Chapter Thirty-two – I Swear
Chapter Thirty-two
Parker
I SWEAR
Performed by John Michael Montgomery
FIVE YEARS AGO
HER: Will and his bae don’t seem to mesh all that well, do they?
HIM: What the hell is a BAE?
HER: You’re a disgrace to your generation, Parker. What are you, fifty instead of twenty-five? It means lover. Partner. Like, instead of calling someone baby, which we all know can be downright insulting.
HIM: I can promise you that no one has complained when I’ve called them baby.
HER: But then again, you don’t really stick around to find out, do you?
PRESENT DAY
After we’d let our families and friends talk to us for much too long, I’d ended the virtual meeting with a promise that we’d let them hold a reception for us later in the year.
Mom insisted on taking us to dinner with Theo and Maisey at the hotel’s Michelin-starred restaurant.
Customers had to make reservations a minimum of six months in advance, so I knew it was only because of who Fallon was that Mom had been able to swing a table.
I sat next to Fallon in a quiet booth at the back of the fancy restaurant and couldn’t stop myself from touching her. I kept our fingers twined as much as possible, and when that didn’t work, I had my thigh pressed into hers or my arm behind her on the back of the booth.
She looked beautiful—such a ridiculously underrated word for the truth of her.
It wasn’t just the hair and makeup and dress.
It was something inside her that was glowing stronger than it ever had.
That light I’d thought had been dimmed when I’d first arrived on the ranch had returned but with a new vehemence. A spectacular force.
She was mine.
She’d always been mine, but I’d let myself deny it for too long.
Stupid, when I’d never considered myself stupid.
After the entrees had been served, eaten, and removed, the chef brought out a fraisier cake that was Fallon’s favorite, along with a wildly expensive bottle of champagne, adding his good wishes to the rest of the staff’s.
The strawberry sponge cake layered with pastry cream and topped with marzipan was almost too sweet for me, but watching Fallon lick the fork with her eyes closed became one of my new favorite moments.
Before, I would have looked away. I would have forbidden myself from thinking about all the ways I could put that same look on her face with my hands and my mouth. Now, I reveled in it.
After Mom and Maisey gave teary-eyed toasts, and Theo started to fade as the minutes ticked further past his bedtime, we finally left the restaurant. I dropped Fallon’s hand to hug Theo. “I’ll see you tomorrow, bud. Just like we talked about, right?”
For a moment, uncertainty crossed his face.
“Wait, what?” Fallon shot confused looks between us.
Mom reached for Theo. “Maisey, Theo, and I are having a movie day tomorrow, aren’t we? All the best dog movies we can find, but only the ones with happy endings. We’ll eat lots of popcorn and plenty of the sugar cookies we made.”
I cringed, thinking of Theo’s fallout after a junk-food binge, but it was Fallon who objected. “But I don’t have my things, and—”
“I packed them all up while you were with the stylist and sent them along to Parker here at the hotel,” my mother said. She leaned in and kissed Fallon on the cheek. “You deserve a wedding night, Fallon. Both of you. ”
Fallon’s cheeks flushed. Maisey hugged her, whispering something that made Fallon blush even more as Mom pulled me into another quick embrace.
We watched as the trio made their way down the carpeted hall toward the front of the hotel, with Theo waving Dog at us in a way that tugged at my heart.
It was our first night apart since he’d come to live with me.
Would he be okay? Who would he sleep with if he woke in the middle of the night?
I’d given Mom the rundown, but I wouldn’t be there…
And that was always a SEAL’s worst nightmare—not being there when your team needed you.
“Parker, this is silly,” Fallon said softly, pulling my hand into hers.
I looked down at her, those amber eyes shimmering with that warm light that had finally returned, and my chest settled.
Theo was with my mom, and there was literally no one other than my dad who I’d trust more with him.
Theo would be just fine. And Mom was right—Fallon and I deserved a wedding night.
I didn’t toss the deserved word around very often. It was overused, frequently hiding a sense of entitlement that actually hadn’t been earned. But I wanted tonight to be special for my wife.
My wife.
Those words were so foreign to me and yet so completely right.
“Once we get to the suite, I’ll show you just how not silly it is.”
Then, I swept her off her feet and strode toward the elevators.
She laughed. “Put me down.”
“No.”
Her gaze darted around us. “We’re drawing attention.”
“Good.” When we came to stop at the elevator bank, I adjusted so I could push the button, and she tried to slide out of my arms. I tightened my grip and leaned down to kiss her on the forehead. “Stop wiggling. You’re worse than Theo.”
“I weigh about a hundred and twenty pounds more than Theo. You can’t possibly carry me all the way to our room. Where is our room, by the way? ”
“I carried a damn itty-bitty ship for hours in unrelenting waves. I think I can carry my wife a few feet.”
She stopped moving, eyes falling to my lips before meeting mine again. “That word…it keeps hitting me in the chest.”
“What word?” I knew, but I wanted her to say it.
“Wife.”
And it hit me in the chest too. Pride and love and desire.
I started to curse myself again for taking so long to get here and then halted those thoughts.
I couldn’t change the past, and dwelling on it would only make me bitter—not at her, but at me.
From here on, I’d concentrate on making it up to her, on building a life worthy of her.
The doors opened, and I stepped inside, hitting the button for the suites at the top of the tower. We were still alone in the elevator when the doors closed, and I kissed her, slow and soft and mindful of the cameras in the corners.
Tearing my mouth from hers was harder than I expected. I brushed the good side of her temple with my lips again and then said, “I wouldn’t know what it’s like to hear that special word as you’ve yet to say the matching one.”
She grinned at me and batted her lashes playfully. “What word? You mean, Kermit? Frogman?”
I growled.
Her smile grew. “Fine, fine. I know…” She inhaled, leaned up, and brought her mouth close to my ear, sending a wave of heat and lust down my spine. “Bae.”
I pinched her side, none too gently, but she simply laughed.
“I will hear it, Fallon. Before tonight is over, you’re going to be chanting it.”
Her smile disappeared, flames bursting in her eyes. “Big promises, Bae .”
The doors opened with a ding, and I strode toward the suite where Theo and I had gotten ready.
I hadn’t seen the items I’d ordered—we’d gone to the chapel before they’d been delivered—but I knew they’d be waiting for us, as top-notch customer service was one of the things Rafe’s hotels were known for.
At the door, I had her dig in my pocket for the keycard, and as she pressed it against the reader, she said, “We could have stayed in Dad’s penthouse.”
“Not on our wedding night. I don’t want to be thinking of your dad at all. Or mine. Or anyone but you.”
The door shut behind us with a quiet click, and I marched straight past the suite’s sitting area into the bedroom.
A mahogany four-poster bed carved with vines and flowers took up the bulk of the space, but there was also a free-standing tub placed in front of windows that overlooked the lights of The Strip twenty floors below.
A gold-gilded settee was at the foot of the bed, the deep rose velvet cushions matching the satin of the bed linens.
It was floral and feminine and perfect for a wedding night.
The staff had scattered candles around the room as I’d requested. They were fake, but they still added ambiance to the dim lights. The sweet scent of the same wildflowers I’d filled the chapel with hung in the air, and a silver stand with champagne on ice sat in the corner.
I wanted Fallon to have romance tonight. This wasn’t just us rushing to beat a clock clicking down on her pregnancy. This was a true wedding night with love leading us into a long future.
When I finally set her down, I didn’t let her back away. Instead, I put one hand behind her head, wrapped the other around her waist, and took her mouth with a passion I hoped she’d feel all the way to her toes.
When I finally started to pull back, she protested, sinking her teeth into my bottom lip and taking control. I let her, enjoying the hungry way she explored and the heat of her touch, enjoying the thrust of her tongue and the savage, almost desperate lick into my mouth.
I pulled back enough to remove the clips and bands from her hair, running my fingers through her tresses until the blond waves danced around her breasts.
I wanted to bury my face in those strands, to inhale that salty sea and floral aroma until it was burned into my senses.
Instead, I slanted my mouth over hers once again.
It was almost too much, having her, touching her, being engulfed in her scent and her love.
I was already painfully hard. Harder than I’d ever been and hungry for relief.
But my body would have to wait .
I needed to spend hours cherishing her first. Hours taunting and teasing her until she was desperate enough to say the word I craved.
She broke our kiss, looking around the room and taking in the flowers and candles and champagne before eyes burning with desire returned to mine.“I didn’t expect all this.”
I ran my thumb along her bottom lip. For two seconds, I let the asshole JJ enter my mind, pissed that he might not have given her any of this. Romance and flowers and sweet, sensual, slow sex in the flicker of candlelight.