by Tiana Cole
Richard came running back, saving Chloe from Julia pushing too much to see what the smile was about.
“Let’s head over to the BBQ contest.”
He reached out his hand and Chloe took it. He pulled her up and into his arms, which enveloped her and pulled her in an embrace. His lips touched her, sending waves of pleasure through her body. He was the only man she knew who could give her pleasure with nothing but a kiss.
The crowd was pretty hectic when they reached the bandstand where they were going to announce the winners. People were standing around engaging in friendly conversation. Chloe had never been to a BBQ contest, so she had no idea what to expect or what it would entail. It definitely seemed to be something really important in this town, since it was all everyone had been talking about for the past two weeks.
A silence fell over the crowd as three men walked onto the stage. The tallest one reminded Chloe of one of those chefs she had watched on the cooking channel. He had on a chef coat and jeans. When she saw his cowboy boots sticking out from the bottom of his pants, she gave a little giggle. She would never have seen a man wearing cowboy boots where she used to live.
“Thank you everyone. We are glad you all decided to join us for the thirtieth annual BBQ contest.” Everyone began to clap.
“Before we begin announcing the results from today’s delicious entries, we had a request,” the shortest of the three men interjected.
“That’s right, Adam,” the third man interrupted. “Can Dr. Richard Marlen please come up here onto the stage?”
Chloe turned to look at her boyfriend. Why would he need to be going up there? Richard took a step forward and turned to look back at Chloe.
“Please join him, Miss.” The first man on stage looked right at her.
Chloe reluctantly took Richard’s hand and followed him through the crowd. People parted ways and bodies shifted as they made their way toward the stage. Richard stopped at the bottom of the stairs and indicated for Chloe to go first. She took the steps cautiously, afraid she would fall in front of a town of people. Once she reached the middle of the stage, she stopped and turned toward Richard, waiting for him.
“Chloe… I know we haven’t known each other for very long…” It suddenly felt like everyone in the whole park had stopped moving, talking, and even breathing. Chloe felt as if she wouldn’t be able to take another breath. “And I completely understand if you think this is too soon. I just needed to tell everyone how I felt about you, and that I plan to spend the rest of my life with you.” Chloe and the crowd gasped as Richard got down onto one knee and pulled a tiny box from his pants pocket. “Chloe Feldman, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
The crowd seemed to lean in, waiting for Chloe to give the answer that Richard was waiting for. In her head, Chloe tried to make sure that she hadn’t fallen into some dream again. She had fantasized about being proposed to by Richard a few times, but this felt real. She wanted to pinch herself, but feared that the people watching would think there was something wrong with her.
Chloe looked down at the man kneeling before her, and she knew the answer to his question. She knew it as if it were the only answer possible:
“Yes…. I will marry you.”
Richard stood up and pulled Chloe into his arms. He never imagined he would find someone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, but now that he'd found her, he wasn’t going to let her go. He kissed Chloe on the lips and the crowd cheered. Tears filled the eyes of some older women, and the kids scrunched up their faces at their public display of affection.
When they parted, he brought the box between them and pulled the ring from its cushioned pillow. He slowly slid it perfectly onto her finger. The crowd gave another cheer and they sealed their lips in a kiss again. Chloe was overcome by joy and pressed herself tightly to Richard.
“Congratulations.” The tallest of the men stepped up to them, obviously wanting to get in on with the real reason everyone had gathered. Chloe and Richard broke the kiss and smiled at the man’s evident irritation.
Richard took Chloe’s hand and led her back down the stage steps. They didn’t stop until they reached the picnic table where they'd started the day. Most of the people were still at the stage waiting for results, which gave them a little extra time alone.
“If you want to have a long engagement, we can,” Richard whispered into Chloe’s ear as he pulled her in for another hug.
“Oh, so you don’t want to marry me right now?” she joked, as he gave a little nibble to her ear.
“I would marry you right here and right now if we had someone to do it,” he assured her.
“I thought I saw a preacher…” Chloe was interrupted by Richard’s mouth crashing onto hers.
This was how she wanted to spend the rest of her life: with this man. Finally, she had found the one good man out of all the horrible ones. Now that they were engaged, things could only get better. It seemed like the plan of marriage and then children was near. Nothing could go wrong now.
Chapter 9
Chloe stood in the middle of the store, wondering exactly what she was doing here. It was her second attempt at picking out invitations for her upcoming wedding to Richard, and this time wasn’t any better than the last. Every time she looked through the multiple books that were available for her to choose from, there wasn’t anything she even remotely liked. This wasn’t getting her anywhere except a headache. She placed her hand on her throbbing head and made the decision to give up.
As she made her way out the door, she decided to do an Internet search for invitations on her cell phone. Maybe she would be able to find something she liked online. Then she would at least have a sample idea to show the stationery shops she went to, and if worst came to worst, she’d just order them online.
The sun blinded her immediately as she stepped out of the door. How could she have forgotten her sunglasses in the car? She made her way to her car, placing her hand up to her forehead to shield the sun out of her eyes. Once she slipped inside her car and put her sunglasses on, she picked up the to-do list she had sitting on the passenger seat.
Wedding invitations: check, but need to look at more options. She made a little note on the bottom of her list in order to keep herself from forgetting this later. Her never-finished list of things that she needed to get done was always with her.
More packing boxes: check, although she still wasn’t sure if she had enough. She hoped that they would hold the rest of her stuff so that she could finally be completely moved into Richard’s. The thought of spending the rest of her life with him sent a chill through her body.
Wedding gown: not checked. This was the part of the wedding attire she wasn’t really looking forward to dealing with, but she needed to get some idea of the type of dress she wanted. This dress had to be more perfect than the one she wore at her last wedding. She wanted to reflect happiness, beauty, and love in her dress – all the ways that Richard made her feel. It was impossible and that was her dilemma. This would be her next stop on her list of Saturday morning chores. Pick out three or four dresses, and then set up an appointment to come back later with her wedding party.
Placing her hands on the steering wheel, the sun suddenly hit the engagement ring on her finger, sending a rainbow of colors through the car. She still couldn’t believe that she was engaged.
It had been six months since Richard had her join him on the stage to ask her to marry him, and it was during the annual BBQ contest results. It was a shock for her, considering they’d only known each other for roughly two months, but she'd accepted the proposal anyway. It was mainly because she already knew that she wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of her life with him.
Those two months were the best ones she had ever had. From the moment they met, on the first day of her job as his office manager, they were immediately attracted to each other. She had tried to fight it, but it was impossible. Mainly because her previous relationship, the one she moved to this small tow
n in Pennsylvania to get away from, was horrible, but she couldn’t fight it any longer. She had fallen head over heels in love with Richard and there was no denying it.
The bridal shop was on the other side of town. She’d turned up the music on her radio and made her way across town. She was on the hunt for a wedding gown. This was her objective for the rest of the day, or at least until three in the afternoon, when she needed to meet Richard. He was spending the day with his father out on the golf course. At three, they were to meet at his house (she seriously needed to start thinking of it as their house), and then they were to head to his parents’ place for a picnic.
Richard’s father had been a doctor at the local hospital until his retirement five years ago. His mother had worked as a teacher until the year before, when she finally decided to retire. The two people who were closest to Richard had spent their golden years traveling to countries she’d only dreamed about. The day that Chloe met them, they had just returned from a trip to Europe. In less than another month, they were going to head to Mexico for a month or two.
Richard’s parents weren’t anything like Chloe had expected. They adored Richard, and were thrilled to be gaining a daughter-in-law, even if she was an African American one. Since they had been back, the weekends were filled with family activities. Chloe hadn’t expected them to welcome her into their family so warmly and quickly, but it felt good.
Chloe parked the car and headed into the shop. It was exactly like she had seen on all those wedding dress shows, which she had started to watch since she became engaged. One night after watching a wedding marathon, Richard made her promise not to act anything like those women on the television. A small thrill went through her body. She couldn’t wait to start searching through dresses. Then once she found 'the one,' she was going to bring Julia, who was her maid of honor, and Richard’s mom to see it.
A small pang of regret coursed through her body at the thought of having Richard’s mom seeing her in the dress. She wished that her mom could be there to see this event: either of her parents, for that matter. But it wasn’t going to happen. Unlike Richard, her parents were both gone. They had died in a car accident when she was only twenty, leaving her alone with no one to share her ups and downs with, and no one to be proud of her when she found the man of her dreams. It was selfish of her to think that way because all things in life happen for a reason. But for that incident, however, she was never able to find the reason behind it.
She shook her head to push the thoughts out. This wasn’t the time to be depressed, but more of a time to be happy and rejoice. There would be plenty of opportunities for her to think about her parents while she was going through the preparations for her wedding day, but this shouldn’t be one of them.
“Can I help you?” A young woman walked up to her. The woman’s face was lit with enthusiasm and she wore a simple ensemble that didn’t overshadow any of the gowns.
“I’m getting married,” Chloe told her, smiling at the ability to say that out loud. It was an amazing feeling.
“Well, let’s find you a wedding dress.”
Together, they began the search for the perfect dress. Perfect being a loose term.
Two hours later, Chloe was beaming as she left the store, having found the one and only perfect dress. Although she had no plans to try any dresses on, Gillian, the woman at the store, had talked her into trying a dress that she thought was 'the one.' And the second she looked at herself in the mirror, she knew - she just knew.
The light cream color of the dress looked stunning against the mocha shade of her skin. The neckline dipped into a sweetheart shape framing her curvaceous cleavage perfectly, and she knew that no one would be able to look away from her once they saw her. She wanted to keep the dress on forever, but knew that she needed to wait. She put the deposit on the dress and set a date to come back to show everyone else. She had no worries about their reactions to it, as she knew that they were going to love it just as much as she did. Now that she had a dress, the wedding seemed even more realistic. She pictured the jewelry that would compliment the dress: should it be gold or silver? Should it be encrusted with crystals or something very plain without crystals? Should it be simple or flashy?
She was still in wedding dress mode when she pulled into the driveway of their house. Two more boxes of her things were tucked nicely in the trunk, and all she wanted to do was take a nice warm shower before they were scheduled to head out to spend the evening with Richard’s parents.
Since she was able to finish everything on her list much earlier than planned, she had gone to her place and packed the very last bit of her belongings into boxes. It wasn’t exactly clean, digging into the backs of closets, and taking things off of the walls had left a lot more cleaning for her to do later. But she was glad the packing and moving was completely done. Tomorrow or the next day she would head back and wipe everything down and give the floors one more sweep before handing the keys back to landlord who'd rented it to her.
The car door opened and Chloe looked up to find Richard standing there. She still wasn’t able to get over the fact that this man was the one she was planning to marry. His handsome face, compassionate soul, and amazing talents as a lover made him a triple threat and the man of every woman’s dreams. He was all hers and she loved every minute of it.
“How was your day?” he asked, grabbing the things in her hands.
“Great. What about you? Wasn’t it nice to have a Saturday off?” Chloe had talked him into closing the office every other Saturday. He could be on-call so he’d be able to accept phone calls from anyone with an emergency and open the office up if need be, but it wouldn’t be open all day, and no appointments were made unless there was no other choice.
“That it was. But not something I could do all the time. I had three phone calls from patients.” Richard took her hand and pulled her out of the car. Once she was on her feet, his lips were on hers. “Although if it meant kissing you more, then I might be able to do it every weekend.”
Chloe just shook her head. “I have the last of my stuff in the back.”
“Really?” he asked, with eyes big and wide.
“Two boxes. I figured it was going to take more.”
“So, you are all mine?” Richard asked, waiting for confirmation. He squeezed her hand anticipating her answer. She smirked.
“I’ve been yours way before now.” Chloe leaned in and kissed him this time.
Richard moved to the back of her car and grabbed a box. She grabbed the other and they headed into the garage. They placed them on a pile with the others. This was going to be her project for the next few weekends: unpacking and finding places for her boxes and later all her possessions.
Chloe looked at the pile of boxes and knew it was going to take her a while. With a small sigh, she headed through the garage door and into the house. “I desperately need a shower.” She looked down at her clothes. They were covered with dirt and dust.
“Want some company?”
She didn’t answer him, but headed through the living room and to the stairs. She could hear the patter of his feet as he followed right behind her. A smile spread across her face. Maybe she could use a little help rinsing off.
Chapter 10
Chloe stepped under the hot spray of the shower and she wasn’t disappointed or surprised when Richard stepped in behind her. He wrapped her in his arms and pulled her against his chest. She could feel how much he wanted her by his erection pressing against her thigh.
“Did you get everything done on your list?” he asked teasingly, as they water ran down between them and collected in the pocket where their skin touched.
Richard liked to make fun of her about the multiple lists she made in order to stay organized, and this morning had been no different.
“I found my dress.” She shared excitedly about it and smiled up at him.
He had never seen her beam so much. The look of happiness that was on her face was one he wanted to take a picture of t
o keep as a special memory. His heart swelled with love for this woman. He leaned down and kissed her. The kiss grew in intensity as his hands moved down to her breasts.
He gently gave them a squeeze, caressing them in his hands which slowly moved to her nipples. He took each one in his fingers and gave them a pinch. Chloe moaned and threw her head back in satisfaction. Richard loved the sound she made when she moaned. It was a throaty, low whimper that drove him wild.
His lips went to her throat and started a path from the side to the front. Once he reached that special spot on her neck, he headed downward and replaced his right hand fingers with his mouth. He sucked her nipple in, causing her to move closer to him. She giggled at the sharpness of his motion and the happiness that overwhelmed her.
Richard’s fingers, which had been on her nipple, made their way down her stomach. They continued to trail towards her belly until they reached the area that craved for his touch more than any other. Chloe arched herself into his hand. His touch could send her places she had never imagined reaching before. She closed her eyes and reveled in the ecstasy.
Richard removed his mouth from her other nipple and made the journey downward until his mouth replaced his hand again. His tongue flicked and licked until Chloe was moaning from the immense pleasure. Her hands had found their way into his hair and were tugging on it, although she didn’t notice, completely wrapped up in the pleasure he was giving her. She held her own breasts and backed her self up against the wall. Richard followed her, unable breaking the contact between his tongue and her clit for a moment. She bit her bottom lip and tried her best not to scream like she wanted to. Richard grabbed on to her butt cheek and pressed her further in to him, and then, as if he was competing, he picked up the pace with his tongue, making expert circles around her.