by Brook Greene
“He passed out and hit is head pretty hard on the floor.” The doctor looks like he’s fighting to not bust out into a fit of unprofessional laughter.
When the doctor disappears back through the doors, the men bust out into raucous laughter, and I can’t hold it in either.
We rush down the hall to the nursery, tapping on the window to get the nurse’s attention. She looks around with a smile and mouths, “Which one?” We all point to the two beautiful baby boys with Keagan written in blue on the little pieces of paper taped to the bins they’re lying in. She rolls one and then the other over to the window, and we all coo and aww.
“Kaleb and Seth.” I read the tags, then turn and slap Avery on the arm. “Did you know that too?”
She turns to me. “No.”
“They are beautiful.” Josie presses her face almost flat against the window, still holding the damn bouquet in one hand.
Roman leans down and kisses my cheek, the one with the scar. “We’re gonna to go see about Matty.”
“Okay,” I say, running my finger down his jaw line.
I watch his fine ass, along with the other fine asses of the boys, walk away. They’d taken off their dress jackets and had the sleeves of their dress shirts rolled up, showing off all the delectable ink that covers their arms.
I turn back to look at the two new additions to the family and sigh. What a perfect ending to the most perfect day.
~~~~~~
Roman
We find the room and step around the curtain to find Matty laying in a bed with a cloth over his forehead, still in his tux.
“Manly,” Cowboy taunts, smacking at his foot.
Matty kicks back with a groan. “Shut up, I’m not in the mood for your shit.”
“What the hell happened, man?” Leo asks as he pulls up a rolling stool, settling himself on it.
He holds up his hands. “I don’t know. One minute I was watching my beautiful woman give birth to my sons, then I saw Kaleb’s head come out of her area and I face-planted right onto the fucking floor.” He cuts his hand through the air. “Didn’t even get to see Seth come out.”
Eno lays his hand on Matty’s shoulder. “It’s a damn good thing you have a hard head.”
He smacks Eno’s hand off his shoulder and looks at me. “How is she?”
I shrug. “Don’t know. They won’t let us see her yet.”
Leo leans over him. “They’re delivering the afterbirth and sewing her up.”
Matt makes a gagging noise and holds up his hand. “Shut up, I can’t take it.”
“You pussy. How the hell do you think she feels? She just pushed two human beings out of her body,” Cowboy bites off as he rests his big frame on the foot of Matt’s bed.
We’re all spent. The day has been long and full of excitement.
Matt looks up. “Yeah, I know. Not exactly the most supportive spouse, am I?” He draws in a deep breath as he sits up. “I need to go and check on her.” He swings his legs over the side of the bed using Leo’s shoulders to push himself up to his feet.
Leo slaps his back. “I got kinda lightheaded myself, man,” he offers, letting him off the hook over the guilt trip we’re taking him on.
Dalton slaps himself in the chest. “Not me, man. I’m gonna be up in that shit when Piper has our kids.” He covers his whole face with his hand.
“There’s nothing right about you,” Eno sneers, shaking his head as he waves his hand in a circle in Dalton’s direction. “At all, nothing.”
“Roman.” I turn to Leo as we walk down the hall. “Go get your bride and make this marriage official. We’ll see you next week when you get back from your honeymoon.” He claps his hand down on my shoulder. “Enjoy, man. It was a great day.”
I stop, thinking about what my brothers had done for her, for me. “Hey, guys?” They stop and turn to me. I blink a couple times, fighting back the tears, not wanting to look like a pussy when I say this. “I don’t know if you planned that or if it was a spur of the moment thing, but thank you for what you did for her.”
Leo walks back to me, holding out his hand. “We didn’t just do it for her.” I take his hand and pull him into a man hug, giving him a slap on the back.
Eno looks around. “Hell, if nobody’s gonna take credit for it,” he raises his hand, “I will.”
Cowboy acts like he’s going to punch him, but smiles, grabbing him by the back of the neck and hauling Eno into him, giving him a similar hug. It seems wedding days make us all huggy and shit.
We all walk down the hall, together.
~~~~~~
“Do you feel like going to the cabin tonight?” Hollis asks as I help her and her wedding dress into our truck.
I lean in, bracing my hands on the truck, framing her in. “To tell you the truth,” I stop and just look at her. She’s still just as gorgeous as she was the day I met her. Unable to help myself, I lean in and steal a kiss. “I would love to go back to our house, take you upstairs and strip you out of this dress.” I hold up the train, giving it a sharp tug. “And make love to you, Mrs. Jefferys, in our bed.” A slight shiver runs through her body, and I know she agrees with me.
“But.” I place my finger on her lips, stopping her protest about the money we spent on the cabin.
“I don’t care, I just want you.”
“I want you too.”
I tap her nose with my finger. “That’s a good damned thing, ’cause you have me in sickness and in health, until death.” I step back and close the door.
~~~~~~
Hollis
We pull into our drive and he holds up his hand, stopping me from getting out. “Wait, let me.” He rounds the hood and opens my door, pulling me out of the truck and into his arms. Snuggling me against his chest, he carries me to our front door and stops. “Shit.” He tilts me and jingles the keys he has in his hand. “Unlock the door.” I take them, unlock the door and open it, letting him carry me over the threshold. He smiles down at me. “Didn’t quite think that through.” We both laugh as he kicks the door closed behind him.
His icy blue eyes glaze over with lust, and I frame his face with my hands. This is my husband, no longer just my boyfriend or occasional fuck buddy, but the man who wanted to marry me and did. He never cared who I was or where I was from, he saw something in me that I couldn’t resist in him all those years ago. He never gave up on me. Even when he tried he couldn’t, and the memories of him was what got me through and kept me going all those years I was away from him.
He heads up the stairs, carrying me with such ease, like I weigh nothing, and carries me through the doors of our room. It’s dark, with none of the romantic gestures like candles and wine I had planned to make up the cabin with, had our plans not been derailed by the appearance of two highly-anticipated little boys.
Roman places me on my feet, cupping my face in his hands. “So beautiful.” He kisses me tenderly before taking the comb holding my veil, pulling it gently from my hair, and lays it out on the chair beside our bed. He leans down and begins to kiss the bare skin of my left shoulder. Walking around behind me, I feel as he starts to tug loose the satin covered buttons, undoing them, touching the newly exposed skin of my back as he goes. His touch ignites the flames in my belly, and the pace he’s taking has me burning with lust, want, and need.
He pushes the straps of the dress off my shoulders, rubbing my arms with his hands as he guides the satin down until I can pull my arms free. He walks back around to face me again, his eyes devouring me like I’m his last meal. His eyes drift down to my naked breasts. Reaching up, he cups them in his big hands, rubbing the pads of his thumbs over the budded nipples, making me moan. He’s taking this slow, savoring every inch of me. He glides his fingertips down and takes my hands, helping me step out of the dress. I trip a little, but he’s right there to catch me. He reaches around me and takes the zipper of my slip, pulling it down until the material falls away, leaving me in nothing but my panties and the heels it took me hours to pick out,
knowing he would love me in them.
One side of his mouth turns up. “That was easier than I thought it was going to be.”
I giggle. “I know, I made sure it would be.” My admission gets me a full smile from him as he steps back and lets his eyes travel from my head and down my body. I swear it’s like his hands are caressing me, because I feel every bit of his heated gaze on my skin.
He takes a step back and begins to unbutton his dress shirt, but I quickly move to him. “Let me.” It’s like we’re discovering each other for the first time. The air in this room, where we’ve made love in many times, is different. Charged with an anticipation I’ve never felt before except for the first time this man took me and I’d given myself to him, and he has owned my body and held my heart since then.
When I finish with the last button, I rub my hands up his defined chest to his shoulders, and ease his shirt off slowly. I lean in, kissing his heated skin, and I feel him shudder under my lips. He’s just as wound up as I am. The exhaustion I’d been feeling earlier from the long day is gone, replaced with a heightened sense of a soul-crushing need for the man standing in front of me to take me, mark me, and make me his forever.
“Get on the bed.” His voice is raspy, and the small muscle in his jaw ticks as he watches me lower myself down on the bed, laying my body out for him. No man has ever made love or fucked me like Roman has or can.
He hurries out of his slacks, shoes, and boxer briefs, no longer able to wait. He crawls over me, bracing his body above mine. “I love you, Mrs. Jefferys.” He kisses his way down to my lacy white panties, snagging them, and with a jerk, he rips the white lace from my body, dropping them with the pile of wedding attire at the foot of the bed. He stands and lifts my feet up, running his hands over my stilettoes. “Leaving these sexy motherfuckers on.” He places my feet on the bed, pushing my knees apart so that me and my bare pussy is on full display for him.
He crawls up between my parted legs, resting his big body over me once again. He ducks his head and takes my mouth with such eagerness, our teeth knock together, but it doesn’t stop us. He reaches between us, running the head of his cock through my wet pussy, making me buck my hips up when he reaches the apex of my sex. “Oh, Roman.” I release his mouth long enough to moan my approval. We’ve done this hundreds of times, in every position known to the free world. But this time, it seems more intense, filled with a passion so powerful, I feel like I can’t contain it in my body. I pull him to me. “I need you, Roman. I need you in me.”
With his hand on his cock, he positions himself at my entrance, his blue eyes holding mine as he pushes slowly inside. “Oh God, yes.” He stills, and I watch him grit his teeth, trying to gain control over the emotions flying freely between us. I wrap my legs around his hips and stroke his face with my hands. “I love you,” I tell him.
Our eyes are locked on each other’s as he begins to move in and out of me, slowly. We make love to each other in our bed, in our home, as a married couple. I don’t know why I thought us going to a cabin on our wedding night could be more romantic than this.
Our sweat slicked bodies slide against each other’s as we begin our new life together, showing in the rawest of ways our love for each other. He builds me to an orgasm and I release around him with a scream. “Roman!”
“Fuck, Hollis.” He pushes into me three more times before following me over the edge.
He slumps down on me, our chests rising and falling together as we try to get our bodies back under control. My eyelids begin to droop as he rolls off of me, not bothering to go to the bathroom and clean up. Instead, he pulls me into him, burying his nose against my neck and inhaling. “You’re the air I breathe,” he whispers.
We drift off, finally letting the exhaustion of the day take us and pull us under, tangled up in each other, just like we have been for the most of our lives, since we met that day in the high school.
~~~~~~
I wake with a start, like I had over the past several days, entangled in his arms, but in desperate need of the bathroom. As slowly as I can, I slide out from under his heavy arm and rush to the bathroom, making it just in time. I flop back onto my butt, leaning my back against the cool porcelain tub, my body covered in sweat. A chill runs over me.
This isn’t good. We leave for our honeymoon tomorrow, and I can’t be getting sick. I stand on shaky legs to rinse out my mouth and wash my face.
“Hollis?” I turn to find Roman at the bathroom door, his eyes full of concern. “You okay, baby?”
“Yeah, still having that stomach thing,” I reply nonchalantly as I splash cold water on my flushed face. I stand, forcing a smile as my stomach continues to roll. “Coffee?”
He stops me with a hand on my shoulder when I attempt to duck around him. “You sure?”
I cover his hand with mine. “Yes, too much excitement yesterday. I didn’t eat right with all the activity. I’ll be fine.” I’m reassuring myself as much as I’m trying to let him know I’m okay.
I don’t need to be worrying about getting sick right now because I don’t have time for it. He follows me down to the kitchen and I cast a glance back at him and his naked body. “No clothes?”
He rubs his hand down his bare torso, the light catching on the new ring on his left hand. “Not today, baby. There’s no need for them.” He points at me. “Plus, I’m just taking your lead.” I look down, and because I’d been so hot in the bathroom, I didn’t even notice I was naked too.
“Oh.” I turn, shaking my ass at him. In an instant, I feel him at my back and he pushes my belly up against the counter in front of me.
His lips are at my ear, and he begins to sing the lyrics of Bryan Adam’s “Heaven” to me. The song, the one from our youth and from our first dance as a married couple. He rests his hands on my hips and begins to sway, taking me with him. Finally, I give up trying to make coffee and turn to face him, snaking my arms around his neck. He dances us through the kitchen and back up the steps, singing the whole time.
We spend the rest of the day in bed—not packing, not keeping in touch with the others—just making love and worshiping each other’s bodies. There isn’t a time I know where I end or where he begins.
After an epic fuck session, he rolls and reaches for his bedside table drawer. Pulling a white envelope from it, he hands it to me. “Here ya go, babe.”
I sit up and take it from his hand, flipping it over. “What is it?” I look over at him.
“Just open it.”
I lift the unglued flap and pull two flight tickets out.
“No!” I shriek and giggle, flinging my body onto his. “We’re going to Hawaii?”
He looks up at me, his blue eyes dancing.
~~~~~~
Roman
We’d arrived in Honolulu on Monday afternoon. Hollis’s excitement radiated off of her in waves. Her smile was as wide as I’d ever seen it as her head whipped from side to side in a dizzying speed, taking in everything on the ride to the resort where I’d booked us a private cabana for the week. But I kept my eyes trained solely on her. She’d worn a spaghetti strap sundress that hit her mid-thigh, and I couldn’t help trying to play a little bit in the cab during the ride. Every time I would attempt to smooth my hand up and under the hem, she would smack it away and glare at me.
I practically ripped the dress off of her when I finally got her alone, and other than the few times she’s begged me to go out and sightsee, we’ve been naked and in this bed.
I watch the breeze from the ocean billow the curtains, covering the open patio doors of our room as the sun comes up. I lay with Hollis in my arms, who is sound asleep and sated. I gently kiss her temple, making her stir and mumble something as she turns in my arms to face me, burying her face in my chest. Having her in my arms is the most amazing feeling.
“Roman?”
“Yes?”
“Can you let me go?”
“Okay.” I reluctantly release her as she bounds out of the bed, making a beeline for th
e bathroom.
“Hollis?” I knock on the door she’d slammed behind her.
“Yeah?” Her voice is shaky, this routine becoming a little too frequent for my liking. “Hollis.” I knock stiffer this time.
“What?” she replies, sounding almost defeated.
I turn the knob and push the door open to find Hollis sitting with her back against the large marble garden tub. I kneel down next to her. “Hollis, baby, what’s wrong?” She cradles her face in her hands and heaves a heavy sigh. “Should I call Avery?”
She shakes her head no. “I think I know what’s wrong.” She looks over at me warily, chewing on her bottom lip.
“You do? What?” I feel like I’m missing something.
She pushes herself up to her knees, laying her hands on my shoulders. “I need you to run out to the pharmacy for me.”
“For what?”
~~~~~~
I’m standing in line at the pharmacy completely dumbfounded, holding two boxes in my hand. When she’d told me what she thought was wrong, I didn’t react quite the way I probably should have. But damn, news like that would take any man a minute to process. She’d taken it that I wasn’t excited, but I am. Hell, I’m shocked, but over the fucking moon happy.
She’s not only my wife, but she’s going to be the mother of my child. What man wouldn’t be happy? I lay the boxes on the counter, and I get a warm smile from the woman as she begins to ring me up. “You should take her chocolates too,” she suggests.
I snap my fingers. “Good thinking, thank you.” I dart into the candy aisle and grab Hollis a bag of peanut M&M’s, her favorite. Tossing them on the counter, I smile back at her. “I should bring her flowers. I didn’t react the way I should have.”
Her smile widens as she nods her head. “Most men don’t. There’s a vender on the corner who sells the best smelling star gazers.” She places the tests into a bag. “That’ll be twenty-eight eighty.”
I hand her two twenties and take the bag and change she offers me. “Congratulations,” she says. “Don’t worry about it, she’s probably just as freaked out as you are.”
“Yeah, she’s as cool as a cucumber.” I hold up the bag to her. “Thank you again. Sometimes men can be dumbasses.”