Chapter 17
Notes
Yes, I left you on a cliffhanger. And yes, I was a few days late with the update.
But I have a good reason. I was working on a project, then I went out with one of my friends to the bar.
Guess who was there: Liam and Jonesy. I talked to Liam for about thirty minutes, and he’s a really interesting person.
It’s very weird to suddenly view him as a real person, because I had spent the afternoon before writing him getting freak nasty with Jonesy.
Who I also got to say hi to briefly. So yeah, I’ve spent the past few days having a minor mental crisis about writing fics about someone who is now in my phone.
Because yes, I did get his phone number. So, like, should I text him?
Okay, back to Milo, Rowan, and their Vegas shenanigans.
Rowan
My mouth tasted like cotton.
“Ugh,” I groaned as I rolled over. A glint of gold around my finger caught my eye as the sun from the open window hit it. A glint of gold? I raised my hand and brought it up to my face for closer inspection. There was a gold band around the fourth finger on my hand. A wedding band.
I nudged Milo, and he grunted and rolled onto his stomach, keeping his face away from me. Unfortunately, his hands were both tucked underneath that long, lanky body of his. I nudged him a second time, and he just let out another pained groan. “Milo,” I hissed as I nudged him a third time.
“Ten more minutes,” he grumbled.
He was usually a morning person. Of course, he’d choose today to change the habit. “Milo,” I hissed again, nudging him harder.
He turned his head toward me and opened his red-rimmed eyes. He looked miserable. I almost hated waking him up, but what other choice did I have? I needed answers for the ring around my finger. I needed to know if he had a matching one.
The night before was a blur, but I’d remember if I’d gotten married. Right?
“I think I’m dying,” Milo muttered.
“Die later,” I told him bluntly. “Let me see your hand.” Milo dragged his right hand out from under his body and tossed it my way. “Your other hand.”
He groaned again and flopped over to his stomach.
He jutted his left hand out toward me. There was a matching yellow gold band around his fourth finger.
I traced my finger over it. Yeah, it was real.
It was a real ring on his finger. His eyes fluttered back open at the contact, and I could see the moment what I was doing hit him. His eyes widened. “What is that?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
He pulled his hand away from mine and looked at the gold band. Then, he yanked my hand toward his face. Seeing the two rings together sparked a vague memory in my mind.
Milo and I sitting at the bar of a casino.
Flashing lights around us, Jonesy and Liam had left a few drinks ago.
Or maybe they’d just left? Milo and I talking.
We should get married. It’s the most Vegas thing ever.
Milo’s words echoed in my memory, foggy through the hangover.
I closed my eyes and tried to summon up the rest of the memory.
Us leaving the casino. Walking down the strip.
Finding a place that advertised a twenty-four-hour chapel.
A woman in a pant suit and gold rings and the fateful words of I do.
A drunken kiss that turned into more drunken kisses.
Happiness.
“Holy fuck.” The words slipped from my tongue in utter disbelief. “We got married.”
“We got married,” Milo repeated.
We’d gotten married. We’d gotten drunk, and we’d gotten married in Las Vegas. “Do you think…” I pulled my bottom lip in between my teeth and tried to think of how to word my question. I didn’t want to offend or upset him, but I had to ask. “Do you think it’s legally binding?”
He pushed himself up into a sitting position. I was surprised to see that he was still wearing a shirt. He never slept in shirts. “I don’t know. We should… we should find out.”
“We should,” I agreed. “There has to be something that tells us, right? Is there a Vegas wedding registry?”
“Public records?” he suggested.
I sat up beside him and started looking around the room for any kind of signs or clues.
My eyes landed on a stack of papers by the television, papers that hadn’t been there the night before.
I rolled out of the bed and walked over to pick them up.
“Pretty sure it’s legal,” I told him after I scanned through the paperwork.
There was a receipt for the wedding ceremony and a copy of a marriage certificate.
There was another piece of paper saying the chapel would file it for us with the state of Nevada.
It appeared that we’d gotten married.
Milo sat in stunned silence for a few moments before he smiled a bright smile that lit up his entire face. “So, does that make me Mr. Rangecroft or are you Mr. Tobitt?” he asked.
“I think that’s something we can discuss,” I told him as I put the papers back down on the television stand. I grabbed the two bottles of water the hotel had provided at check in and walked back to the bed, passing one over to my… husband. My husband. Milo was my husband.
I waited for the regret to kick in. I waited for the uncertainty.
It didn’t come. Instead, a small ball of happiness began to form where the regret and uncertainty should have been.
The only thing I even vaguely regretted was the fact that I didn’t remember every detail of our wedding.
I regretted that my family wasn’t there, but not the fact that it had happened.
Logically, I knew it was too soon to be married to Milo.
We had only met a few months ago. We hadn’t been dating long enough.
It was too soon for the kind of certainty I felt as I uncapped my water bottle and looked at him from the corner of my eye.
“Do you regret it?” Milo asked, breaking through my silence.
“No.” The answer was immediate and certain. “Do you?”
“No.” His answer was just as sure. “Though I might regret it when we get home and tell Aunt Ethel. She’s going to beat me to death with her cane, and then I’m not going to be able to come back to practice. Because I’ll be dead.”
I laughed at his dramatics. “She’s not going to kill you,” I assured him. “She loves you. She’ll just want you to be happy.” I took another sip of my water. “You are happy, right?”
He reached over and took the open bottle of water from my hand.
He placed it down on the bedside table. He placed his beside it and straddled my lap.
His hands cupped my face. “I am happy,” he told me seriously.
I wasn’t sure I’d heard him sound so serious in all the time I’d known him.
He leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on my lips.
“Besides, if it turns out that this is a huge mistake, divorce is always an option.”
“I don’t think tha—”
His lips cut off my words, kissing me hard.
His tongue slipped into my still-open mouth, and I was powerless under him.
I wrapped my arms around his waist, holding him in place.
He was happy. I was happy. I didn’t need to overthink this.
There was an escape clause if it turned out that drunkenly getting married in Vegas was a mistake.
He did something with his tongue that made all my thoughts fade away to blissful nothingness. He had the rare and magical ability to get me to turn off my mind.
My hands bunched up the back of his shirt, desperate to feel the heat of his skin under my fingers.
He pulled away from the kiss and tugged his own shirt off, tossing it to the hotel room floor.
I took advantage of the moment to rid myself of my own shirt, leaving us both in just our underwear.
My eyes drank in the sight of him. He was long limbs and lean muscles.
The black briefs he’d worn the night before were the perfect wrapping for what I knew was underneath it: his long slender cock and perfect ass.
“You’re beautiful,” I whispered after a moment of adoration. I leaned forward and mouthed along the column of his neck. “My beautiful, sexy, handsome husband.”
“Say it again,” he exhaled.
“Sexy,” I repeated, tonguing over his salty skin. “Beautiful.” I nipped at the delicate flesh. “Handsome.” Another gentle kiss, this time going down toward his collar bone.
“No,” he whined. “Husband. Say that again.”
“Husband,” I repeated as I kissed along his collarbone.
He leaned his head back, giving me better access to the expanse of skin.
“Sexy husband.” He moaned and ground his hips against the growing bulge in my boxer briefs.
The friction pulled a lust-filled noise from my lips, muffled only by his skin.
I dragged my fingers down the side of his torso to his hips.
I gripped at his sides, digging my nails into his flesh, and pulled him down against me again.
I wanted more of that sweet friction, more of the amazing sensation my husband gave me.
“Husband,” he whispered as he tangled his hands into my hair. “I like that word.”
I liked it, too. I liked the way it felt on my tongue.
I liked the way it made him react. I liked the way it settled in my chest and spread heat through my veins.
It was a different kind of heat than his touch created.
It was internal. It was real. It was the kind that lasted longer than a moment, longer than a night.
He tugged at my hair, pulling my face back up to his to recapture my mouth.
The other kind of heat raced through my veins as his expert tongue plumbed the depths of my mouth and his hands began to explore.
Before long, we were naked on the hotel bed, grinding against each other, and I was desperate for more.
I didn’t mind getting off like this, but this morning felt special. We were married. I wanted to make love to my husband.