by Ju Ephraime
Turning to her, he asked, “You don’t want my mom to plan the wedding?”
“It isn’t that I don’t want her to help plan the wedding. It’s just that she seemed to want to be involved in every aspect of it. She’s not asking me; it’s more like she’s telling me. It is, after all, my wedding. I know you don’t care, but I do!”
“Christ, Daphne, I thought you would welcome my mom’s help in planning our wedding. After all, she is familiar with everyone and everything on the island, and you are not. Also, I thought you would prefer to leave all this work to someone else. It is work, and my mom would enjoy doing it. But if you don’t want her help, I will tell her. Don’t blame me when she explodes because I know she will. My mother does so like being in charge.”
“All right then, if it is all right with you, I will sit back and allow your mom free rein.”
After driving around the neighborhood for a bit, they returned to his parents’ home. His father looked at her strangely, but his mom acted as if nothing had happened, as if it was an everyday occurrence for people to leave her home during a discussion and return within a couple hours. Daphne followed their lead and acted as if nothing untoward had happened.
In the end, it turned out to be the best decision she could have made, given the circumstances. It was too exhausting questioning everything his mother did. Daphne’s only non-negotiable items were the color of her gown—ivory, not white—and the color of the flowers—pale peach to match the pale peach silk cummerbund and tie she would buy for Wolfe to wear. She didn’t know anyone on the island, so Wolfe and his parents would have to compile the wedding party list. She was a bit despondent about this; the few friends she had were in America. She would invite them but didn’t hold much hope many of them would attend.
She planned on asking Ray, one of her business partners to give her away. He was like a father figure to her and the oldest in their little group. She had a good relationship with Ray and was looking forward to him meeting Wolfe. As a matter of fact, she was looking forward to seeing them all, particularly Gayle, who had informed her that she couldn’t wait to visit Martinique.
They resumed their visit, and she had a wonderful time visiting with the rest of Wolfe’s family. Other than Foxx, she’d not met any of Wolfe’s other siblings. His older sister, Cecilia, was married with three children, two boys and a girl. The oldest boy, Benjamin, was twelve, and he carried himself like a little man. He spent his time with his uncles and was especially close to Wolfe. He followed him around like a shadow. The second boy, Rupert, was very close to his father and was constantly asking him to explain one thing or another to him. The youngest, their daughter Jackie, was Daddy’s little girl. All the men in her family spoiled her rotten, especially her grandfather. If she asked for anything, he saw to it that she got it.
Wolfe’s older brother, Brian, was different from Wolfe and Foxx. He was not very friendly and watched everyone with a sly smile on his face. He gave Daphne the chills. He never looked directly into her face, but she could see him stealing sly glances when he thought no one was watching. His wife, Sofee, was a soft-spoken woman who remained in the background with nothing much to say. Their only child, Jeremy, was sixteen and away at boarding school, but they spoke about him constantly. She could tell they were very proud of him.
His other two siblings, Franchesca and Raymond, were more interested in making fun of Wolfe. “You are off the market now,” they told him. But they were all excited to see him, particularly as he was planning on marrying someone from another country. It was a novel idea to them because Wolfe never had a serious girlfriend before.
And there was his cousin Jeremy, whom she’d met before. Jeremy was also visiting his aunt and uncle that day with his newest girlfriend, Angele. Wolfe told Daphne he changed his girlfriend every couple of weeks. She also learned from Wolfe that Jeremy had a very volatile relationship with his father, and to avoid the constant confrontational arguments, he spent most of his time at Wolfe’s parents’.
At the end of the day, Daphne found she was happy to leave; being with Wolfe’s entire family was taxing. They were all extremely good-looking men and women. She felt like the ugly duckling next to them, although Wolfe told her she was not seeing things straight.
Regardless, she was happy to leave and return home with him. They fell on each other as soon as they entered the home as if they hadn’t seen each other in months.
Wolfe had been fighting a hard-on all day. He had pretended interest in whatever was being discussed, but all he wanted was to take Daphne home and have his way with her. Now he knelt between her legs and dragged her to the edge of the bed. His hands spread her thighs as he bent his head to taste her greedily. He licked and sucked, using his tongue to penetrate her, dragging his stubbly face all over her sensitive spot.
Using his hand to raise her pelvis off the bed for better access, he stabbed her deep with his tongue while applying pressure with his lips to her clit, driving her to the brink but not tipping her over the edge.
Daphne was out of her mind. “Please, please, Wolfe,” she begged.
Wolfe lifted his head to look at her. She looked beautiful when she was aroused, and seeing her desperate and begging was a major turn-on for him. He moved her closer to the edge, positioned the throbbing head of his heavy erection against her entrance, and thrust in. Her pussy was so hot he felt engulfed in her heat as her strong muscles caressed him, holding on to his cock like a suction cup. He wanted to prolong this mating, but he felt his control slipping.
Rearing back, he plunged into her clinging sheath, drew back, and thrust in again. He groaned as she tightened around him and heard her responsive whimper as he took them over the edge together.
Lifting her like a baby, he moved her to the center of the bed and slipped in behind her, spooning her against his body and watched as she drifted off to sleep before he followed.
T wenty-five
Daphne had come to rely on Wolfe’s mom for her invaluable help with the wedding arrangements. In the beginning she’d resented it, but she soon realized it was the best decision she could have made, given the circumstances. This decision served two purposes. It made Wolfe’s mom very happy, and it freed Daphne up to become familiar with the various customs of the island. His mom was so happy she was beside herself. She was constantly calling on Daphne to ask her opinion on one elaborate scheme or other. Daphne had to tell Wolfe she believed his mom was getting carried away with this wedding.
“Maybe we should elope.”
“You can’t deprive my mom of this wedding, sweetheart. My two older siblings didn’t give her the opportunity. My sister eloped, and Brian got married by the justice of the peace in the town hall. So this is my mother’s moment to shine as the mother of the groom. Please don’t try to take this away from her.”
“It’s not that,” Daphne responded. “I don’t want to deprive her of her pet project, but the wedding is in two months, and she is still making plans. I think we should have progressed beyond the planning phase to beginning the final arrangements. I just want to get married to you and live happily ever after. I could do without all the bells and whistles.”
She was also concerned about the lack of guests on her side. Although she’d invited the few friends she had back home, including Gayle, so far, she had only received three confirmed RSVPs. But it was early yet. It was an expensive trip to make just to attend a wedding, so she would understand if all six of her invitees didn’t accept. At least that would be less people to accommodate. Wolfe’s friends and relatives had all accepted. Some were coming from different parts of the island so arrangements had to be made to accommodate them. They had reserved a block of rooms at the hotel for that purpose.
She and Wolfe could only accommodate a limited number in their present home. The home was comfortable and large for her and Wolfe, but for a large gathering, it was too small. They could comfortably accommodate three couples, without being over-crowded. Wolfe had discussed purchasing
a larger home and moving, but Daphne admitted to loving the location of the house, so he compromised and settled on adding an extra wing. They’d already had a couple meetings with the architect to go over the plans for the new addition.
“Wolfe looks especially fine these days,” Foxx commented to her one evening, and Daphne knew it was true.
Wolfe exuded sex appeal. It had always been there before, but now it just seemed to surround him like an aura. Women were always staring at him, covetously, wherever they went, causing Daphne moments of jealous uncertainty. But she took reassurance in his attention to her every need and his insatiable appetite for her in bed.
They had gotten a well-deserved reputation for reclusiveness. In the first few months after her return to the island, there simply was no time to do anything other than to get reacquainted with each other. This required spending as much time as Wolfe could spare from the restaurant with her. There simply was no time for social events, and now that they were working with the architect on the new wing of the house, they were busier than ever.
Wolfe had dropped the entire project of decorating the place into her lap. His argument was that he wanted the new addition to reflect her taste and no one else’s. He claimed he had no taste and wouldn’t know the first thing about decorating a home.
Daphne feared her own taste might not be much better. In America, she’d amassed a collection of antiques and mismatched modern furniture. She wanted this home to reflect Wolfe and her both, regardless of what he said. She enlisted the help of Wolf’s sister, Cecilia, who lived on the other side of the island. They communicated by phone or fax to exchange ideas back and forth. But she could sense a bit of hesitancy in Cecilia. She was constantly questioning whether or not Daphne had to discuss the cost of an item with Wolfe. It was as if she resented Daphne, but it was too subtle for Daphne to say with certainty, and it was nothing she could discuss with Wolfe.
Daphne cautiously chose furniture of simple designs and muted colors. Her only extravagance was in designing the new bedroom and bathroom. The colors were to be reminiscent of the inside of the oyster shells she so admired at the tourist shops on the pier. The bedroom would be antique white with the bed and dresser in a dark mahogany. But the pièce de résistance was to be the bathroom, in muted antique rose. The walls would be very pale, with a deeper shade of Italian ceramic tiles around a hydrotherapy eighty inch soaking tub. A separate shower stall would comfortably hold two and have pipe jets coming out of the walls at all angles. She was thrilled with her plans for the new suite.
She was going to splurge on one other room, the dining room, which she planned to have painted red. The kitchen was already a masterpiece, so she would leave it as is. Wolfe was the cook, and it was his domain.
Construction on the house wouldn’t begin until after they were married, but the planning kept her busy. Wolfe had set her up a small office at the back of the house. It was only a very temporary arrangement because she was actively looking for a good location for her office. But, at the moment, it worked because she did mostly everything by fax, computer, and phone.
She’d given herself three months to be up and running in a good location downtown, but there were so many things to do before this could happen. Her second order of business, after she’d secured the location, was to set about interviewing potential candidates for the position of her assistant. She needed a highly qualified assistant to help her with some of the groundwork.
Meanwhile, the wedding plans were progressing nicely. After the nerve-wracking weeks, the end was in sight. Daphne was going in for the final fitting of her wedding dress. She was looking forward to being done with it.
Outside the dressmaker’s shop, she stood for a moment, seemingly looking through the window, but really thinking of the ecstasy that always overcame her when she and Wolfe got together. I wonder if it will be the same when we’re man and wife. She shook herself out of her daydreams and walked in to try on the dress for the last time.
It looked beautiful—very simple in line and in the ivory silk she’d chosen. The gown had a strapless, Empire-styled bodice, with a flared organza skirt. The bust was made out of laces covered in silver beads, which sparkled as she moved. The dressmaker had outdone herself. The dress made Daphne feel like a princess, and she was anxious to meet her prince. Her wedding party consisted of Cecilia, who would be the Maid of Honor; his niece, Jackie, as the flower girl; his nephew, Benjamin, the ring bearer. She would have two bridesmaids—one being Jeremy’s girlfriend, Angele, and the other was Wolfe’s younger sister, Franchesca. They would all be wearing pale peach, the color of her flowers, and Wolfe’s cummerbund. Her Maid of Honor, Cecilia, would be wearing a deeper shade of peach.
Wolfe thought they would all be peachy. That was his favorite joke of the day. Daphne only had to give him a look and then he would apologize, but she made him pay for making fun of her colors by making him beg, which he did very convincingly. In fact, she believed he deliberately made the joke so that he could be made to beg later on in the privacy of their bedroom.
Wolfe had a fitting for his tuxedo today also, and she couldn’t wait to hear how it went for him. The exorbitant amount of money his mom was spending on this wedding didn’t seem to faze him. He was evidently financially established—or so she hoped. She didn’t want to start her married life heavily in debt because of the wedding. Daphne trusted that his mom would put a halt to things if they became too expensive. She was used to a very simple living, and this extravagant spending was getting to be a bit much for her.
Wolfe’s sister had just informed her that a bachelorette party was planned for her on Saturday evening, two days away. That would have been great, but she really didn’t know many of the women who would be there, with the exception of Cecilia, Sofee, and Jeremy’s girlfriend, Angele, and even those were fairly new. She found that she liked Franchesca, Wolfe’s younger sister, but she could not leave school to attend the shower; she was already coming for the wedding.
Never let it be said she was a chicken. She was trying her best to fit in, and if attending this bachelorette party was a step in that direction then she would shut up and take her medicine.
Daphne was thinking of telling Wolfe about her bachelorette party, but his sister advised against it. Whatever they were planning, Cecilia apparently didn’t think it would sit well with Wolfe. Daphne was uneasy, but she thought, what can a bunch of women do that is so bad?
She soon found out. They had hired a male stripper, who came to the club dressed as a security guard. At first, she thought that was what he was and paid no attention to him.
Soon the drinks began to flow, and inhibitions began to drop away. Daphne didn’t know what they’d put in her drink, but she felt as if she were floating, and when the music started, she was the first one on the dance floor, moving and gyrating her body to the music. She had somehow removed her dress and was wearing only her bra and panties. She didn’t know how it happened, but she was dancing with the security guard, who was now stripped down to only his thong. Ordinarily she would have thought this to be outrageously obscene, but tonight nothing seemed to bother her. She kept giving him as good as she got, and very soon, he was on the floor with her riding him like a horse. She even played with a whip he’d brought with him.
She was in her own little world when she heard screams and noticed a lot of motion around her. She heard a savage howl, as if from a wounded animal. The next thing she knew she was removed from the dancer and wrapped in a shirt all in one movement. Vaguely, she noted that all the women had scattered, and that Wolfe was holding her protectively against his body.
“What happened?” she asked.
“You don’t know?” he answered.
“No,” she said, “but I think I’m going to be sick.”
She rushed outside, where she was violently sick.
“What did your sister give me to drink? Everything is so fuzzy.
Wolfe was incapable of talking, but he took her into his arms and c
arried her to the car and drove away with his tires screeching.
He was so filled with rage he had a red haze in front of him. He wanted to smash something. He had to force himself to calm down when he saw Daphne huddled in the seat with his big shirt on her as if trying to disappear inside of it. This had to have been planned by my sister and her friends. Daphne doesn’t even know any of those people. Every time he thought of Daphne shirtless while she moved her body on the stripper, he saw red. The feeling was so powerful he wanted to beat the man to a pulp. How dare he disrespect his wife this way? Though they had yet to take part in the ceremony, in his eyes, she was his wife. The ceremony was only a formality, and he would waste no time informing his family, especially his sister, of that fact.
He’d had an ugly fight with Cecilia. She offered no apologies for her actions toward Daphne. He would have made it more difficult for her, but due to the fact that she was Daphne’s Maid of Honor, he had to control his temper. Regardless, she was banned from his home because she refused to apologize to Daphne.
“It was all in a bit of fun, Wolfe. You are just overly sensitive where Daphne is concerned. You treat Daphne like a porcelain doll.”
Maybe he did, but that was his damn business. She had no right to violate his trust when he’d trusted her with Daphne. How long would Cecilia have allowed it to continue if he hadn’t appeared? Would she have allowed the man to molest his wife, just for kicks?
He was grateful to Jeremy for alerting him as to what they had planned for Daphne. He could feel the rage intensifying. He had to calm down.
Arriving home, he took Daphne straight into the bathroom and stepped under the shower with her, fully clothed. He removed her bra and panties, shampooed her hair and soaped her body before he began working on himself. She was still spaced-out, looking at him out of wide, curious eyes. He wrapped her in the large towel, dried her, and put her to bed, tucking her in like a baby. All she did was stare at him as if she was in shock. He was beginning to worry. He would have to call his sister to find out what exactly they had put in her drink.