Beautiful Beginning(2)
blow job. You want to fold paper. Who is the buzzkill here?”
He picked up a program and studied it, ignoring me. “Frederick Mills,” he
read aloud, and I began pulling my shirt up and over my head, “together
with Elliott and Susan Ryan welcome you to the wedding of their children,
Chloe Caroline Mills and Bennett James Ryan.”
“Yes, yes, it’s so romantic,” I whispered. “Come here and touch me.”
“Officiant,” he continued, “the Honorable James Marsters.”
“If only,” I sighed, and dropped my shirt on the floor before working my
pants down my hips. “I’m going to pretend it’s Spike performing our
wedding ceremony instead of that hilarious gentleman with early dementia we
met back in November.”
“Judge Marsters performed my parents’ wedding ceremony almost thirty-five
years ago,” Bennett chastened me gently. “It’s sentimental, Chlo. The
fact that he forgot to zip up his pants is a mistake anyone could have
made.”
“Three times?”
“Chloe.”
“Fine.” I did feel a little guilty for making the joke, but I stood
quietly for a minute, letting my memory of the old, frazzled man take
shape. He’d met us at the wedding site when we went out to see it last
fall, and got lost on each of three trips to the men’s room in under an
hour, returning with his fly open each time. “But do you think he’ll
remember our na—”
Bennett cut me off with a stern look before he realized I was only wearing
my bra and underwear, and then his expression went a completely different
kind of dark.
“I’m just saying,” I started, reaching behind me to unfasten my bra,
“it would be at least a little amusing if he forgot what he was doing
halfway through the ceremony.”
He managed to turn his attention back to folding the program before my
breasts were exposed; he made a crisp seam as he slid his thumb along the
edge. “You’re being a pain in the ass.”
“I know. I also don’t care.”
He quirked an eyebrow as he looked up at me. “We’re almost done.”
I bit back my response, which was to point out that folding the programs
was the least of our worries; the next week with our two families together
had the potential to be a disaster of Griswold-family holiday proportions,
and wouldn’t sex right now be a lot better than thinking about that? My
father and his two boozy divorcée sisters alone could make us crazy, but
add in Bennett’s side of the family, Max, and Will, and we’d be lucky to
get out of there without a felony under our communal belt.
Instead I whispered, “Just really quick? Can’t we take a little break?”
He leaned forward, inhaling between my breasts before moving to the side
and kissing a path to my left nipple. “Once I start, I don’t relish
stopping.”
“You don’t like interruptions, I don’t like delayed gratification. Which
of us do you think will get her way?”
Bennett ran his tongue over my nipple, and then sucked it deeply into his
mouth as his hands circled my waist, slid to my hips, and then worked
together to pull my panties off with a satisfying rip.
Amusement lit up his eyes as he looked up at me from where he sucked at my
other breast, and his fingers teased at the juncture of my hip and thigh.
“I suspect, my impossible wife-to-be, that you’re going to get your way
and then I’ll finish folding these later while you sleep.”
Sliding my hands back into his hair, I whispered, “Don’t forget about
tying the ribbons on the candy bags.”
He chuckled a little. “I won’t, baby.”
And it hit me all over again, like a warm gust of wind: I loved him, madly.
I loved every inch of him, every emotion that passed through his eyes, and
every thought I knew he had right now but wasn’t voicing:
One, that I’d been the one to insist we do as much of this ourselves as we
could.
Two, that I was the one to assure him it was fine that every distant
relative of ours on the planet had somehow squeezed their way into this
wedding event.
Three, that I would never, ever back out of the opportunity to wear my
wedding dress on the Coronado coastline.
But instead of pointing out the obvious—that he was the one being a good
sport here, not me, and that despite all of my bitching I would never be
satisfied with a quick Vegas wedding—he stood, turning to walk to our
bedroom. “Okay, then. But this is the last night I’m f*cking you before
we’re married.”
I was so buzzed by the “f*cking” part that it wasn’t until he’d
disappeared down the hallway to our bedroom that the rest of his words
fully sank in.
Bennett was already undressing when I joined him in the bedroom, and I