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