Chapter 7BELLA #2
“Your secret is safe with me,” I laugh. “Look.” I point to the stars and see our constellation shining brightly.
He surprised me one night under the stars with his knowledge of astronomy.
He told me the love story of Perseus and Andromeda, and it quickly became my favorite.
We even got Travis to give us matching tattoos that he sketched of the constellation weaved around my favorite flower…
a daisy. Whenever I look at it, it’s always a constant reminder of our promise to each other…
our vow to end up side by side in the stars so our love story, too, can be told centuries later, shining brightly for all to see.
My legs burn as I step off the snowboard. We decided to hit the slopes today—well, everyone except Emma and Skye. They spent the afternoon catching up by the fireplace in the lobby.
We used to go on family vacations together, and our parents always loved going on a ski trip after Christmas so we could see the snow.
Maverick and Noah took to snowboarding right away as kids.
Growing up on surfboards definitely gave them an advantage, but Sophia and I held our own and were always up for the challenge.
Everyone else quit an hour ago, leaving Maverick and me to battle it out on the slopes. I was determined to keep up with him, and now I’ll be paying the price tomorrow, already feeling the soreness in my muscles.
“Don’t worry, I’m feeling it too,” Mav laughs when he notices me moving slower than usual.
“You’ll feel better in a minute once we walk around.
Here, let me take that.” He grabs the snowboard out of my hand and puts them both under his arm.
“You kept up with me today. I guess all those surf lessons are paying off,” he grins at me.
I’ve been surfing with him more on days when the waves are good in our area.
I’m not ready for the pipeline, but I can at least stay up now and ride some of the bigger ones.
Maverick does most of his surfing out of the country, but it’s always fun when our Florida coast gets hit with some barrels in our waters.
“My surf instructor is all right,” I grin. “He can be a bit bossy.”
He grabs my hand, causing me to shriek when I’m thrown back into his body.
“You never complain about my bossiness in the bedroom,” he murmurs in my ear.
“You love being told what to do.” His warm lips touch my neck, and I shiver as tingles invade my body.
He’s pressed up against me from behind, and his hand holds my body firmly in place.
Mav has never been one to shy against public displays of affection.
In fact, he loves to get me worked up in public places and see how far he can take it.
He has a way of making me forget where I am, as all my attention goes to him and what he makes my body feel. Now is no exception as his tongue swipes across my skin.
“Admit it,” he breathes against me, “my fiancé loves my bossiness.” His teeth graze my ear before pulling on my earlobe.
“I love your bossiness,” I whisper, enjoying the way his soft lips feel on my skin.
“Turn around and kiss me.” His dimples flash briefly as I willingly obey him, only proving his point that I love being told what to do in the bedroom.
He drops the snowboards and clutches my face with his gloved hands before invading my mouth like a man starving for my taste. His tongue finds mine as he aggressively takes what he wants…what he knows we both want. The world around us dims as it only becomes the two of us on this snow-filled hill.
I hear a distant whistle, and my brain struggles to understand what it is. Mav pulls away, grinning. “Shit, I forgot we’re not alone.” He looks up, and I follow his gaze to see a group of teenage boys encouraging him with whistles and glove-clapped hands.
“Oh my God,” I bury my face in Mav’s jacket as his body shakes with laughter.
“You are so lucky, man,” one of them yells out.
“You almost melted the snow!” I hear another yell as they all laugh.
“Okay, guys, shows over,” Maverick calls out to them. “Get back to the slopes.” I hear boots crunching on the snow as they walk past us. “They’re gone now,” he says when they are out of sight.
I lift my head, and Mav can’t stop the wide grin on his face. “What? It’s not my fault I lose all sense of where I’m at when you kiss me like that.”
“You kissed me first like that right in front of everybody.” I swat his chest as he laughs harder.
“And I would do it all over again.” He grins and picks up the snowboards again.
And I have no doubt I would let him do it again, and we both know it. He’s my biggest weakness. He grabs my hand, and when his beautiful green eyes meet mine with love…I know he is undeniably my biggest strength as well.
Instead of leading us back to the lobby after we turn in our snowboards, he leads me to the snowtubing hills.
“No way,” I say, stopping in my tracks. “The last time we did this when we were younger, I flew off the back of our double and landed in a snow drift.”
“I was young and stupid then and trying to impress you,” he laughs. “I’m much more mature now.”
“I highly doubt that.” I roll my lip between my teeth and eye the double tubes stacked against the wooden shed, wondering what my chances of surviving on that thing are.
“I won’t steer it over snow piles like I did last time. We won’t soar in the air, I promise. I just want to go down a couple of times.” He pulls me with him and selects a tube. “It will be fun,” he grins back at me.
“Those are always someone’s words right before they die,” I mutter.
Laughing, he steps close and kisses me softly on the lips. “I would never let you die. You’re my favorite person. Besides, we’ve spent way too much on this wedding for it not to happen, and the time has passed for me to get a deposit back.”
He laughs when I push him off of me. Hiding my grin at his not-so-funny joke, I grab the tube and start walking.
“I get to steer this time,” I throw back over my shoulder. “Just lean when I do.”
“That’s my girl.” He grins like a little kid, and I finally break out into laughter that I’ve been holding back.
I settle down in front as he gets behind me. I glance back at him and can’t help but feel the excitement as we did as kids. “You ready?”
“I’m always ready.” He winks at me and pushes us off with his hands. The tube takes off down the hill, and I laugh as the cold air blasts me in the face. I lean a little to the left, wanting to go on the steeper side. We pick up speed and start to veer off the instructed path.
“Go to the right!” Mav yells behind me. I ignore him as I set up a small snow drift in my line of sight. Just a little air won’t hurt. I grin when we hit it at the bottom of the hill, catching some air before we land and topple over into the snow.
“Did you see that? We flew over that mound!”
“Yeah, I saw it,” he laughs beside me on the ground. “What happened to no snow drifts? My life flashed before my eyes.”
I crawl over to my fiancé lying on his back in the small pile of snow and straddle him.
“I couldn’t resist,” I grin down at his gorgeous face. “And what did you see when your life flashed before your eyes?” I brush back a strand of his sun-streaked hair that escaped his beanie from the fall.
He grabs my hips and runs his gloved hands down my snow pants. “You…I only saw you.” His smile warms up my inside seconds before my lips meet his.
“So, how is your family doing, Travis? We haven’t seen your brothers and sister since the fourth,” Skye reaches for her wine glass and takes a sip. We decided to stop for dinner at a local steakhouse on the way home.
“They are doing good. My parents are home for the holidays and enjoying their time with Max and Ryland.” Travis leans back and puts his arm around the back of Sophia’s chair.
“I’ve been talking to Eve at least once a week with pregnancy questions,” Emma laughs. “She’s probably sick of me.”
“Trust me, she isn’t. She loves having a pregnant girlfriend to talk to,” Sophia smiles over at Emma.
She filled us in on Travis’s brother, Ryder, and what he and Eve went through.
We met Eve at the Fourth of July party this summer at Travis’s family beach house in Blue Haven.
They were high school sweethearts and recently found their way back to each other despite her crazy parents’ best efforts to tear them apart.
They’ve been through a lot but are now married and expecting their second child in the Spring.
Their daughter, Ryland, is two and just about the most adorable little girl I’ve ever seen, with her auburn curls like her momma and those staple grey eyes that run through the Montgomery brothers.
“I’m really happy for them. I can’t imagine going through what they did. They deserve this happiness,” I meet Travis’s eye across the table.
He nods his head in agreement. “After Eve left, I didn’t think I would ever see Ryder happy again.
Now, he’s walking around with a constant smile on his face.
I couldn’t be more happy for the two of them.
” Travis smiles and takes a sip of his beer.
“Speaking of being happy for someone. How are the wedding plans coming along? My whole family is excited for your May wedding.”
“I never knew there were so many different invitations and fonts out there,” Maverick laughs. “Did you know there are more than two hundred and forty-seven different shades of pink?”
“No, I didn’t,” Noah laughs.
“Well, there is. Trust me, I’ve looked at them all.”
“Choosing the right shade of pink for bridesmaids’ dresses is crucial. It has to look good in the pictures and go with the daisy flower bouquets,” I point out to my fiancé.
“You picked the perfect shade and cut for the dresses. I can’t wait to wear it. And yours…God, Mav is going to shit himself when he sees you in it,” Sophia grins at her brother.
“If she’s half as beautiful as she was at Noah and Emma’s wedding, I have no doubt I will be trouble.” His dimples flash as he winks at me.
“Yeah, if I remember correctly, you had a hard time keeping your hands off her that night,” Cole grins at Mav.
“You knew about them that night?” Emma asks, looking puzzled.
“Mav asked me for advice on the day of the bachelor party, and I put two and two together. During the reception, I accidentally interrupted them on the balcony. There’s no telling what would have happened in that dark corner if I hadn’t stumbled upon them,” he chuckles.
“I’m just glad it was you because telling Noah on his wedding day that I was in love with his sister was not how I envisioned it going down.”
“You didn’t tell me you loved me until way later.” I meet Mav’s beautiful green eyes as he brushes my hair back over my shoulder.
“When you walked down that aisle at their wedding, it was like an arrow hit me straight in the heart. I’ve always had love for you since we were little, but I saw my future clear as day in that moment.
I knew one day it would be me standing there, and I would be the one you were walking down the aisle to.
I didn’t just have love for you…you were the definition of what love is.
I just had to trust myself not to mess it up because the thought of you not in my life is a life I would never want to live. ”
“Wow. I think you just said your vows,” Sophia whispers, her voice catching.
He brushes his thumb across my cheek, swiping a tear away. “How am I going to top that on our wedding day?” I choke out the question.
“I don’t know. I surprised myself with that one,” he laughs.
“What have you done to me?” He rubs the back of his neck as a sheepish smile hits those lips.
“Did you see the hockey game last week? Our team is headed for the playoffs if they keep playing the way they have been.” He changes the subject, and the guys laugh, but not before I see my brother and him exchange looks.
Noah couldn’t be prouder of him in this moment, and I know he’s thanking him without words for loving me the way someone deserves to be loved.
Leaning over, I grab his neck and pull him to me.
“I love you,” I whisper into his ear. His hand finds mine under the table, and I keep it there.
I know he’s feeling a bit uncomfortable with revealing his emotions to everyone, so I say the one thing I know will give him back control of the situation.
“I can’t wait to be your wife. Mrs. Isabella Lane has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?
” I see his eyes blaze when I mention being his wife.
We’ve had many conversations about this, and I know what those words do to him.
I vaguely hear our friends having a conversation around us as his breath warms my skin when he finds my ear. Heat pools in my body as I wait on bated breath for what he’s about to say.