CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The food had been amazing. The dancing had been incredible. And obviously Henry felt loved. He also appreciated the wonderful and caring members of his clan who had worked tirelessly to pull everything off so quickly. But grateful or not, all Henry wanted to do was take his new bride home so that he could skip to the part where they both got naked.
They were leaving in the morning to visit Disneyworld, because Grace had never been but had always longed to. She’d tried to dismiss her desires as silly, but he’d refused to disregard her dream vacation even after she’d pointed out that she wouldn’t be able to ride a lot of the rides because she was so far along in the pregnancy.
Friends and family had piped up loudly and explained that there were endless amounts of baby safe shows, incredible foods, and several gentle rides for youngsters that she’d be able to do no problem and that had settled it. They were leaving for Florida first thing in the morning. Of course, that didn’t mean they couldn’t spend the night getting a head start on their honeymoon. His feelings must have been written clearly on his face, because his friend reached out and patted him hard on the back.
“Why don’t you grab your wife and disappear before she falls asleep on the dance floor?” Parker asked, trying to put him out of his misery.
Relief blossomed instantly in Henry and he gratefully hugged his Itan and traversed the large heated tent to where his wife was dancing with her hundredth or so partner. The money bag on her wrist for the traditional dollar dance was so full that it no longer closed properly. Grace looked sublimely happy, but when he studied her closer he could see that she was so tired she was barely keeping up with her partners anymore.
“I can’t thank you all enough for today,” Henry said warmly, his strong voice booming to project to everyone. “No one but our clan would have been crazy enough to attempt throwing a wedding in a single day, but you guys did it. We will remember this day for the rest of our lives. But for now I’m going to take my wife home and put her to bed before she falls over from exhaustion.”
His announcement was met with loud guffaws from the males, followed by pained grunts when the offended females elbowed, pinched, and poked anyone in reaching distance. Everyone knew they weren’t going to be doing much sleeping, but there was no need to be obnoxious about it.
Someone had decorated their car with streamers, and instead of balloons there were inflated condoms tied all over the place. They both glanced at each other and busted out laughing at the absurdity of the gesture. At slightly over six months pregnant it was definitely too late for birth control.
Henry slid her into the passenger seat and buckled her in. They were both thinking of the first time they’d been in a car together. This time she wasn’t at all interested in escaping him and she couldn’t wait to get him naked again like he’d been that first night. His hands lingered a little longer than necessary, and Grace could feel her heart beat picking up as her body began to anticipate what the rest of the evening had in store for her.
Michelle ran up just as they were about to leave and motioned for them to roll down the window. Henry groaned but he did as she wanted, if a bit begrudgingly.
“We packed both of your guys’ bags for the trip, including everything from swimsuits, to toothbrushes, to Grace’s prenatal vitamins. They’re already loaded in the trunk so all you have to do when you wake up is crawl into the car and go.”
“You’re the best,” Grace said, hugging her friend tightly.
“I love you,” Michelle replied, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. “You take good care of her. I need her back here soon to be the matron of honor in my own wedding.”
Henry moved and started driving before both women began openly weeping. As angry as he’d been with her at that ill-fated barbeque, he was glad that his wife had made up with her foster sister. She was the only good family she had left from her past, and the fact that she was also his best friend’s mate just made everything better.
Henry held Grace’s hand as they drove, and although he was usually quite talkative, he found that he was nervous and therefore they spent most of the ride in silence. He’d never made love to a pregnant woman before and he was afraid of hurting her or the baby given her fragile condition. Maybe he shouldn’t have been in such a rush to clear out of the wedding reception.
Even more distressing were his concerns about mating her fully. Somehow the thought of allowing his bear to bite her and officially claim her as his mate seemed especially brutal given how the bulging shape of their growing child was impossible to hide on her slight frame. What had he been thinking?
Instead of driving around back to park in the garage, he followed the curve in the driveway up to the front of the house. He turned off the car, pocketed the keys, and raced over to her side in order to assist her out of the vehicle. She’d already unbuckled and was preparing to walk in on her own two feet when he pulled her into his arms for the second time that evening. He couldn’t have been more romantic if he’d tried.
“Welcome home,” he murmured before leaning in to kiss her deeply.
He kicked the door to the car shut and it took her dazed wits a moment to realize that he’d stopped kissing her and was now walking away from the vehicle. She opened her eyes just as he stepped over the threshold into the house. He headed towards his bedroom like a missile locked on a target, barely managing to shut the door behind him in his haste. He was too distracted to notice, but in the morning he’d discover that some well-meaning clan members had stopped by to clean his house and get rid of all the offensive odors.
He stood her up in front of the large bed, and proceeded to excitedly unwrap her as though she was Christmas and his birthday all rolled into one. There were endless amounts of tiny pearl buttons running up the back of her dress, and he was tempted to shift just enough of his hand to form a claw so that he could cut her out of it and speed things along.
But even his wild animal of a bear knew better than to mess with the sanctity and tradition of a woman’s wedding dress. Every time he released another button he bent down to press a kiss to the freshly exposed skin. By the time he had worked the dress off of her body he was so horny that his erection actually caused him physical pain. Six months was far too long for a bear to go without sex, especially a bear who’d already found his mate.
She was wearing matching white lace underwear, and when he turned her around to face him he literally groaned at the sight of her dusky nipples peeking out from the scant material. His bear growled appreciatively at the sight of all her delicious new curves, especially the roundness of her abdomen. It was the most beautiful display, proudly showing off the growing babe he’d unknowingly put inside her all those months ago.
“I’ve missed so much,” he said sadly, pressing a kiss to her adorably swollen outie belly button.
“Well you’re going to miss out on the part where we have husband and wife sex if you don’t hurry up,” Grace muttered. “Nanna makes fun of me because I fall asleep even before she does, and I was really looking forward to being awake for the fun part.”
Surprise coated his features and he glanced up quickly. When he saw the smirk in her eyes he let loose a loud laugh that filled the whole house with warmth and joy. She stared back at him, eyes filled with equal measures of passion and desire, and the effect was so hot he was surprised he didn’t have second degree burns.
“On a not-so-sexy note, I’m going to go empty my pea sized pregnancy bladder, and when I get back I expect you to be naked.” During her time with Nanna, Grace had undergone huge transformations, and the older woman’s assertive manner had rubbed off on her.
“Yes, ma’am,” Henry said, tugging desperately at the tie knotted about his neck.
Wedding dresses may have been sacred, but his tux wasn’t. He literally tore the fabric from his body and flung it into the corner of the room. No longer confined by the tight formal clothing, his erection sprang free. The hardened shaft seemed to defy gravity, pointing eagerly to the woman he loved, throbbing intensely as he strove once again to regain his composure.
He needed to start slow. He was determined to ensure that she came first, because he didn’t think he would last long after their extended hiatus. She exited the bathroom and he groaned loudly as she unclasped her bra and the white scraps of lace dropped to the floor. If he’d been an artist he would have taken a photo, or perhaps chiseled her perfection into a sculpture, but he wasn’t, so he just committed the image to memory.
When she stood before him once again there was no more holding back. He leaned forward and ran his tongue across the plump flesh of her nipple. Maybe he was imagining things, but her areolas seemed not only darker but larger. She moaned, and only his firm grip on her ass kept her from falling back limply onto the bed.
All of the nerves in her breasts had grown more sensitive during the pregnancy, and she didn’t know if it was really possible to come from nipple stimulation alone, but she was more than ready to find out. Then again, she longed to feel him everywhere. More specifically she wanted to feel his hot thick rod inside of her, filling her and stretching her to the limits.
A quick lift and tug later, and suddenly he was laying back on the bed with a wicked glint in his eyes as he slid her legs around his own. She reached between them, gripping the hard velvet of his shaft as she guided him inside her. She was wet and ready and they were still a perfect fit. She began to rock slowly back and forth, reveling in the pull and stretch of their interlocked bodies.
“I love you,” Henry murmured, running his hands over all the delightful new contours of her ripe body.
He looked up in surprise when Grace abruptly dismounted and began pushing him over so that she could climb up on the center of the bed on all fours. She was rocking seductively from side to side, and the sight was driving him absolutely wild. His bear rumbled from deep inside, demanding to be released, but he simply clenched his fists and pushed the animal back down.
Henry looked up only to realize that Grace was glaring at him and he struggled to piece together what he could possibly have done to offend her. Should he not have told her that he loved her during sex?
“I’m not made of glass. Stop acting like you’re going to break me!”
“I didn’t, I mean I’m not . . .” he stuttered.
“Nanna took me aside for a little talk about the shifter birds and the bees,” Grace said. “She explained the steps of the mating ceremony to me.”
Henry looked crestfallen as he said softly, “I understand. I’ll just go sleep in the other room.” The last thing he would ever do was hurt his mate. What had he been thinking trying to make love to her in her condition? None of this could work, at least not until after the baby had been born and she was stronger.
“What?” Grace grabbed his arm to keep him from leaving and got right in his face so he wouldn’t miss a word. “I want to be your mate in every conceivable way. I want you to bite me.”
His human side was ashamed about how little convincing he took, but when she ordered him to come up behind her “doggy style” he was powerless to resist. In this position he was able to cup both of her breasts easily, anchoring himself closer to her betwixt thrusts.
She began to pant loudly as she neared her own release, and when the orgasm tore through her heated flesh she screamed loudly and bucked backwards, exposing her neck fully to him. Roaring loudly he focused on the shift taking place in his body, fighting to keep the transformation confined to his mouth. His face quivered and shook as his blunt human teeth lengthened and sharpened into wicked points.
“Are you sure?” he asked one last time, the words garbled around the excess teeth crowding his mouth.
“YES!” she screamed, still enjoying the delicious tremors coursing through her cells.
Whipping her hair to the side Henry bit down hard, rending the delicate flesh on the back of her shoulder. The copper taste of her blood filled his mouth and even though he was a bear he felt a strange urge to howl victoriously.
His climax followed shortly on the heels of her own, and he’d never felt more complete than he did in that moment. Hot white spurts shot from his body, filling hers to the brim. He’d marked her with his bite. He’d covered her with his scent. She was his. Not only had she allowed him to put a ring on her finger today, she’d graced him with the privilege of claiming her fully. Every shifter who saw his mark on her skin would know exactly what it meant.
His tongue lapped reverently at the ripped bits of skin, soothing her hurt and holding her close as he lovingly tended to her. They cuddled up under the warm blankets, and for a while they spoke of what had transpired during their time apart, and eventually of their hopes for the future. It was bliss, a kind of paradise that they could only share with each other.
When Grace stopped answering his questions he knew she was asleep even before she began to snore gently. He pressed a kiss to her cheek and smiled contentedly; she hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d said how apt she was to fall asleep in her current condition. It was just one more thing he loved and cherished about his mate, his wife, and the love of his life. He couldn’t wait to spend the next seventy years by her side.