Twenty-eight
Carter
Natasha walked down the stairs in an elegant navy-blue dress. Her heels clicked along the marble staircase and I couldn't take my eyes off her. My mother had the kids outside running around in the backyard while the twins enjoyed the fresh air.
And I was gawking at the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
Her hair was piled high on her head and her dangling earrings accented the length of her neck. My hands were trembling as I stood there, aching to run along every curve her dress clung to. Her hips swayed and her bosom jostled. She grinned at me with those ruby red lips of hers. I held my hand out and helped her down the rest of the way, then pulled her deep into my body.
“Why, Miss Natasha, I didn’t know you’d try to tease me all night.”
“Stop it,” she said with a giggle. “You’re being insane.”
“The only insane thing here tonight is not recognizing the beauty of the woman in front of me. And by that definition, I am definitely not insane.”
The smile she flashed me warmed my heart as I took her hand within mine.
“Shall we?” I asked.
“We shall,” she said.
The two of us snuck away while the kids were preoccupied. I helped her into my car, then we set off for the restaurant. The box in my pocket was burning a hole against my thigh, and I reached out to take Natasha’s hand, so I’d stop thinking about it. I focused in on the blank spot on her ring finger. The delicate piece of skin I hoped to rest the diamond on that I had bought her.
I was more nervous than I should’ve been.
We pulled up to the restaurant and I escorted her inside. Luscious foods were steaming at the tables as the hostess escorted us up the steps and into a back room. A private room with a balcony I had rented out specifically for us. It overlooked the city from the top of the restaurant and allowed us some peace and quiet.
Something the two of us desperately needed.
“Carter. Oh my God, this was too much.”
“Nothing’s ever too much for you,” I said.
“How long do we have this room?” she asked.
“For as long as we want it.”
She placed her purse on the table and headed straight for the view. I picked up my drink from the table and carried it with me, watching as she gawked out over the horizon. I slipped my arm around her and pulled her into my chest, her head naturally falling back against my body.
I cupped the small patch of loose skin at her stomach, reveling in the strength her body had proven itself to have.
“I’m working on firming it up,” Natasha said.
“I really wish you wouldn’t.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“Because it’s proof of your strength. Your resilience. Your determination and your dedication. To me, it’s one of the most beautiful parts of you. I wish you weren’t so hard on it. On yourself.”
“I just want to be my best for you.”
“You’ve never been better, Natasha.”
She turned around in my arms and wrapped them around my waist. Her head was tilted back, her eyes hooking onto mine. I wrapped my arm around her and set my glass on the edge of the balcony, then cupped her cheek against my palm.
I smoothed my thumb across her cheek as we began to sway to the music of a band playing off in the distance.
“Do you regret anything?” Natasha asked.
“How in the world could you ask me something like that?”
“I don’t know. I wonder sometimes if you do.”
“I could never regret anything with you,” I said. “Not one second of our journey together.”
“Even that dinner? When you got upset and sent me home by myself?”
“As much as that night royally sucked, no. I wouldn’t change that dinner.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because it brought us here. To this moment. And I wouldn't want to risk changing anything about this moment if it meant correcting some temporary wrong from the past. We all have a journey to walk, Natasha. And I’m honored my journey is alongside yours.”
“Wow. You really must love this dress,” she said.
“No. I just really love you.”
I slid my hand into my pocket and withdrew the box. I held it up in front of Natasha, her lips parting in shock. I slowly got down onto one knee as the band played off in the distance and the stars twinkled above our heads.
Then I opened the box and revealed the beautiful ring I had purchased a few weeks before.
“Carter. What are you doing?”
“Natasha Lewis, you have single-handedly opened my eyes to things I didn’t know to be things. I started out as an alternative schedule for the children, but it quickly evolved into a life I didn’t think I would lead for myself. Along with you came a passion that was ignited that I hadn’t felt in years. A hope that I had somehow distilled into resentment. You brought a light into my life, and my home, and my children that I never thought would be possible again. And with our massive and chaotic family, there’s only one thing that’s out of place.”
“What?” she asked breathlessly.
“Everyone has my last name but you.”
She giggled and shook her head as I plucked the ring from the box.
“You are the glue that holds this family together. You are the spoke from which we all divert from. Without you, there is no epicenter. There is no strength. There is no wheel to turn. And with no wheel comes no forward progression, and with no forward progression comes no future. I didn’t have a future until you walked into my office that day, and I don’t want to spend another second of my life wondering if you will be in it. If you want my future, Natasha-- if you want this life we’ve built-- it would be an honor to have you be its epicenter. Will you marry me?”
I watched Natasha get on her knees in front of me before she slid her arms around my neck. She peppered my cheek in kisses, her tears dripping onto my skin. Our lips found one another and our tongues intertwined as we knelt in front of one another. Fully vulnerable, fully submissive, and still fully strong.
“Yes,” Natasha said breathlessly. “I will marry you, Carter.”
I slipped the ring onto her finger, then helped her to her feet. I threw my arms around her and picked her up, swinging her around on the porch. I put her down onto her feet and escorted her back inside where the first of five lovely courses was waiting for us.
Then I pulled out her chair, sat her down, and we began to eat.
“If it’s not too early to talk about, I think getting married after the twins turn one might be the best decision,” she said.
“Whatever you want. It’s your day.”
“No, that’s not true. It’s our day, and I want it to be a day that reflects both of us.”
“Why after the twins turn one, then?” I asked.
“Because they’ll be a little more settled in their eating and sleeping routine, and I figured I might not be as nervous leaving them behind.”
“For what?”
“For a decent honeymoon.”
I looked up and saw a devilish glint in Natasha’s eye. I felt my cock throbbing to life at the mere idea of having her to myself. A week or two, in a tropical paradise or curled up in an icy cabin. With nothing but our naked bodies to keep each other warm by the fire.
“Only if you let me plan the honeymoon,” I said.
“If I let you plan it, we’ll be naked for the whole thing.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“I’d like to get out and do things with you, too,” she said.
“We’ll do things, Natasha. Then we’ll… do other things.”
“Oh you’re bad.”
“It’s one of the reasons why you love me.”
“One of the many, many reasons,” she said.
I watched her cheeks blush as my mind began to turn.
“Do you want a big wedding or a small one?” I asked.
“Small, definitely. Especially with the children being involved. Having too many people around might distract them or something.”
“At the very least, it would make them hard to wrangle.”
“Your poor mother’s going to hate us by the end of it all,” she said.
“You’d be surprised. She lives for that kind of chaos. She wanted a big family but was never capable of having one,” I said. “She’s sort of living her own fantasy through our life together.”
“Then she should be in heaven, because five rambunctious kids is a hell of a lot of chaos.”
“If you want, I could hire a wedding planner. We could give them a roundabout idea of what we want and then we’d sort of let them go and do their thing.”
“I’ve heard horror stories about wedding planners. How doing their own thing results in never abiding by the wife and groom’s wishes,” she said.
“I mean I’ll help you plan it, but I figured with the twins and your body still recuperating, you might want to pawn that off on someone else.”
“You make our wedding sound like a business transaction.”
“I promise it’ll have all of the romance and all of the beauty, but with less stress and hands-on requirements.”
“You want to hire a wedding planner so I don’t rope you into sending out invitations and choosing between eggshell-colored napkins and champagne-colored napkins.”
“I don’t even know what the difference between those two colors is,” I said.
Natasha threw her head back and laughed, filling the room with its warm sound. She was beautiful. Full of life and energy. I looked at the ring glittering on her finger and felt my heart clench in my chest.
My fiancé.
Natasha was going to be my future bride.
“How about this?” she asked. “We’ll hire a wedding planner, but we need to give them strict guidelines. No deviation allowed. I don’t want to tell someone to plan a fifty-guest wedding and end up on a hilltop with two thousand people looking at us.”
“Do we know two thousand people?” I asked.
“I’m telling you, some of those planners would find two thousand people.”
“As long as I’m marrying you, we could do it in a Vegas chapel for all I care.”
“Hey, now there’s a novel idea. Throw a few back, stumble down the aisle. I could puke on your shoes after.”
“Sounds like the past few weeks for us,” I said with a grin.
“Speaking of, I need to get the twins in to see a doctor about that. I want to make sure they don’t have reflux.”
“Already set the appointment. It’s next Thursday at four thirty. In between the twin’s naps and it gives me a chance to get off work early so I can be there.”
“Perfect. Thank you for making that appointment, by the way. I keep forgetting to do it. One minute I’m like ‘oh! Gotta make it!’ and the next moment I’ve got a kid peeing down my leg.”
“Sounds like my college days,” I said.
“What kind of college days did you have?” she asked.
“Drunk ones. So many drunk ones.”
The two of us laughed and flirted and caressed one another underneath the table. We enjoyed the wonderful foods prepared specifically for us. We sat and talked for three solid hours before exhaustion began to set in. Natasha yawned, which caused me to yawn, and soon I was paying the check so we could get out of there.
We got home and found my mother sleeping in Clara’s bed with her. The twins were fast asleep and the boys were having a sleepover in Nathaniel’s room. We crept by everyone and shut the door behind us, then fell into bed in our clothes from dinner.
Natasha curled into my side and I wrapped my arms around her, watching as her eyes fluttered closed.
“I love you,” she said with a murmur.
“I love you too,” I said. “Now get some rest.”
“You too,” she said. “You need… rest…”
I watched her as she slipped off into a slumber, then took the first shift with the twins. She needed her rest and I wanted the time to bond with them. But more than that, I wanted the time to talk with my mother.
She wanted to know everything about the engagement, including whether or not Natasha said ‘yes’.