightly more. Harder. Faster. Drawing me upward with him until he’s feasting on me like he’s a dying man and I’m his last meal. I’m careening recklessly toward an orgasm and no matter what he does, this time I don’t think that I’ll be able to stop. He pushes two fingers inside me, hooking them up and grazing the rough patch that makes stars burst in front of my eye. His tongue works in tights circles, and the combination of that and his finger inside me have me speeding toward my orgasm.

  It hits, and I feel shattered. Pleasure spikes through me, rolling through a peak and pulling me down into spasms and something so deep it feels hard to breathe. I think I make sound, but I’m not sure. All I can see is white, arching into Caleb’s still-licking mouth. My back lifts off the bed and my fingers grip Caleb’s hair, holding his head in place. I don’t want his mouth to move from my pussy. Not yet.

  The waves subside and leave me completely spent. I lay back on the bed and when I can see again, the sight is almost as amazing as the orgasm.

  Caleb is naked—the first time that I’ve seen him that way—and it’s better than I could have imagined.

  The powerful legs that I experienced yesterday build to slim hips that frame his cock. It’s fully hard, and without the boxer briefs it looks even larger than it did yesterday. I want to feel it again, that delicious fullness.

  He has those lines that curve down from his abs that every woman craves, pointing in the direction of the promised land. Above that, abs that seem like they go on for miles, and a chest that gives me no doubt about why he could swing that sledgehammer the way that he did. I blink. For a moment, I’m not entirely sure that he isn’t made out of marble and that I’ve been transported to a museum.

  And his eyes, watching me take him in. Dark with lust. I can imagine myself from his view, spent from an orgasm, messy and wet, spread on his bed for him to claim. The thought in itself makes me shake with anticipation.

  Caleb rolls on a condom, and crawls up my body slowly, leaving a shivering path with his tongue. He kisses me when we’re face to face, long and slow and deep before pushing into me in one long stroke.

  He stays still for beat, and continues kissing me. The kiss is like velvet, and I feel its heat and passion flow to every nerve in my body. My hips start moving on their own accord. The desire between my legs can’t be ignored. I tip my hips and feel his cock moving ever so slightly inside of me. It feels amazing but I want so much more. He pulls his face from mine and reaches down between us. My clit, still so sensitive from my orgasm, is slippery under his finger. And as he strokes me, he starts to slowly fuck me. I feel every inch of his cock as it drags out of me, and then just as slowly he enters me again. The pace is torturously, deliriously slow. As much as I want to scream harder, faster, I don’t dare speak. His deliberate and controlled movements are stoking a fire inside me. I feel my toes and fingers crackle with electricity, and a fullness starts to bloom between my legs. I’ve never experienced this before. Like a slow tidal wave washing over me. From deep inside my orgasm builds. Subtle at first, but definitely there. And as he picks up speed, the feeling grows. The intensity is only matched by its duration, and I feel like I’m transported outside my body.

  “Fuck, you feel so good,” Caleb rasps in my ear. His voice is taut, and I can tell he’s as effected as I am. He starts to fuck me faster, repeating “So good” into my ear again and again. His finger leaves my clit and he puts it in my mouth. “Suck it,” he says through gritted teeth, and I do. I suck his finger and it makes him groan. The taste of myself on his finger sends a jolt through me, and my hips start meeting his at a faster pace.

  His forehead rests on my own, and his eyes stare deep into mine. His face is the sexist combination of exertion and lust. My lips fall open as my orgasm crests, and my hands reach down, grabbing his ass, and holding on as tight as I can. Caleb hisses in pain but it barely registers to me. The storm of pleasure doesn’t stop. I’m lost to it. And to him. The only thing that I can do is hold onto Caleb like he’s my anchor. It’s hard for me to accept that he can make me feel this way—like my body is the lock and he’s the only one that has the key.

  But as he fucks me into orgasm after orgasm, I choose to hold on tighter, determined to get all the pleasure I can while I have him.

  8

  Caleb

  I wake up to the sun on my face, even though I know for a fact that I closed the curtains last night. After getting my hands on Ally, I realized I didn’t want anyone to see her except for me. The photographer will have gotten more than enough, and the gossip sites will pay him loads for the wedding pictures he did take.

  And last night…

  Last night was beyond indescribable. I’m exhausted in the best way, and I stretch, turning over to look at Ally, and surprised when she’s not in bed with me. She must be the one that opened the curtains then. That’s disappointing. I was curious if my new bride liked morning sex as muc
h as she liked my face buried between her legs. As much as I liked my face buried between her legs.

  She tasted amazing, and I wouldn’t mind making that a regular part of my routine. Especially if she’s going to make sounds like the ones that she made last night. I can’t remember ever clicking that quickly with someone in bed.

  The smell of breakfast cooking downstairs reaches the bedroom. Eggs and maybe bacon? My stomach growls. That tracks. Neither of us ate dinner last night after the wedding. We were busy with other things. What time is it, even?

  Checking my phone, I’m surprised to find that it’s already late. Nearly eleven. No wonder I’m hungry. And not only for food. Maybe after breakfast I can convince Ally that we need to spend our honeymoon in bed.

  I’m grinning to myself as I pull on some clothes. There’s a possibility that I’m enjoying this a little too much. We got married so we could each get what we want, but the sex, if it’s going to be like it was last night, that’s a definite bonus.

  Downstairs, Ally is standing at the kitchen island. The plate in front of her is stacked with eggs and bacon, and there’s a cup of coffee next to her. She’s wearing shorts and a baggy sweatshirt, and her hair is piled on top of her head in a messy bun. If it’s possible, she looks even sexier than in the dress that I peeled off her last night.

  Looking around the kitchen, there’s no sign of anymore food. The dishwasher is running and the coffee pot is empty. And probably most notably, Ally doesn’t even look up at me.

  “Good morning.”

  She doesn’t respond at all, scrolling on the phone that’s in one hand. I try to mimic last night, coming up behind her and grabbing her hips, kissing her neck. But she might as well be made of stone for all she responds. “Is there any more breakfast or were you intending to share?” I point at her plate.

  Ally holds the phone up so I can see what’s on the screen, and I freeze. It’s the leaked pictures of us, just like I planned—like I wanted—to happen. The two of us smiling at the altar, me carrying her down to the river, and the two of us in the window, her dress clearly about to hit the floor.

  She thrusts her hips back into mine, making me take a step back, and grabs her plate and coffee. “Fend for yourself, rich boy,” she says, disappearing out the back door onto the porch.

  An unexpected wave of guilt hits me. I should have told her. Warned her. Or at least given her my reasoning for why the photos needed to be leaked. I’m overwhelmed with relief that I chose to keep the more private moments actually private. I can’t imagine what I was even thinking, suggesting that the photographer get intimate pictures of our wedding night. She may be angry at me now, but if the other pictures I’d planned were all over the internet, I don’t think she’d ever talk to me again. Yesterday, I didn’t care that much what the consequences were. But today, I care very deeply that Ally doesn’t hate me. How can so much change in less than a day?

  I cook myself breakfast, the same as I do every morning, but it feels strange now. I make eggs and bacon because Ally’s looked so good, but I know they would taste better if Ally made them for me. And I eat alone at the dining room table, not wanting to encroach on Ally’s personal space too soon, but the table feels too big, and I scrape half of my breakfast into the trash because my appetite disappears.

  The real question is, what do we do now? It’s a weekend so she doesn’t have to work, but I doubt she’ll want to do anything with me. I might as well continue the work on the porch. It’s a nice day, and it needs to get done anyway.

  I get dressed in real clothes and grab the plans I’ve started for the restoration and renovation of the house, and I dare to go out onto the back porch. Ally is typing furiously on her phone, but doesn’t look up at me.

  Setting the file down in front of her, I clear my throat. “These are the plans I have for restoring the house, including everything I thought needed work inside and outside, and the plans for the porch. Since it’s going to be your house, I thought I should show you. Feel free to add anything you might want or make notes if you have concerns. I’m going to finish getting rid of the rotten porch boards.”

  She doesn’t look up at me, but I see her eyes flick to the folder, and as soon as I’m inside, I watch as she snatches it off the table and begins to pour through the contents. At the very least I know I can get her attention by focusing on the house.

  I have about half the demolition left, but it goes very quickly. On the couple of breaks that I take for water, I see Ally moving around the house with the folder, a notepad and a pen. Her face is serious and engaged. Determined.

  When I finally get the last of the old planks up from the porch, I take a break. I stand on the back deck and watch the river. When I bought the house, I was attracted to building; I didn’t really appreciate the land so much. But now I get it. The red oaks are dense behind the house leading down to the river. And the rustle of leaves and the rush of water are the perfect Tennessee lullaby. After the hard work on the porch and the gentle breeze coming up from the river, I could lay down right here and fall peacefully asleep.

  “Whatcha doing?” Ally startles me. “I thought you could use a drink,” she says, handing me a glass of lemonade. The glass is already sweating. A peace offering?

  “Thanks,” I say, taking the glass and gulping down half the lemonade. “Tart. Did you make this?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “It’s pretty wild to drink a glass back here again. It just brings it all back to me. It feels like yesterday I was running barefoot down to the river without a care in the world.”

  “Well, it actually was yesterday,” I tease. “Barefoot in the river, that is.”

  She punches my shoulder but she’s laughing. “You know what I mean. It’s just … a lot.” She stares off toward the Cumberland and we stand in silence for a few minutes, listening the birdsong and enjoying the breeze.

  Later, as I pile the last of the rotting wood on the side of the driveway, I have an idea. The thought comes from out of the blue, but once it’s in my head, I don’t want to let it go. It’s still early in the evening, and I haven’t had much to eat today. I doubt Ally has either.

  I shower in a flash, washing the sweat off myself before I go poking around in the kitchen. Soon I have everything I need. I grab a blanket, and head to one of the gorgeous spots near the river. Ally knows this place backwards and forwards. She’ll know where I am with barely a glance.

  It’s our honeymoon, right? What’s more like a honeymoon than a picnic? Snapping a photo of the food laid out on the blanket, and then the view of the river, I text both of them to Ally.

  Join me?

  It’s a gamble. She might not come, but this is my version of the peace offering, and I hope that she accepts. We have a month of living together in front of us, and I hope, even if she can’t forgive me, we can at least have some semblance of peace. Luckily my realtor left me a basket of gourmet foods when he dropped off the keys, so even though this is thrown together hastily, it actually looks really impressive with caviar, crackers, a hard salami and a nice bottle of merlot. There’s even a small box of truffles.

  A few minutes later, I see her through the trees, approaching me warily. She’s changed into a pair of shorts that show off her legs and make me want to have them wrapped around my waist, and a simple t-shirt that pulls at her curves. She has a way of making the most basic things look fucking amazing. I don’t want to stop looking at her, and I desperately need to stop thinking like this if I’m going to survive with my heart in one piece.

  “What’s this?”

  “Honeymoon picnic,” I say.

  She sits on the opposite side of the blanket, still looking at me warily.

  I sigh. “I wanted to apologize. I should have told you what I was planning with the photographer.”

  Her face hardens. “Thanks to you I’ve been getting shocked texts from my friends asking what the hell is happening. I’m just grateful my grandfather doesn’t pay attention to that kind of news.”


  “It needed to happen.”

  “Why?”

  Taking a deep breath, I push aside my distaste for the subject. “If we showed up out of nowhere, married, my parents would be more likely to suspect it for what it is—a set up. If the photos appear in the papers and the gossip columns beforehand, and it looks like I moved to Tennessee and had a whirlwind romance, they might not be happy about it, but they’ll believe me.”

  Ally shakes her head. “You really should have told me.” Something clicks in her face. “You were planning for even worse photos, weren’t you? That’s why you said, ‘This is only for me,’ and closed up those curtains as if there were spies at the window. Because there were!”

  I wince. “I changed my mind when I saw you. Felt you. There was no part of you that I wanted to share with the world, and I’m glad that I didn’t let it happen.”

  She doesn’t look happy, but somehow she doesn’t look angrier either. “Well, I guess that I should thank you for that. Even if setting it up at all makes you a fucking asshole.”

  “I know.”

  She picks up the glass of wine I poured her and takes a sip. “How’s your leg after the demo?”

  I chuckle. “If I manage to avoid hitting it with any more hammers, it’ll be more than fine.”

  After taking a bite of cracker and caviar, she licks her lips. It’s a gesture that I find more than a little mesmerizing. “It’s not really a small wonder that a rich boy doesn’t know how to swing a hammer properly. This is a big project and a lot of house for a guy like you.”

  Anger prickles down my spine. She’s been needling me about that since the moment we met, and I can’t stop the words that fly out of my mouth. “You don’t know anything about me or my pain, Ally.”

  “And you don’t know anything about struggle or hardship, Caleb. You don’t know what it’s like to work for something for years only to have it taken away in a heartbeat. Or to have your trust broken when you suddenly see photos of yourself on the fucking news.