Holding Her Hand (Reed Brothers Book 15)(49)

They’re part of my family now and so is Lark. I take her hand in mine. Her hand is mine to hold forever.

“You okay?” she asks.

I nod. “I’m fine.” Just feeling a little undeserving of all I’ve been given, is all. I brush a lock of hair back from her forehead. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too.”

I pop open a bottle of champagne, and she laughs at me when I get it all over my tuxedo pants. “I just want water,” she says.

“You sure?”

She nods and I give her a bottle of water instead.

We decided to get married in her hometown, because I wanted her to feel close to her parents today, so we’re also really close to the beach, and I want to take her there. I asked Emilio to find out what beach she used to go to with her parents and I made special plans.

I crack the window of the limo and I can feel the dampness of the ocean. It’s going to be cold, but I don’t care. I don’t think she will either.

“Where are we?” she asks, when we finally stop.

“Somewhere special,” I tell her. I get out and hold my hand out to her. She’s still in her wedding gown and she looks like a princess. My princess. She puts her hand in mine like she has all the faith in the world in me.

We get out and she freezes. Then her eyes fill with tears. “How did you know?” she asks. She doesn’t sign, but I read it on her lips.

I shrug. “I have my ways.”

We’re at the beach where she spent that last weekend with her parents before they died. She walks toward the water, kicking her shoes off so she can walk barefoot on the sand. It’s cold, so I know she won’t want to stay out here long, but a few minutes should be long enough.

I go to the trunk and pull out the kites I bought yesterday. There’s one for her and one for me. And I bought four more in case we broke one or lost one in the wind.

“I have a chess board too if you’d rather play that.” I look at her and watch for her reaction.

She starts to unwrap her kite and put it together. It’s the cheap kind, the kind that you can get at any vacation gift shop. When it’s all put together, she runs out onto the sand and lifts her kite to the wind. It unfurls and catches the breeze, and I watch as she lets it rise into the air. She smiles at me, and the wind blows her hair all around. She doesn’t care. She just lets it fly.

I set my kite up and stand beside her, letting the wind be at our backs, and letting it fill our kites, raising them up higher and higher.

She looks over at me and her cheeks are wet. “This is the best day ever,” she says.

“I know.” I laugh at her, because she’s so damn pretty and she’s mine.

“How many kites did you get?” she asks.

“Six. Why?”

“One for me, one for you, and four more for…?” She watches my face.

“For extras.”

“Save them for our kids,” she says. She grins at me. “How many kids are we going to have?”

I laugh, because it feels so right. “Well, we have four kites…” I shrug.

“Okay,” she replies. She stares into my eyes. “Can we start tonight?”

“Start what?”

“Start our family. Or is it too soon?”

She stands there on the sand in her wedding dress, a cheap kite reaching into the sky, one arm extended as she shivers with goosebumps, and she’s asking me if we can start a family? “It’s not too soon.”

“We can start tonight?”

I look around at the beach where we’re drawing a crowd. “We can start right now, if you want.” I jerk my thumb toward the waiting limo.

She stares at me as she reels in her kite. I pull mine in too, and we race back to the limo. She grins as we put the kites away. She raises the privacy screen with the push of a button and climbs into my lap, arranging her skirts around us. They’re big and bulky but I don’t care. She kisses me as I unbutton my pants and push them lower, and she pulls her panties to the side and sinks down slowly onto my cock. I’ve never been inside her without a condom, and it feels so damn good.

I hold her face in my hands as she rises and falls, trying to catch her lips, but she won’t let me. She’s making me come apart beneath her, and she’s riding me like we have only a short while to do this, rather than a lifetime.

I grunt as she spreads her legs wider and sinks farther down on me. “God, yes,” I groan. “Fuck me, Lark,” I tell her. “Fuck me faster.”

She’s tight and wet and hot and there’s no barrier between us. I take her hips in my hands, guiding her to find a rhythm I know she’ll like. I’ve learned her body. I know all about it. I know how to make her happy. She cries out as she gets close. I can feel the hum of her noises in her chest, and I can feel the humid wind of her cries against my cheek.

“I’m going to come,” I say, as I feel her walls clench around me, pulling me in deeper and deeper, and I come inside her with the knowledge that we could have just made a new life, and I come harder than I ever have before.

She collapses against my chest, and I hold her tight, kissing her temple over and over. I can’t get enough of her.

She wiggles and I slip out of her, and then I use my handkerchief to clean her up, and then myself. I pull my pants back up and try to get back to some semblance of order. She falls into the seat next to me.