by Emily Snow
She stares me down. “Fair enough. But how do you think it’ll look to them if we suddenly just … get married. Monica will think you’ve knocked me up.”
“I can knock you up.” Her pretty lips fall open, so I keep talking, scooting across the center console to cup her chin and lightly push her mouth closed. “And I can say without blinking an eye that I’d love doing it—love seeing you pregnant with my baby. I’d just prefer five or six years of practice before that happened.”
She gives me another dark glare then shakes her head incredulously. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“As serious as I’ll ever be.” I guide her face closer to mine. “Marry me, Vero.”
“My father will freak out.”
“Not if you’re not pregnant, he won’t. He wouldn’t want to emasculate me for fear of me bleeding out and leaving you alone.” She doesn’t respond to the joke. I fan her lips with a breath of laughter. “I love you. That should be good enough for anyone.”
“Your parents will cut you off.”
That’s a strong possibility. Dad was ready to write me off just for thinking about declining his offer. But he’s always liked Veronica. He’ll either get over it or hold on to it; either way, that’s his problem.
“Fuck. Their. Money. And besides, I can claim mine in two years. There’s not shit they can do about the trust my grandfather left me. You’re the only thing that’s true, V. That’s all I need to know. Money can wait.”
She runs her fingers through my hair. “This is crazy.” She shakes her head so that her forehead rubs mine. “You are crazy, Bennett. You went from racing cars for a rush to—”
“You told me to get my adrenaline somewhere else, remember? We were standing in your bedroom and you told me to take up sky-diving or surfing.”
“It was mountain biking, actually,” she points out.
A chuckle jostles my shoulders. “Okay. The point is, you give me that rush. I’m crazy for you. If I have to wait, I’ll wait, but I can’t stand the thought of you going all over the world without my ring on your finger.”
“And then there’s that. There’s no ring.”
“I—” We both know she doesn’t give a damn about jewelry, but she’s right. I grab her book out of her lap. A strangled protest escapes her while she watches me rip a small piece from the blank page between the title and copyright page. “I’ll get you one. A real one. Whatever you want. And then we can do it the right way when we’re in Italy and practice all that baby-making.”
“What about my book?” she demands. Her gray eyes dart from me to the sliver of paper missing off the blank page.
“I’ll replace that, too.”
“You’re going to hell.” Her expression is stunned as I fold the paper into a ring. She blinks down when I slip it on and twist it around to fit to her slim finger. “You are going to book-destroyer hell.”
“Then agree to come with me since you made me awful and wicked enough to do it.”
She laughs. She smiles when she looks up at me. Then, she bobs her head up and down to tell me the most impulsive thing I’ve ever done hasn’t scared her off.
CHAPTER 13
VERONICA
The year after my mom started working for the Delaneys, she took the boys on an extended vacation because their parents were spending the summer in Europe. It was my first trip to The Hamptons, and to a seven-year-old-girl, the house on Peconic Bay was like a castle. It had a library and glass-encased bedrooms and its own boardwalk atop the dunes. It also had a pool. I never swam before in my life, but it hadn’t stopped me from launching myself off the diving board after Bennett, in the belief that I would rise to the surface like he did.
That didn’t happen.
I sank to the bottom. And no matter how hard I clawed, how much I fought, I couldn’t find my way back up. Then, small hands, Bennett’s, hooked under my arms. He took me back to the surface. It all happened so fast, maybe fifteen or twenty seconds, but he saved me before Mom had a chance to jump in.
Up until today, springing off that diving board was the most reckless thing I’ve ever done. I never stopped to consider that I couldn’t swim, I just wanted to follow him.
But this—agreeing to marry Bennett when neither of us have given it any thought—eclipses that moment. This is half-crazed, out-of-my-mind, beautiful madness. But as I tell him “yes, yes, yes” in a winded voice, I want this. This love. Him. Everything.
I just want to follow him. This time, I want him to follow me.
And there’s nobody around to drag either of us back to the surface.
In the state of New York, there’s a day wait between getting a marriage license and going through with it, so we do it in Connecticut. In front of a justice of the peace. The paper ring on my finger tickles my skin, but I ignore it. I ignore the rational part of my brain, too, because of the look in his blue eyes.
Certainty.
Like everything around us could crash and burn and he won’t give a damn.
“We’ll tell them tomorrow,” he promises, his full lips curling during the drive home. Well, what should be the drive home because he speeds right past Exit 3, the one leading to my apartment, and continues on I-295.
“Where are we going?”
He heats me with a grin and a look that melts my heart into a puddle. “The house in Southampton. It’s our wedding night, V. It needs to be perfect.”
I gaze at my ring finger until its blurry, pale skin and white paper blending together. “It is perfect.”
We stop briefly, at a little grocery store in Long Island, where I run in for a couple things before he starts the last forty minutes stretch to Southampton. He rolls his eyes when I find an oldies station on the radio. Throws his head back and laughs because I know every word to a-ha’s “Take on Me.” And when I’m done, when my chest is heaving because I’ve just sang at the top of my lungs, something I’ve never done, he brings my fingers to his lips. Kisses each knuckle, one by one.
“I’m transferring to Barnard,” he says.
Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes. I make sure it’s dramatic, evoking a snort from him. “It’s a women’s college. You know that, right?”
A cocky grin stretches his face, and I can’t resist running my thumb over the dimple in his cheek. “Maybe they’d make an exception.”
“And maybe you’re high if you think the name Delaney will get you that far.” I settle back in my seat, struggling to keep my lips from twitching. “But there’s always Columbia.”
While I was inside the Stop & Shop, where I left a message for my father that I would be home tomorrow and not to worry about me while I shopped, Bennett also made a call. The property manager he contacted to let us in the house is already waiting for us when we arrive, and he parks his Supra beside the sleek red Mercedes in the circular driveway. The property manager regards me with a curious expression, shuffling the white envelope he’s holding between his hands as we approach him.
Bennett spreads his long fingers over the small of my back and brushes his lips to the top of my ear. “This shouldn’t take long,” he says before lifting his chin to acknowledge the other man, who he greets as “Frank.” While they speak on the front walk, I wander a few feet from the steps that lead to the downstairs porch and hug my arms around myself.
Even after eleven years, the light gray wood shingle and stone mansion is like something out of a book. It’s a breathtaking conglomeration of columns and rounded turrets, red brick chimneys and Victorian-style dormers jutting out of the roof. My favorite part, though, is the wide porch that wraps completely around the first and second levels of the house. Depending on where you stand, you can see everything from them—the sea, the pool and guest house, the boardwalk.
I’m still squinting up at the house, drinking it all in, when ten fingers bury into my waist. The tip of Bennett’s straight nose meets the crook of my neck, and electricity spirals through me. He inhales. Flattens his lips to the skin just beside the braided
strap of my sundress. Then, he breathes me in again. “You smell so right, Veronica Delaney.”
Delaney. Veronica Delaney. This morning, I left home someone else, and I tremble all over as the intense reality of what we’ve done vibrates through me.
I swallow hard and turn my head so that we’re eye to eye. “Everything set?”
His lips quirk into a grin. He nods to our left, at the open front doors. Just beyond them, I see the inviting driftwood gray and beach blue color scheme of the foyer. “We’ll do this again—in Italy, but for today…”
I screech as he scoops me up into his strong arms, tucking his forearm beneath my knees and supporting the middle of my back with his other arm. I link my fingers together behind his neck and almost drop the plastic bag I’m toting because he bends his mouth to mine and crushes my lips with a searing kiss. Butterflies. Butterflies flurry everywhere—my head and stomach and body—as he carries me over the threshold and inside the house.
For the briefest moment, my eyes lock with the property manager’s. He freezes, one hand on the door handle of his Mercedes, as he studies Bennett’s mouth on my neck. Just before Bennett uses his foot to slam the door behind us, Frank gives me a curt nod.
His reaction is a little jarring, but I don’t have time to worry over it as I’m carried through the house, up the winding staircase to the bedroom that was his when we were younger. It smells the way it always has—salt water and citrus—but I lower my nose against his shoulder and inhale him instead. His cologne, his skin, the sweet puff of his breath when he turns his face to mine.
“I’m crazy about you, Vero.”
“Insane,” I say with a ridiculous grin.
He lays me on his bed, and I arch my back as his fingers gently leave my body, pausing to linger at the inside of one knee and the swell of my breast. Straightening his spine, he peers down at me. The sound of our breathing, harsh and uneven, mingles.
“Touch me.” He strokes the curve of my cheek with his knuckle, and I wind my fingers around the bag handle I’m still holding. “Lower.” This time, he uses his fingertip, tracing an unhurried path along my jawline and over my lips. He doesn’t stop until he reaches the hollow of my neck. “More,” I say, but he doesn’t move again.
He pinches his mouth into a satisfied smirk when I scoot closer to the edge of the bed, closer to him. “Not until you tell me what’s in there.” I follow his blue gaze to the shopping bag from the store in Long Island. The handle is around my wrist, cutting off my circulation.
“Wedding cake.” When his eyebrows arch toward his golden hairline, I dump the contents onto the gray duvet. Laughter rocks his broad shoulders, so I cross my arms over my chest. “If I recall, you said this was better than birthday cake.”
“You really are something.” With a sexy gleam in his blue eyes, he slides onto the bed, the denim from his jeans scratching my bare knees. Giving him a teasing smile, I peel the lid off the first pudding cup I take from the packaging and present it to him. “Good god, I love you.”
I’m not sure I’ll get tired of that. Ever.
“I love you, too. So much. So hard.” I pat around on the duvet for the box of plastic spoons I bought, but he plunges his finger in the pudding and pushes it into my mouth, covering my taste buds with vanilla. I bite the tip of his skin. His eyes widen in surprise, but then he tugs his finger back to our improvised wedding cake.
“We should always eat like this.” He presses down on my tongue. I draw him deeper into my mouth and suck softly. The edges of his expression tighten. “Good God, Vero, I—”
He hadn’t noticed my hand creeping toward the plastic cup, so he gets a mouthful when I shove three fingertips against his lips, slathering pudding all over the lower half of his face. His mouth drops open in surprise, and he watches me through narrowed eyes for a long time.
At last, he tackles me, pinning me on the bed. “Fuck, I should make you pay for that,” he teases.
“Are you threatening me?”
He hikes my dress around my hips and hums a low sound of approval when he comes face to face with my blue lace panties. “It’s like you planned this,” he murmurs. I slide up the bed. He follows. Grips the hem of my dress and yanks it over my head.
It lands somewhere on the floor, along with my bra.
I shriek as he smears pudding on my stomach and laves it off, circling my belly button with the tip of his tongue. Then I cry out—in pleasure and shock—when he spreads my legs wide and licks me through my panties. He praises how wet I am. Groans how hard I’m making him. And when I climax, thighs quaking around his ears and face, he tells me what a good wife I am since he doesn’t even need to remove my underwear to please me.
I’m burning all over as I climb to my knees and jerk him to me by the collar of his checkered button-up. I take pleasure in the sound of his shirt buttons popping off, some landing around us on the bed and others ricocheting on the wood floor planks. It’s the only noise besides our rapid breaths and the bang of my pulse, and it seems to echo around us.
But a moment later, the other sounds start.
His voice rasping out my name as he gives my panties the same treatment as his shirt. He tears them down the center and leaves them on the headboard. My husky chuckle when I undo his zipper and the soft thud of his pants and boxers when he sends them sailing across the room and they hit the balcony door. The whimper that exits my lips the moment he pulls me on top of him and slicks the head of his cock around the entrance of my pussy.
“We're not going to sleep at all tonight.” He caresses my face then reaches behind my head to grip my hair. My lids shutter over my eyes.
“I know.”
“I plan to have you all over this fucking house—by the pool, outdoors, against the shower walls.”
Walls. Plural. I lower my hips slightly, tightening my pussy around the tip of his erection. “I know that, too,” I whisper, but he wiggles his brows.
“If you know so much—” His free hand roams my outer thigh, inching higher and higher until it rests on the curve of my ass. “Tell me what I’m going to do next.”
Clenching and unclenching around him, I finally drive my hips all the way down, letting him fill me to the point of breaking. I rock against him. Anchor my hands on the muscles of his chest and abs. Dig my knees into his sides, squeezing harder the closer I get to release. His fingers and hands are everywhere—in my hair, stinging the sensitive flesh of my ass with soft taps, on my clit and pressed against my lips.
I kiss the tip of his thumb and convulse. Draw it into my mouth to taste the salty flavor of his sweat and mine and scream out his name around his flesh. Release his skin just to find his hand on my shoulder, gripping and pulling me against him as another climax speeds through me.
He comes with me the second time. His ocean blue eyes never waver from the perspiration trickling down my breasts and down my navel. I feel him let go, feel the heat in my core, and I wriggle my hips against him. We stay like this, with my legs heavy and useless on either side of his body, and his fingers working a lazy path from my shoulder to my breasts and stomach then back again.
After a while, he pulls out and flips us over so he’s on top. He positions himself between my legs, laying his head against my ribs. I can’t resist touching him everywhere my hands can reach. I skim my fingers over the blond hair clinging to his forehead and the straight line of his nose. I trace the tattoos on his back, then draw my initials on his flesh, branding him.
Once we catch our breath, he turns his head to the side and looks me in the eye. My heart—my heart soars. “We’ve still got plenty of wedding cake left, V,” he says with a wicked grin.
CHAPTER 14
VERONICA
He keeps his promise, so by the time the sun sets, giving way to darkness, I’m sore and tender all over. When I ease off the bed and inform him that I won’t let him touch me again until I’ve showered, he props himself up on his elbow and supports the side of his head in his palm.
“Wore you out?”
I give a dramatic snort. “I could do this all night.” But we both know the truth: I’m lucky to be standing upright. He watches the jiggle of my bare ass as I walk toward the massive bathroom in the next room.
“I’m glad you feel that way,” he calls after me, “because I’m nowhere near done with you.”
I stand beneath the steaming hot water for what feels like hours, letting it turn my skin to a rosy pink while I try to bring myself back down to earth. And that’s a damn hard task. I’m on a cloud, a giant cloud, and nothing—not the uncertainty about what will happen when we tell our families or the fact we’ve got no idea where we’ll live or the school situation—can change that.
But then I leave the shower. And as I tiptoe back into the bedroom, tucking the edge of the oversized white towel between my breasts so it won’t fall, I wish I had stayed in my hot, soap-scented bubble a little longer. Bennett’s on the edge of the rumpled bed, his phone positioned between his shoulder and ear and his hands tugging on his shoes. He’s already dressed, in the jeans he wore earlier and a plain white tee shirt he must have found in one of the dresser drawers.
I pause in the doorway and lean against the wood frame, my hands shaky as I rub a smaller towel through my hair.
“—told you I would meet you there,” he’s saying, anger punching each word. “I’ve already told you, I don’t care what you think.” He pauses, listens to whatever the person on the other line says, then lets out a harsh laugh. “No, Mom. Not this time.”
Pressure clogs my throat. He’s talking to Monica? I hold my breath for a long time, until my lungs are impossibly full, and I swear I don’t release it until Bennett says he’ll see her soon before tossing his phone on the duvet. He scrubs his palm over his face then growls a curse that jolts my chest. “Fuck!”
“I-is everything all right?” I hear myself ask, even though I don’t feel my lips move.