Page 38 of How to Say I Do
“I do,” Savannah said.
“Oh boy, I do, I do,” Liam said.
We—all five of us gathered to witness—laughed. Noël, beside me, dropped his chin to his chest and stared at the sand, his eyes closing as he exhaled.
I pulled him to me and kissed his temple, and I left my lips lingering on his skin. He was supposed to have said those words himself a week ago, and if everything had gone differently, he’d be here on hisactualhoneymoon, frolicking in the waves with Jenna one-hundred yards away from where we were standing now. I would have never known his name.
Our hands found each other behind his back. He was still wearing his sea-turtles ring. The heat from it, from his skin, from the sun, from us holding hands all day, felt like a brand against me.
Liam and Savannah kissed sweetly after their “I dos.” We clapped and cheered when the kiss kept going, becoming less and less sweet, until Liam lifted his hat to shield him and Savannah from our eyes. Jason’s indignant voice piped up. “Daddy!”
Then it was rose petals flung overhead, waves breaking around bare ankles, and champagne corks popping, and we moved through rounds of toasts and celebrations on the beach.
Noël looked radiant. Humidity danced on his skin, giving him a honey-shine and a heat buzz. Lily blossoms and hibiscus played peekaboo with the smell of the sea. I drew him into my arms and never wanted to let go. The world was magnificent, ripe with happiness like luscious grapes hanging on the vine.
Dusk gave way to twilight. We were four glasses of champagne past sunset, and Noël had been nothing but smiles since that deep breath he’d taken during Liam and Savannah’s vows. We hadn’t let go of each other for hours.
“How are you?” I asked.
“I’m good.” His gaze drifted to Liam and Savannah. They were spinning around the thrown-off glow of a fire pit as the band played love songs just for them. “This is perfect.”
Maybe, maybe, maybe we could, one day…
Lord, the thought of it—imagining it, coloring in the outlines, even thinking it was a possibility—walked like a ghost through my veins, so powerful it felt like a memory, something I had time-traveled forward and seen with my own eyes. Noël, stunningly gorgeous, the both of us in matching cowboy hats. Me with my arms around him, my hands laced behind his back, gazing into his full-hearted eyes as someone read our vows.
The candlelight flickering in his ocean eyes, the sea foam hugging our ankles. All that champagne and starlight, and the music rolling on the waves. This was a love story, our love story. His sea-turtles ring caught on the callouses of my palms, a physical reminder of putting that band on him. Even if it was only a tourist trinket, and even that was just gold leaf painted on tin, the moment when he’d held out his hand hadhappened.Wehad happened.
I was in love. Heartbreakingly and profoundly in love. I loved him, I did, even in such a short time. I knew it wasn’t supposed to be possible. What did I honestly know about Noël? Well, I knew enough, I thought. I knew I wanted forever.
“Noël…”
I couldn’t hold myself up anymore. My arms were jelly. My biceps were shot. I fell to my back on the bed—wrecked, again, despite room service’s valiant efforts—and clawed at the sheets. My heels bicycled against the mattress, and I strove for air that wasn’t there. Noël had burned every oxygen atom out of the room.
He was kneeling between my legs, his lips wrapped around my cock, cheeks hollowed and his eyes blazing.
There was a word for what we were: insatiable. We were absolutely insatiable. Unstoppable. This wasn’t the first time Noël’s lips had been suctioned around me tonight, and a trail of my come glistened on the inside of Noël’s thigh.
We’d been frantic after the wedding, slamming into my walls before hitting my mattress. I ate him open as he screamed into the pillow. I fingered him while squeezing the base of my cock, desperate to hold off until I was inside him. As soon as I was, Noël plastered his back to my chest and threw his arms over his shoulders, sinking his fingers into my hair.
I tried to merge our souls, making love while he breathed my name. I came far too fast—I wanted to make love until dawn, or beyond even that—but after I did, I pushed him to the mattress and sucked his orgasm out, three of my fingers inside of him, and me already aching for another round.
Now, a few hours and a washcloth later, Noël had my cock down his throat. Christ, Noël could suck a golf ball through a garden hose. My back arched, and I grunted as Noël hit a deep note, suctioning and twisting and ending my damn life.
Then he was gone, his lips gliding off me so fast I jackknifed, bending double to reach for him as he clambered into my lap. He straddled me and took my hands in his. Our fingers laced, palm to palm. His mouth was red as a cherry, lips plump and soaked in spit. I had to kiss him.
“I need you again,” Noël whispered pleaded into my kiss. “Wyatt, please.”
He never needed to beg. I’d make love to him forever, any time he asked for it. I’d love him until the end of time.
We were both still ready from the two rounds before this one. He was already in my lap, and it was nothing at all to guide myself to his hole. My eyes crossed as I pushed in; I nearly shied away from the scorched-desert heat of him. Touching him was like brushing the surface of the sun.
Noël tipped his head back when I slid inside. We both groaned. I kissed him everywhere—his hair, his chin, at his pulse pounding at his wrist, at the soft place on the inside of his elbow.
We were beyond friction, so slick inside and out we swam against each other. He rode me with his hands thrown over my shoulders, his lip between his teeth, his eyes fluttering, my name falling on his frantic exhales.
I couldn’t get enough. “Noël, Noël,” I chanted.I love you.No, don’t say it yet.I wanted to tell him somewhere else. When we were sitting beneath the shade of an oak in my yard, at the picnic table I’d built with my bare hands, with a candle between us and a glass of wine caught between our fingers. Lord, I saw it all so beautifully. His smile beneath the open sky, the gleam in his eyes after a Texas sunset.
I worked a hand between us and closed it around his cock. “Come for me.”
