“No, no, no …” I pant, annoyed.
Reese is naked in seconds flat, and then tugging at my shirt as he comes down over my body. “I want to see you come around my cock.”
Oh. Well. Don’t mind if I do, then. His words send a surge through me that threatens to have me coming before he even enters my body.
“Get inside me already,” I whine, like a needy thing.
“Missed me, huh?” He smooths down my hair, slowing down when what I need for him is to be banged like a porn star.
“Yes, now fuck me.”
“Not until you say it again.”
“Say what? Fuck me?” I’m getting desperate.
“That you love me. Tell me that you love me.” He’s using his cockpower over me.
“That’s not fair. You’re withholding orgasms in exchange for something. First rule of marriage, never withhold orgasms.”
He chuckles, fisting himself and running his cock up and down my slit, teasing me. “I’m going to give you your orgasm. But not in exchange for anything, because technically, you’ve already given them to me. Come on, baby, say it.”
“I love you.” I have no fight in me to argue, I’m too wound up and need release.
Reese smiles, and then slams into me with such force that I’m unraveling before he even withdraws to stroke again.
He never lets up, not once. Bangs me just like a porn star, just like I needed. Exactly how makeup sex is supposed to be. And he even gives me another orgasm before he is biting my neck, jutting like he can’t control his own hips.
“I love you,” he says as he lets his own climax take over.
Forty-Three
Erin
“Hi, Shoe Addicts! We’re back for round two of Reese’s Try Ons!” I spoke excitedly into my camera, happy that my cat eye came out so good today as I spoke.
I hit the screen and the camera flips around to Reese, who does a little booty shake in his tuxedo, the arms and legs a little too baggy and long for him right now.
“Hi ladies …” Reese winks, and I can just imagine hundreds of women watching this on social media swooning. I know I did.
“We’re trying on wedding tuxes today, and boy oh boy am I in heaven!” I pan the camera around the tailor’s shop we found in the middle of downtown Philadelphia.
Reese had insisted on buying his tuxedo for the wedding, had said he wanted to own the suit he wore for our special day. As a non-romantic, I had rolled my eyes. As a fashion lover, I couldn’t agree more.
After our come-to-Jesus moment where I realized I’d been stupid and irrational and that I was in love with Reese, and he’d realized he had been an asshole and had spilled his entire heart out to me, we had moved fast. Finding out that Reese had proposed the pact because he was always in love with me kind of opened up my eyes. It made me realize that what he’d said before was true, that some love was patient and complicated, not a story of roses and champagne. That was real, we were real.
And after that, he had insisted we get married as soon as possible. Unlike a lot of the other bloggers I knew in this line of fashion or lifestyle, I hadn’t really ever thought about my wedding. I definitely hadn’t planned it down to every last detail. I didn’t know what kind of dress fit I’d like, didn’t envision the perfect flower arrangement, and hadn’t really had a preference when it came to church or no church.
Honestly, Morgan and Mrs. Collins had really been the driving force behind throwing together an impromptu wedding in two and a half months. They’d called a local venue in Wildwood, right off the beach, who just happened to have a cancellation. It was a beautiful mansion-looking building that was styled with a glass roof so that at night, we’d be dancing under the stars. We’d get married right on the beach we’d spent summers on.
Mrs. Collins had done all of the flowers arrangements, I’d only given her the colors. Blush pink and cream, simple and pretty. Turns out that one of Reese’s other friends from high school, even though I don’t remember him having other friends, owned his own photography and videography business, so we were set there.
Our favors would be Philly soft pretzels hung on a wall. Kind of like those donut walls that were all over Pinterest, but soft pretzels. The band was a splurge, but once I’d heard them in a YouTube video I’d found, I had to have them. Turns out they too had a cancellation for our weekend … Reese said it was fated. I just thought we had dumb luck, but I didn’t bicker about his rose-colored glasses.
I’d gotten my dress, an A-line long sleeved beauty that was covered in lace. My shoes, Manolo’s, had been way too expensive. But these were the most important shoes of my life, I had to have them. We’d decided that I’d do my own hair and makeup, and that Morgan would be matron of honor, Preston would be Reese’s best man, and Jeff would perform the ceremony. Carina would walk down in her mom’s arms as our flower girl.
“What do you think about the all black, no pinstripe?” Johnny, the tailor of the shop we’d found, asks me.
Now all that’s left to do is buy Reese’s tux, and we’re all set to get hitched two Saturdays from now.
“I think it’s classic.” I start an Instagram Live video. “What do you guys think? Just the sharp, classic black?”
Answers from my followers start rolling in, telling me that straight up black is the only way to go. Some say no, go navy or gray, it will complement better with his dark hair.
But when I look over, my eyes catching his green pools in the mirror, I think he looks edible in the traditional tuxedo. “What do you think, carrots?”
He smirks, his dimple popping. “I think I look like James Bond. Which reminds me, where are we going on our honeymoon? England, maybe? France? Or would you rather lie on a beach? I could look at you in a bikini all day.”
I keep the video rolling while he gets fitted, pins and chalk marking the suit. “Hm, good question. Where should we go? I have never been to Europe, but I also know that I love to just lounge on the beach and begin drinking tequila at ten a.m.”
“Or maybe picklebacks,” Reese quips, our inside joke gaining a laugh from me.
My followers comment rapidly.
Antigua.
Paris.
Capri.
Aruba.
Bali.
I flip the camera around to selfie mode. “All of these places you guys are suggesting sound amazing, we’ll have to decide where we want to go.”
“It won’t matter, peas. We’ll be in the bedroom the whole time,” Reese teases, but I see the heat in his eyes.
Laughter bubbles up from my throat, and my jaw drops. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
The tailor smiles at us like two kids in love, and my followers are going haywire on the live chat after his sexy confession.
We’re at the store for another two hours, and we pay an arm and a leg to have the suit finished by Thursday, but it’s worth it.
The only thing left to do is show up on our wedding day. Before we brought up the pact, before he’d sent me that email and come to town and kissed me, I would have doubted that I’d be walking down that aisle. In fact, I would have told you I’d be running the other way.
But not anymore. I was a cynic in love. A cynic who was going to marry her best friend.
Forty-Four
Erin
The beach in mid-September was typically a chilly, on-the-cusp-of-winter sandbar. But thanks to global warming, we’d gotten a mild, sixty-five degree day for our wedding day.
It was a miracle that it had all come together, and by no part was I taking any credit for that. Sure, I’d posted pretty wedding planning pictures and gone above and beyond to document it all on my blog, but Morgan had done most of the leg work. Remind me to buy her a really nice pair of shoes after this.
We stood on the beach, the wind whipping around us, as the crowd of fifty or so wedding guests looked on. Jeff had already gone through the pleasantries, thanking everyone for coming, going over why we were here. We were here because two weirdos
fell in love, and planned to live happily ever bickering.
I stood across from Reese, who looked dashing in his black tux, his green eyes wet after he saw me in my dress, walking down the aisle. I hadn’t cried, I rarely did, but I did have that ball of emotion in my throat that threatened to bring on tears.
“I vow never to turn a Star Wars marathon off, even if a red carpet event is on. I vow to always dry the dishes, and to pick up the donuts before people watching. I will never laugh when you can’t spell correctly, and I promise to always laugh at your made up song lyrics. I vow to be your best friend, your partner in crime, and your confidant. I will love you until my last dying breath, or something equally as dramatic. Hopefully it’s not something out of a Dwayne Johnson film though, because you know how I feel about that. Last of all, I promise to put you before all else, even my favorite pair of shoes. You know me better than I know myself, Reese, and my heart has always been yours. Now it will be yours forever. Take care of me and know that I will take care of you.”
My sappy man has unshed tears in his eyes when I gaze into them, hoping that he liked my vows. I get a dimpled smile and I know I’ve done well. I meant all I’d said, from the bottom of my unfrozen heart.
“Reese, would you like to make your vows to Erin?” Jeff said, and baby Carina cooed from my sister’s arms.
Reese took a deep breath, squeezing my hands where we held on to each other between our bodies. Another wave crashed on the shore, and again, I thought that this couldn’t be more perfect. Who was I? A teary bride on her wedding day, that’s who. I was allowed to be all the kinds of cheesy and sentimental that I wanted to be today.
“From the first day that I saw you, I knew you would be the woman I married.”
He stopped, because almost everyone in the crowd let out a collective awwww.
“And while it took you a little while longer to come to that conclusion, I was always waiting for you. Always protecting you. Always thinking about your needs, how to make you laugh, and to hold you when you were upset. Which was fairly hard since you often tried to slap me when I wanted to comfort you.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“You’re an amazing ball of fire, light and energy, and I am so lucky just to stand right beside you. I promise that I will continue to be patient, continue to love you even when you refuse to throw out one of your two hundred pairs of shoes, and always let you eat the last handful of popcorn at the movies. I love you, Erin. Always have, always will. I can’t wait to see what our future holds.”
He squeezes my hands after he’s done, and I barely register Jeff walking us through the traditional wedding vows and promises that we have to complete in order to make our marriage legal.
Only when it’s almost over do I tune back in, so lost in Reese’s expression that I’m not paying attention.
“I now present, Mr. and Mrs. Reese Collins. You may kiss the bride.” Jeff stepped out of the way like we’d rehearsed. I didn’t want him in my first kiss as a married couple picture. No offense to him.
The crowd whooped and cheered, but all I could think about were Reese’s lips on my own. How much had we been through? How much was to come?
All I knew was, I got to wake up to my best friend every day. And prior to what I’d originally thought, that was a hell of a lot better than waking up alone. Of course it was, now there would be a hot, naked man in my bed from here on out.
As everyone filtered back up the beach, we posed for pictures, by ourselves and with my family. After, we made it to the last half hour of our cocktail hour, and then came dinner time.
The sun was setting by the time we entered the hall, doing our first dance to “The Way You Look Tonight” by Frank Sinatra. It was cliché and classic, but it was better than the Star Wars theme that Reese had wanted. I’d vetoed that one in a second.
My dad had come, although I’d walked down the aisle by myself. I was an independent woman, making an independent choice to marry the man that I loved. My father and I weren’t in the best of places, but we were lightyears from where we had been. I’d even agreed to a dance, but I got to pick the song. “You’ll Be in My Heart” by Phil Collins, because Dad had always liked the movie Tarzan when Morgan and I were little girls. Reese had danced with his mom to “My Wish” by Rascall Flatts, and they’d both cried. Her more than him, she was practically a sobbing wet mess by the end of the song.
It was a bit tense between him and Mom, mostly because my mother had pitched a fit about it beforehand and Dad definitely knew her feelings toward him now. But, Morgan and Reese had intervened, having had a strongly worded talk with her, and she was behaving herself thus far.
“You better get over there and eat your dinner, peas.” Reese sidles up to me on the dance floor, where I’m dancing with his dad and a couple of friends from college.
“I will, I will! You know I wouldn’t miss out on my steak.” I lace my hands through his where they wrap around the front of my waist.
He feels solid and warm, and with the champagne flowing through my veins, he’s an anchor. I allow him to lead me to our sweetheart table, cut up a piece of steak, and feed it to me.
“You know this is a one-time occurrence, right? Usually, I’d be spearing that fork through your hand if you tried to touch my plate or food.”
“Of course I know that, I remember the time you almost impaled me with a chopstick for putting a bit of wasabi on one of your designated sushi rolls.”
Reese looks at me lovingly, and turns to his plate. We eat in contented silence as we watch our guests mill about or dance.
Jill and Preston glide around the dance floor together, and she’s giggling at something he’s said. I wonder if they ever overcame the hump that was Preston’s lack of hump. Reese had filled me in on it, and I was rooting for the hot doctor to finally get it up. From the way they were looking at each other, I would say that it was a likely probability that he’d worked out his problems.
The evening extended, moving to the bar for an after party after the last dance song, The Mummer’s “Strut,” had been played.
The pretzel wall, our favors to our guests, was a huge success. Dozens of flavors, from cinnamon to jalapeño, from our favorite bakery in Philadelphia, all hung from hooks on an elaborate wooden board that stood seven feet tall and seven feet wide.
And then Reese and I ended our night in our hotel suite, on the balcony overlooking the beach. While most couples would have dived right into bed, my husband, oh my God, husband, wanted to christen that balcony.
Just my type of marriage, nowhere near boring or regular.
Forty-Five
Reese
From one beach to another, our marriage blossomed under the sun.
I watched as Erin walked to our chairs in the shade of a tiki hut, her body glistening with fresh sea water, her long hair slicked down her back. My cock got hard, not that it wasn’t hard for most of this damn vacation, and I had to readjust my bathing suit.
“You’re giving me a boner, again.” I reach for her as she sits down, biting her sun kissed shoulders.
“We just had sex,” she guffaws, but leans over and finds my lips.
Her kiss is salty and wet, and I want to throw her over my shoulder and bring her back to our hotel room. I’d done it last night after dinner, and she’d screamed all the way there. A couple of other couples staying on the resort had smiled or winked at us, and I’d given a thumbs-up back at them.
We couldn’t take a full honeymoon now because of my shifts and being under a year tenured at CHOP, but I did have four days off the week after our wedding. With Erin being able to work from anywhere, we decided to take a short trip to Bermuda, with a longer honeymoon sometime next year.
The pink sand and clear waters were perfectly fine for me right now. Well, and the hot as hell woman next to me.
“Do you want another dirty banana?” I ask her.
Erin smirks. “Is that supposed to mean something else?”
“I meant y
our drink, get out of the gutter.” I flagged down a waiter and ordered her another frozen banana blended with Kahlua.
“Thanks, husband.” She winks. “Isn’t it weird that you’re my husband?”
I hold her hand, watching the waves crash. “But in a way, it isn’t.”
“You’re right.” Those brown eyes look at me, understanding me more than anyone ever has.
“What was that? I’m right? I rarely hear those words.” My smile is teasing.
“Oh, stop it. I’m a brand new Erin, I can admit when you have the better idea.”
“It’s only taken thirty years.”
One of our phones begins to vibrate from deep within the beach bag, and she reaches in to fish it out. Holding it up, she examines her phone, because who would be calling me. I gave Preston strict instructions not to have anyone call me on this trip, no matter how much I loved my patients and coworkers.
“Hello, this is Erin,” she answers her phone, always a professional.
For her, it’s not just some random cruise line calling to tell you that you won a four-day vacation if only you’ll buy this set of expensive knives. No, my wife got phone calls from brands and stores alike, so she had to answer random phone numbers unlike the rest of us. And yes, I was using the word wife every chance I got. I hadn’t been allowed to do it for so long, and now I was. I was a kid in an unlimited candy store.
“Yes, thank you. I do love your pieces, that one fringe skirt got a lot of hits on my blog.” Nodding her head, as if she’s actually talking to them in person.
I begin to scratch my nails down her back, and I see her shoulders relax. She turns around and makes a satisfied face at me. Not able to resist her warm, tan skin, I begin to kiss and nibble at her shoulder blades. Erin waves me off, getting up to stand as she listens to whoever is talking on the other end of the phone.
Save the Date Page 17