Chapter 10 Night Before The Wedding
Night Before The Wedding
Seb
I carry Tasha over the threshold of her bungalow like she’s already mine.
She doesn’t protest. That’s new.
The Tasha who kissed me first, took me to her bed but kept her emotional walls intact, would have protested.
The Tasha who left me a note this morning would have protested.
The Tasha who spent two years pretending to be fine would have made a joke to break the moment.
But this Tasha presses her mouth against my jaw and lets me carry her to the bedroom without a word.
Her silence undoes me.
I set her down at the edge of the bed, kneel and look at her. Just look.
“What?” she asks, rubbing her cheeks, all cute and embarrassed.
“I’ve been waiting years for this moment. Years of crushing on my best friend’s girl. Years of waiting for you to be the one to notice me.” I smile, catching her wrists so I can kiss her palms. “Forgive me for taking a second.”
She reaches up, fingers sliding into my hair, pulling my face down to hers.
“Please. Don’t. Wait.”
The kiss is nothing like our first night. That was about careful, thrilling, trembling discovery. This kiss has the confidence of a woman who ran and came back, who was brave enough to share her secret and accept my love, trusting I mean it.
My hands slide into her hair and I angle her head back and kiss her like I mean it, like I’ve been saving it, like I have something to prove. She purrs into my mouth before her fingers curl into the front of my shirt.
“Seb.” My name in her mouth is different from before. “Don’t treat me as if I’m fragile. I’m not going to break.”
I pull back just enough to look at her. She’s flushed and certain, eyes dark, hair half-ruined. Has she any idea how many different ways I want to take her body?
“You sure?”
“You told me you’ll chase me wherever I go, and I told you I’ll pack up my life and follow you across an ocean,” she says with her trademarked smile. “I love you. I’m sure.”
That’s the last careful thing I do.
Her fingers fumble with the shirt buttons that survived my sprint through the creek bed. I don’t rush or attempt to help her. Just watch as she pushes the ruined linen off my shoulders, her eyes drinking me in like I’m the only man she’s ever wanted to see.
“You should never be allowed to wear clothes,” she manages while spreading her hands over my chest. “Your turn.”
I’ve never hated zippers more. My fingers fumble when it gets stuck. I want to tear her dress to shreds, leave it as a memento on the floor. But in a show of great self control, I win my fight with the zip. The dress falls and she stands there, chin up, eyes on mine.
Her walls, so evident last night, are gone.
“Tasha.” I pause, braced above her. “You okay?”
“Why don’t you kiss me and find out.” She pulls me down for another kiss.
The laughter fades as I kiss down her throat, her collarbone, the valley between her breasts. When I reach her stomach, I pause. My lips press against the flat plane where life once grew.
She tenses. Waiting.
I press my lips there again. Deliberately.
“I love all of you,” I say against her skin. “The parts that laugh and the parts that hurt.” I look up, meet her eyes. “You’re beautiful. Every part of you. Every scar. Every story.”
Her breath hitches. A tear wells in the corner of her eye. I wait until it falls and I kiss that too.
Then I work my way back up, kissing each freckle and curve.
I have a need to cover her in kisses until there isn’t an inch untouched.
Her strapless bra? Removed so I can kiss her beautiful nipples, and fondle her breasts until she arches into me.
Her panties? No longer required. But I tease her with slow fingers threaded beneath the fabric until she huffs and pushes them down.
“Patience,” I chuckle, sliding a finger through her folds. So wet for me. So tight.
“Lose your trousers or I’m …” she runs out of threats, fiercely attacking my belt and trousers. “You are so impossible.”
“Impossibly yours.” I guide her up higher onto the middle of the mattress, rewarding her with belly kisses.
“Seb,” she gasps, fingers tangling in my hair. “I need... please...”
“I know.” I reach for the nightstand. “I know exactly what you need.”
“Smug.”
“Accurate.”
She laughs as I lean up to mouth at her nipple, and it’s so us.
I move back down to settle between her thighs and she wraps her legs around my hips, locking me in place. “Bossy much?”
“You’re not the only one who knows what I need.”
“One … two … three.” She laughs as I count down, but when I push inside, the joke dies and we both go very still.
“Oh,” she breathes.
“Yeah.” I press my forehead to hers, lips a breath apart. “That.”
We move slowly at first. Not careful, but deliberate. Learning what’s the same and what’s different. And it is different. Last night we still had secrets and walls. This time she’s open, giving back as much as she takes, her hips rising to meet mine, her nails finding my back with intent.
“I’ve wanted this,” she says against my jaw. “I’ve wanted you.”
“I know.” I shift the angle and she gasps, fingers tightening. “Two years, sweetheart. We’re not rushing.”
“Seb…ast…ian.” The way she says it, broken at the middle, is like a rock concert compressed into one stanza. Everything we’ve gone through to get to this moment, crammed into my name. “Love you.”
I pull up to tease my tip around her entrance, and press down harder, needing to wreck her the way she’s wrecking me.
“Say it again.”
“Seb…ast…”
“No.” I pull back, resting on the edge. “The other thing.”
She knows what I mean. I need to know the times she’s thrown out the word like bait, that she knows what she wants to catch. Her eyes find mine in the dark.
“I love you.”
I move, and she cries out with each thrust. I keep moving harder and deeper, challenging her hips to keep up with mine. I’ve waited years for this chance. I’d given up on ever hearing those words. Now, they fuel me and I intend to give her every reason to keep saying them.
“Again,” I growl.
“I love you, Sebastian. I love you, I…”
She shatters. Her body arches, my name torn from her throat, and I follow her over. There’s no point in holding on when we can both climax together.
We collapse in a tangle of heavy breathing and sheets that smell like her perfume and my cologne and us.
After a long moment, she shifts beneath me. I know I need to pull out, but not yet.
“Stay,” I say, rolling onto my side, but keeping her against my chest.
“I wasn’t going anywhere.”
“Saying it anyway.”
She stills. Then settles.
“Seb?”
“Hmm.”
“Thank you for chasing twenty-six beaches.”
I should thank her for the sunburn, but I think I’ll get her to lather me with lotion for the next week. “That’s what you’re thinking about right now?”
“I’m also thinking I owe you a new pair of shoes.”
“You can buy me a thousand pairs.” I pull her tighter. “Stay.”
“Already said yes.”
“Say it again.”
She tilts her head up. I can just see her smile in the dark.
“I love you. I’m staying. And I’ll take you shoe shopping in New Zealand.”
“Perfect.” I kiss her forehead. “Sleep. I’ve got you.”
“I know,” she murmurs, already half-gone. “That’s why I can.”
I hold her as she drifts off, her leg thrown over mine, her arm across my chest.
Tomorrow, we’ll face the wedding. The questions and knowing looks from our friends.
Tomorrow, we’ll figure out what comes next.
But tonight? Tonight she’s mine, and I’m hers, and that’s enough.