“Nope,” Tyler says with a satisfied smile. “And I didn’t know you were superstitious.”
“He thought of it all. Something old is your dress. Eliza found it, God knows where. I think it was when she had your old apartment cleared out when it was sold. Something new is the diamond pin Janie put in your hair. Something borrowed is the brooch on your dress, it was Tyler’s grandmother’s. And something blue is the garter,” Maia says matter-of-factly.
I look down and see a small pin, an angel brooch, attached to the dress, just above my left breast. I hadn’t even noticed it there before.
“Wait,” I say. “I don’t have a garter. I may be distracted, but I think I would remember one of you sliding a garter up my thigh.”
“It’s pinned to the inside of your skirt,” Tyler says smugly.
Sure enough, as I lift the bottom of my dress, I see a delicately lacy blue garter.
“You thought of everything,” I say, amazed as I stare into my brand new husband’s gorgeous eyes, watching the fire flicker in their reflection.
“By the way,” Maia says, “can we get a shout out to Jackson for buying said garter?”
I fall backwards laughing. “They sent you to buy my wedding garter?”
“Yes,” Jackson replies, irritated. “And it was the most awkward ten minutes of my life!”
Maia leans in and kisses him softly.
“You guys have to go now!” Tyler orders. “It’s date five,” he says, eyeing me seductively.
“Bye!” I say with a laugh as I take Tyler’s hand and we walk back to the house. As we walk, I notice him counting on his fingers. “What are you doing?” I ask.
“Doing the math. There are twelve rooms in this house. My mother has Sadie in the city for the next twelve hours, so that’s one hour per room,” he says seriously.
“I’m not following,” I say, confused.
“To christen your new house. Our new house,” he says, eyeing me up as he ushers me through the front doors.
“What? We live here?”
“Ready for your last surprise?” he asks softly.
“There’s more than this? The house, the wedding? I don’t know if my poor heart can take much more,” I say, genuinely shocked.
We walk up the stairs, and Tyler produces a set of keys from his pocket.
“Wait,” I tease. “If that’s the room with the sex swing and domination equipment, I’m leaving.”
“Don’t be stupid. That’s in the basement,” Tyler jibes, opening the first door.
Across from me on the far wall is a beautiful white oval crib, with a billowing netted canopy above it. The room is painted in a soft eggshell blue, and illuminated by hundreds of small lights on the ceiling. Upon closer inspection, I notice that they are little LED stars. Then I look to the left, and see that the entire wall is scattered with canvased photographs of Sadie and I, all sleeping, all black and white.
“This is what Mac meant. “I love it,” I say, leaning in and kissing him deeply. His hands immediately move to unzip my dress at the side. “I don’t remember this dress ever having a zipper—”
“Maia had it altered for me, for easy access,” he says lowly. The dress falls to the floor below, followed by Tyler’s shirt. His body pushes against mine, pressing me hard against the doorframe.
“Do you have any idea how fucking long I’ve been waiting for date five?” he says breathlessly into my ear.
His lips leave a trail of smoldering kisses down my jawline. He grabs my arms and pushes them above my head, kissing me softly as he does. My body aches for him. Needs him, so much so that I push him away from me and pull his pants down forcefully. We exit the room, and he pushes me back against the hallway wall and slams his lips into mine, his tongue probing deliciously into my mouth. His movements match the ferocity of my own desire. My body pleads for him.
Reaching down, I grip him, hard and hot in my hands. He moans against my mouth, sending a flood of new heat coursing through my body. I pull him closer, wanting to feel him inside of me. The need obscures even my vision as we become lost in one another again.
Chapter 32:
Tyler
Touching Emily, kissing her, is like being sent straight to fucking heaven. Her hips grind relentlessly towards me, the desire radiating from both of us. I’ve wanted this for so long, and I’m worried that if I don’t just dive into her soon, I might just come in her hands like a teenager. She wraps her legs tightly around me, suffocating my waist, and guides me towards her. My entire body spasms in pleasure as she closes in, soft and wet around me. Of its own volition, my head falls back and my eyes clench tightly closed from the unadulterated bliss of Emily grinding purposefully onto my dick. She feels so fucking good. Too fucking good. She moans loudly against my lips as I slide in and out of her. I slow down a notch, not wanting this to end. Never wanting this to end.
Emily grabs my face with her hands, my own hands firmly gripping her soft thighs. Our eyes meet amidst the wild abandon of the moment, and something changes. Everything intensifies. We fuck staring at each other, closing our eyes only when the pleasure forces us to. I thrust into her deeply, tenderly, yet just hard enough.
Emily bites down on her lower lip, stifling a loud moan. I move closer to her ear and whisper, “Scream, baby.” And she does, loudly and passionately and the sound drives me wild. With one final, deeply resolute thrust, our bodies implode in one mutual, earth-shattering orgasm. The force of it causes her to clench tightly around my shaft. My head falls against her shoulder. Both my breathing and hers is ragged and shallow.
“Just like the first time,” she whispers when she finally draws in enough oxygen to speak.
“Better,” I smile. I hadn’t planned to do that.
I walk her over to the second room and unlock the door. We don’t bother putting any clothing back on. That would be a wasted exercise. A huge, king-sized bed takes up a large portion of the far wall. A few steps over, I had a platform installed with a round freestanding bath for two. The bath sits directly in front of two floor-to-ceiling windows.
Emily looks at the clear water. “Won’t it be cold?” she asks.
“I had thermal heating installed on the sides. It’ll never get cold, unless you want it to,” I reply, handing her a small remote. “One button controls the temperature, the other is for the spa jets.”
“It’s kind of exposed,” she says shyly.
“Tinted glass. You can see out, but no one can see in,” I reply confidently.
I climb into the perfectly tempered water, and Emily follows, leaning her back against my chest. Even at night, the view of the vast, black ocean is magnificent.
“You absolutely think of everything.” She says, clearly awed.
“Once I knew what makes you happy, it was easy,” I reply, pulling her hair from her shoulder and kissing it.
“I still feel like I’m dreaming,” she says softly.
“It’s not a nightmare, is it?” I tease.
“More like every fairytale and fantasy come true.”
“Was date five worth the wait?”
“So totally worth the wait.” Emily snuggles closer against me, tucking her head under my chin.
“This is probably not the best time to mention it, but I saw Blake a couple of weeks ago. I may or may not have punched him once or twice.”
“I’ve been thinking, Tyler,” she begins quietly. “I have a lot to thank Blake for. If it weren’t for him, I would never have seen how truly amazing a person like you is, and I can appreciate you so much more now. That, and I would never have even met you. The way I see it, hating him consumes me, leaving me less emotional space for loving you and Sadie. He doesn’t have that power over me anymore,” she replies simply.
“That’s a pretty mature approach, Emily. You amaze me. You have so much blind faith. You forgave all of us: Blake, me, Eliza. You brought Sadie into this world with no one and nothing but good intentions. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever met in my l
ife, but more than that, you’re the most beautiful person on the inside. You deserve happiness every single day,” I reply gently.
It’s true. For all of our shortcomings, Emily took each and every one of them and turned them into something positive. A way of moving forward, never looking back to dwell in regret or self-pity. Her strength as a woman, as Sadie’s mother, and now, as my wife, is awe-inspiring. And I must be the luckiest man in the world. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?” I say softly.
“I have a clue,” she teases, wiping the tears from below her eyes.
“Time to get started on baby number two,” I dish back.
“Hell no,” she balks. “Maybe in a year or two. Until then, you retain sole ownership.”
“Of what?” I ask, grinning.
“Of this,” she says, guiding my hand between her thighs. “Plus, I’d like to have more than four orgasms in my life before I hand over possession of my vagina to procreation again.”
“Four orgasms?” I say confused.
“My first kiss,” Emily says suggestively, “wasn’t the only first you’ve been responsible for, remember. Could it be that you have actually forgotten something?”
“Now I remember,” I grin, feeling very pleased with myself. “And this,” I say, my hand creeping up, closer, “is the best damn possession ever,” I moan and lean my head back against the tub as I feel myself harden beneath her. “You’re gonna be the death of me,” I whisper.
She turns and straddles me, kissing me softly with a coy smile. “Then at least you’ll die smiling and satisfied.”
Epilogue:
Emily
ONE YEAR LATER…
Summer storms in the Hamptons can be terrifying. And Sadie hates them. She can never sleep amidst the roaring thunder, and the crashing of the waves along the shore don’t help, either. Tyler and I usually share night shifts like this one. But for tonight, I decide to let him sleep. He’s been working so hard, trying to divide his time between the new photography business and Sadie and I that I know he’s always close to exhaustion.
Walking slowly down the stairs, I carefully sidestep every creaky floorboard. This is our home now. And I know every single inch of it. Sadie has settled, and dozes peacefully in my arms. Since I was already up, I decided to grab a literal midnight snack before heading back to bed. As I’m about to return upstairs to place Sadie in her room, a knock on the door startles me.
My brow furrows in confusion, concurrent to my stomach lurching uneasily. Who could be visiting at this time of night? Eliza is currently staying at her summer house not far from here, but unlikely to pop by unannounced at this time of night. I contemplate waking Tyler, but decide against it. The neighborhood out here is relatively safe. It could be my sister, Mirelle, who has made New York City her permanent home since our wedding. But she would probably call first as well.
Still nervous, before opening the door, I look through the peephole. The outside veranda light isn’t on, making it hard to get a clear image of the person standing out there. I latch the gold security chain onto the door, Sadie still sleeping in my arms. As I open the door as far as the chain allows, a familiar face comes into view.
Oh my God. This was not a face I had missed at all. And Tyler would not be happy about it, either.
“Blake?” I say, confused. “What are you doing here?”
From my view through the cracked door, I can see that Blake looks nowhere near as resplendent as he did when we first met. In fact, he looks downright disheveled. His clothes seem worn. His face has substantially more hair than just a five o’clock shadow. His dark outline in the night air looks slumped, completely deflated.
It unnerves me that he doesn’t reply. All he does is stare back at me.
“Blake?” I repeat softly.
“I had nowhere else to go,” he says quietly. I flick on the switch next to the door, the light illuminating the porch, and lay my eyes on one very beaten and broken-looking man. His eyes are sunken into his head. He has lost nearly half of his body weight. More than that, every ounce of life that he once possessed, in his eyes, in his face, seems to have completely disappeared.
I contemplate my next move. I could wake Tyler up, since I don’t completely trust Blake, and I’m still a little scared of what he could be capable of. He may still hate Tyler and I, and hate is a strong emotion. It can cause people to do very bad things. But my instincts have served me well all my life, and they are telling me that he isn’t here to cause trouble.
I close the door quietly and unhook the chain. Blake walks in, looking bashful and intimidated. He casts an eye over the moonlit room, staring intently at the family photos of Tyler, Sadie, and I that almost completely cover the living room walls. Some of them include his mother and father, Chayse, Mirelle, and Maia and Jackson.
It’s understandable that Blake would feel cheated. He’s looking at the life he could have had, probably seeing his face in every picture where Tyler’s is. But he wasted all of the opportunities that life had afforded him, while Tyler had made the most of every one.
“You can sleep on the couch,” I say gesturing towards the sofa. “It’s late, and Sadie needs to go back down. We can talk in the morning.”
The notion that Blake could steal something and take off in the middle of the night is not lost on me. But if he does, that’s his choice. His karma. And he’ll never ever be able to revisit the option of us helping him again. I think he understands that. It’s an unspoken agreement.
I’m up early in the morning. From my room, I can hear Sadie speaking her baby garble happily in her crib. I gently nudge Tyler awake, wanting to apprise him of the situation involving our houseguest before he discovers it for himself.
He grabs me into his arms and pulls me on top of him. “Tyler!” I laugh, trying to wriggle free from his hands wrapped tightly around my waist. He smiles up at me brilliantly. This is my favorite sight every morning. Well, second favorite, after Sadie. “We have to talk,” I say, distractedly as he kisses my neck softly. “Blake is downstairs,” I say gently. “I think.”
Tyler looks at me quizzically, trying to remain composed. “What the hell is he doing here?” he asks, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration.
“I let him in,” I reply. “I was putting Sadie back to sleep last night, and he knocked on the door. I had to let him in, Tyler. You’ll see what I mean if he’s still there. He looked horrible. And helpless.”
“Blake never does anything without a reason. What does he want this time?” Tyler asks, clearly irritated.
“Just hear him out. For me,” I plead softly.
“Okay,” Tyler agrees hesitantly. “But only because you asked me to. And I’m not promising I won’t knock him out if he pisses me off.”
I retrieve a very happy Sadie from her bed. She babbles away as we walk down the stairs, repeating the same fragmented sentences and words over and over again. Tyler follows. Blake is curled up on the couch in a fetal position.
Tyler wastes no time, walking over and pushing against his shoulder. “Blake,” he says firmly. Blake stirs and opens his eyes, and I see him flinch as he takes in Tyler’s face.
“I’m not gonna hit you, Blake.” Tyler says, sitting on the sofa opposite him. “Unless you make me. What are you doing here?”
Blake rubs his eyes with his thin hand. “I had no money left and no place to stay, and then I got mixed up with these guys, and couldn’t pay them for stuff, and I needed somewhere to go.”
“What stuff?” Tyler asks.
“Drugs, mainly. I went to look for Aria. But when I found her in Phoenix, she was with someone new, and when she found out that I was broke, well, that was just the icing on the cake for her. Turns out she was all about the money, after all.” Blake turns to face me. “You would have never treated me like that. I was such a fool.”
From the kitchen, I see Tyler’s already clasped-together hands clench, as does his jaw. He looks towards Blake menacingly, protective fire burning
in his eyes. I love my husband.
“Blake,” I say lowly, shooting him a warning look.
“Sorry,” he says sincerely before turning back to Tyler.
“Are you still on those drugs?” Tyler asks.
Blake averts his eyes. Tyler’s fix on mine. Looking for my approval to help him. Searching for the silent understanding that we are so blessed to have between us. I smile, knowing that Tyler will do the right thing. He walks over to the kitchen and picks up his cell phone before walking out onto the veranda.
My turn to talk. “Blake, I sincerely hope that this isn’t another round of your bullshit. I swear to you, if you abuse Tyler’s trust, you will have me to answer to, and it won’t be pleasant.” My voice is laced fiercely with the threat, assuring that there is no misunderstanding it.
“You once defended me like that,” he says, looking at me sadly.
I don’t respond. I can’t tell this already worn out man that what I feel for Tyler, what I felt from the day I met him, has always bested what I felt for Blake. I’m not so cruel as to shatter his soul. He already gets to live with the regret of the past, and that’s enough for me.
I feed Sadie, and leave breakfast on the table for both Tyler and Blake. Tyler walks in a half an hour later.
“I’ve arranged for you to go to a rehab facility in the city. After that, a guy at one of the free clinics I help support will give you a job. It’s not fancy, just assisting the doctors, utilizing your existing medical knowledge. Our mother will be here to pick you up at three,” Tyler says. “Out of curiosity, why didn’t you go to her first?”
Blake looks away again. “After she made me take that paternity test, I behaved like an asshole. I realize now that I did. And I was so angry with her for cutting me off. That day she was, for the first time in all my life, ashamed of me. Ashamed and so disappointed. I couldn’t face her.”
“Well, now you have to,” Tyler replies firmly. “She wants to know that you’re okay. And I have a home, a family, and a business to take care of now. I want to help you, Blake, but I’m not going to drop all of my own priorities because you rolled into town again.”
Scared of Forever (Scared #2) Page 20