Chapter Fourteen

 

Gabriel

 

I walked around the restaurant again to make sure that everything was absolutely perfect. I had already checked it a dozen times before and knew that nothing had changed, but I couldn't stop myself. I was too excited. The anticipation for this night has been building up for so long and now that it was finally here I felt like I might burst. I was amazed that I had been able to keep this a secret from Cherry, to be honest. She was amazing at uncovering even the smallest of surprises that I tried to plan for her. I didn't even think that she did it intentionally, she just happened to discover any plans I made while trying to do something nice for her without her knowledge. While that made it easier to make sure what I was planning for her was something that she actually liked, it did take some of the thrill out of being able to surprise her. But this time, I wasn't going to compromise. I couldn't have her find out before tonight. I had gone to fairly extreme measures to make sure that all the details were just right and that the plans I made were done so in a way that she couldn't possibly discover them. At this point, and considering our track record, I figured that it was far more likely that she would think I was carrying on some sort of clandestine affair than actually figure out what was going on.

I knew that she originally had different plans for tonight. The hunger in her eyes every time that she looked at me told me that she was having the same thoughts I was as the first six weeks of Georgia's life passed by. I counted down the days. I spent nights thinking about touching her. But that's what made these plans so much better. She knew that both of us had been waiting these six long weeks to pass us by so that we could be with each other again. So she was surprised to find I had made plans for a night out. I could only hope that any feelings of disappointment she had wouldn’t last long.

I checked the time and saw that it was nearly six o’clock. I had chosen that time specifically. It was a cheesy little nod to our milestone, but I knew that she appreciated my oddball sense of humor and found it funny. It would be a good start to our night. Right at that moment the doorbell at our house should be ringing. Georgia was already with my father, so she wouldn't know that standing on the front porch was a woman delivering a gown I had designed and brought to life, just for her. A few minutes later, a makeup artist and hairstylist would arrive to help her get ready for the evening. I wanted her to feel special and beautiful tonight. I wanted her to feel like the most important woman in the world, because to me, that’s who she was.

Finally it was eight, which meant that Harlan would be now arriving at the house to pick her up. Part of me hoped that she hadn't been paying close attention to where we went the first night we had dinner together after being separated all those years. I didn't want her to figure it out, at least not too quickly, that she was heading to the restaurant at the hotel.

The car arrived at the restaurant exactly on time and the host walked down the back staircase to get Cherry so that he could escort her up to me. I stood in the middle of the restaurant holding a single chrysanthemum. Something I had learned over the last few months was that Cherry hated roses. If they were growing on bushes, she could admire them for their beauty and their smell, but as soon as they were cut, they brought back too many bad memories. They reminded her of her ill-fated engagement and family funerals. I never wanted her to think about those things, especially when she was there with me. Tonight was all about her being happy and I wanted to start things off by giving her the flower she had mentioned was her favorite.

Cherry smiled as she stepped into the room, her eyes falling on the flower

"I can't believe you remembered," she said.

"Of course, I did."

I leaned down and kissed her.

"I love that you brought me back here," she said. "This place is so amazing. I'll always think of it as where we had our first date. Even though I guess that dinner wasn't technically a date."

"Who said that wasn't a date?" I asked.

"Was it?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "I knew from the minute I saw you again that I had to have you. I never stopped thinking about you."

"You didn't?"

"No," I said. "Walking away from you that night was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do."

"Why did you do it?" she asked.

This was a conversation that we should have had so long ago, but we had avoided it like the plague. It was something that hung over us every time we were together, but we didn't want to acknowledge there was a problem there. It was a crushing, painful memory that neither one of us wanted to relive again. But I knew this was the right moment to talk about it. We had to talk about it. From tonight on, I didn't want to have any secrets, any lies, hanging over us. I didn’t want her to have any questions or doubt.

"I almost didn't, I admit it. When I walked into that room and I saw you, all grown-up and gorgeous. I wanted you so bad. I had for a while, but I wasn’t sure if you felt the same. It didn’t help that your brother was adamant that I wasn't to have anything to do with you. I never wanted him to feel like I betrayed him or his memory."

"I was a big girl," she said. "My brother didn't get to say what I did and didn't do, or who I was allowed to have feelings for."

"I know," I said. "And I didn't walk away for him. I walked away for you."

"What do you mean?"

"You weren’t ready for me then," I said. "Your mind was somewhere else. Brent had just passed a few weeks before, and you hadn't even figured yourself out yet. I knew that there was so much left in the world for you to experience and I wasn't in a place in my life where I could give you what you needed. You were so young and scared and broken. You weren't ready to make that decision and if I hadn't walked away from you, I would have felt like I took advantage of you. I would be taking something from you that was far too precious for me to take back then."

"Losing my virginity to you was something I had been thinking about for a really long time," she finally replied.

"I wasn't talking about your virginity," I said. "Though, of course, that was important too. I was talking about your choice. If I had stayed in that bedroom with you, I would be taking away your ability to choose the memories of your first time. Even though you thought you were there because you wanted to be, and that it was what you really wanted, you weren't in your right mind that night. You know that as well as I do. I wasn't either. But I was old enough to know that if we had sex that night, and you woke up the next day and I was gone, you would carry that with you forever."

"Yeah. Instead, I carried the weight of you rejecting me and leaving me alone. For years."

"But at least with that, you had the opportunity to wonder why it happened. You wondered why I didn't stay there with you. Why I didn't take you up on your offer. I'm sure by that point, you had heard plenty about me and my less than sterling reputation, and you probably wondered why you weren't good enough to be one of the girls I slept with. I was positive that you would think about that for the rest of your life. And I was okay with that. Because the alternative was that you would think I was a callous asshole for the rest of your life and that you were so worthless I could take your virginity and leave you behind, never to see you again. You see, it was never that you weren't good enough to be one of those girls. It's because you were too good to be one of them. I never saw myself as being the type of man who wanted to settle down or have a family, not even then, but when I looked into the future, I always saw you. I always hoped that we would somehow find our way to each other again."

"Why didn't you tell me that?" Cherry asked. "Why did you say that we could be married for an appropriate length of time and then go our separate ways? If you saw me in your future, why would you want to do that to me?"

"My father loved my mother more than I think anyone should have the right to love. Even when I got older and he got more serious and spent increasingly more time working, their marriage was strong and loving. Of course, they fought and squabbled. I do remember times when it seemed like they couldn't stand to be near each other, but I never once, not in my entire life, questioned that they loved each other. These were people who couldn’t even get through a complete fight with each other because all they wanted to do was comfort one another. They adored each other more than anything in the world, until the day that my mother died."

"That was the way my parents were, too."

"Then you know what it's like to watch them and wonder if you will ever be able to find something that even remotely resembles what they share and feeling terrified that you won’t. When you grow up with parents that in love, it's easy to feel scared that your own marriage will never be that wonderful. You hear so often what marriage is like from unhappy, miserable people and realize that their relationship is truly special. I told you before, you are the only person I’ve ever envisioned being with for my entire life. That was true the first time I said it and will be every time I say it. To be honest, I was scared that if I tried to have a real relationship with you, it would mean that I would eventually lose you. If we got married, I thought that somehow, I would mess it up, and it would end with us hating each other. But if we pretended that it was just for show, and separated amicably after a while, I could keep on loving you for the rest of my life."

"Well," Cherry said. "I think you were right on a few things."

My heart started beating a little faster.

"You do?"

"Yes," she said. "We did get married. And you did try to divorce me."

There was a hint of laughter in her voice and I reached down to take her hand. I guided her across the restaurant to the table we had sat at the first time we had dinner together. I had arranged for the lights throughout the restaurant to be lowered and strands of tiny lightbulbs to be hung around the table so that when we sat down, it was like we were in our own little cluster of stars. She gasped when the strands turned on and the lights dimmed.

"I've made a lot of mistakes, Cherry. I've said this to you before. I'm sure I'll say it to you again. And it will probably be warranted. But I want you to know that I will never try to hurt you and that I never meant to hurt you in the past. I've been scared of even trying to fall in love my whole life, but right here, right now, I know that I’m not scared anymore. I can't bear the thought of going even a single day of my life without you at my side, and I want everyone in the world to know how I feel about you. Being with you is more than worth the risk of maybe losing you some day, because I will devote every single day of the rest of my life to make sure I do whatever it takes to make sure I don't. I love you, Cherry. I love you because you know who I really am and who I was and love me anyways. I love you because you don't know who I'm going to be in the future and yet you're still willing to stick around and find out. I love you because of who you are and who you were and for whoever you're going to be. I love you because you never stop surprising me. I love you because you make me laugh in ways I've never laughed before. I love you because you are the best part of every day. I've been thinking about this for a long time and I hope that you feel the same way that I do. Because even though you are technically my wife," I said, reaching into the strategically placed centerpiece on the table and pulling out the hidden ring box inside. I opened it and eased myself down onto one knee in front of her. Holding the ring toward her, I took a deep breath. "I wanted to ask you... Will you marry me?"

"You want to renew our vows?" she asked.

"Yes,” I said. “I want to do it all again. But this time I want to do it for us. What do you think?"

She smiled widely and nodded

"Yes," she said. "Yes. I would love to marry you again."

 

Cherry had been sleeping in a different bedroom since moving back into the house, not because the two of us wanted to be apart, but because we so desperately wanted to be together. Before she moved out and returned to the house she shared with her mother, having her in the separate bedroom felt cold and distant. It felt like she had withdrawn from me and didn't want to be a part of my life. It was different now. Now it increased my desire for her and made the time that we did get to spend together even more important.

I had longed for her sweet touch for months. When we stepped back into the house after dinner that night, I knew that she would never again sleep in any other bed beside my own. To be sure, I slipped my arm behind her legs and swept her up so that I cradled her against my chest. I carried her up the stairs and into my bedroom as she left a line of gentle kisses on my neck.

This was where I first made love to her. This was where I possessed her, where I claimed what was rightfully mine. I wanted to have her here again. Back then it was a compulsion, a heat that threatened to consume us both if we didn’t put out the flames. Now it was fully focused and completely intentional. I brought her into my room and softly laid her down across the bed, not just because my body ached with the need to be buried deep inside her, but because I wasn't whole without her. My soul yearned for hers.

Cherry looked incredible in the dress I had custom-made for her. I worked with the designer for weeks, wanting to create something that would be uniquely Cherry. We had gone through hundreds of potential designs, and I wasn’t entirely sure of what I wanted or why each one that she showed me wasn't good enough. But as soon as I saw the design for this particular gown, I knew that it was the one. I could envision her in it even when the design was just a sketch on the page. When I saw the finished product, I was even more excited to see her wear it. The dress itself was beautiful, but it was just a piece of fabric without Cherry. It would take her sensual body, the softness of her skin, and the tumbling waves of her hair for the dress to meet its full potential.

It was even better than I could have imagined when she walked into the restaurant. She took my breath away. I was even more convinced that she was the woman I wanted to take my breath away for the rest of my life.

Now I moved slowly over her, taking my time to run my fingers along the silky fabric, feeling the curves of her body beneath it. When I reached her skirt, I carefully moved it out of the way and groaned at the sight of the lacy garter she wore to hold up her thigh-highs. I kissed my way down the inside of her leg, from her upper thigh down to her ankle. Holding her foot carefully in one hand, I ran the other hand up her leg, reaching up to release the clips on her stockings. I carefully rolled each thigh-high down her leg, kissing her soft skin as it was revealed. I repeated this for the other stocking, relishing in her taste.

Cherry sat up and climbed off the bed. She turned to me and slowly began to remove her gown, teasing me. I had waited so long for this night that I thought when I finally got her alone, nothing would be able to stop me from being consumed by my desire. Now that I was finally here, though, I wanted to make it last. I wanted to savor every second. I wanted to not only celebrate being able to make love to her again, but the future that we had in store for us.

Our eyes met, and I began to follow her lead. I stepped out of my shoes and then slipped out of my jacket, tossing it on a nearby chair. She reached behind her to lower the zipper on her gown as I unbuttoned my shirt and together we let the layers drop away. As she stepped out of the dress, I unbuckled my belt and took off my pants. So little separated our bodies now. Cherry came around the side of the bed to where I was standing. I reached out for her and she stepped into my arms so that I held her tight against my chest. I could feel the warmth of her skin and the fullness of her breasts pressing against my chest. My cock stiffened, and she pressed forward with her hips to nudge it.

I took one of my hands and tucked a finger under her chin to bring her face up to mine. We kissed deeply, slowly, our tongues intertwining as I gently guided her back on the bed again. When she touched the mattress, Cherry took her mouth from mine and sat down, sliding into the center of the bed without taking her eyes off me. I removed my boxers before lowering myself on top of her. I kissed her neck and then over her heart. She wasn’t wearing a bra under the dress and I could see that her breasts were already full of arousal, her nipples taut with anticipation. I brushed my mouth over them and Cherry cooed, writhing slightly. I felt her hands move to her thighs as she drew her knees up and pulled her panties off. Finally, there was nothing separating our skin. Our bodies were heating up as I ran my tongue down the center of her body, not wanting to wait another second to taste her sweet pussy.

Soon Cherry's hand was grasping at the comforter beside her. I could see her knuckles clench so hard that they turned white as she almost pulled the sheet off the mattress. As she arched up off the bed, her eyes closed, and her head fell back. I grabbed her hips and pressed her back down again, running my hand down to her belly so that I could hold her in place. She let out a cry of pleasure as I flicked my tongue in and out of her hot, wet folds. By the time I nestled my mouth into her sweet core, her body was more than ready for me, making her taste even more delicious as I worshipped her.

I pushed her thighs apart, spreading them against the bed so that her legs were wide open. The position caused her to be fully revealed to me, making her completely accessible to my touch. I tucked my hands around the backs of her thighs and pushed her ass up a little higher, lifting her hips slightly off the mattress. I flicked the tip of my tongue in fast, intense strokes directly on her clit. The moans echoing out of her reverberated through me like thunder, sending intense ripples of arousal and desire along my body. Cherry writhed against the bed, but I held her down firmly, ensuring that she would stay exactly where I wanted as long as I wanted her to.

I knew that, at this moment, there was nowhere else Cherry wanted to be. We had both waited so long for this. I knew that she needed me just as badly as I needed her. We were fully at each other's mercy now and even though this was not the first time I had touched or tasted her, it was different. I approached her with an even greater sense of reverence, with even more tenderness. She was the mother of my child. We came together on an entirely different level than before, going beyond the pleasure of our bodies and binding our hearts and souls together.

I sensed that Cherry was close to losing all control, but I wasn't ready for this to end, not yet. I managed to pull my mouth away and instead began kissing along the inside of her thigh to allow her to come down from the spiraling heights of pleasure. As soon as she did, I would turn my attention right back to her and would bring her to the peak again. It was a delicious, delirious torment and I wanted it to last.

I repositioned Cherry so that she was seated in front of me. I came around to her side, switching positions with her so that I was now lying back with my head on the pillows. She licked her lips as she kneeled between my spread legs, knowing exactly what I wanted from her. Cherry bit down on her bottom lip as she focused on my rock-hard erection that had been aching for her touch for weeks. She bent down and ran her tongue from its base to the underside to the tip. There was already a drop of salty fluid there and she licked it up, pausing to dip the tip of her tongue into the slit.

Gripping the base of my cock in one hand, Cherry used her tongue to trace along the head. She paused occasionally and used the end of her tongue to lick the very tip and the sensitive nerves beneath the head, concentrating on the intensity of the sensations in the same way I did for her. Deep, primal groans formed in my chest and poured out from my lips as Cherry began to stroke up and down on my hard shaft. Her soft, smooth palm and delicate, precise fingers ran along the length of my engorged cock as she continued to use her mouth to suck on the tip. The layers of pleasure were dizzying, and I knew that I wasn't going to be able to tolerate it for much longer.

I sat up and took Cherry by her upper arms, turning her and laying her down on her stomach so that she faced the foot of the bed. I climbed over her and balanced on my hands and the balls of my feet so that I didn't allow too much of my body weight to press down on her. I moved myself back and forth over her so that my erection glided on top of her thighs, rolling my hips in tight movements to stroke against her without actually entering her. Cherry whimpered and lifted her hips, opening herself completely to me. The attention from my tongue had her soaking wet and I could see how much she wanted me. I couldn't wait any longer to feel that slick, satiny flesh on my cock. I pushed into Cherry with one hard thrust. The sudden feeling of my hard rod stretching her open her elicited a primal scream of pleasure from her chest and I pressed a little deeper. I growled and stretched forward over her so that Cherry could fully envelop me. I wanted her to surround me, be completely filled by me. She lifted her hips in response and ground them against my cock, pushing herself further onto me. I reached under her and cupped her breasts. I knew by Cherry's sounds and the heat of her body that she was close to coming. She was practically shaking already. I thrust into Cherry relentlessly until her body crashed into a powerful orgasm that left her shuddering and gasping for breath.

Her climax didn't slow me down. Instead, feeling her squeezing me, tightening her pussy around my cock, only spurred me on further. I supported myself on one hand and lifted her breast with the other so her back arched slightly. I sat up on my knees for better leverage so that I could slam into her with greater speed and intensity. Even though she had just orgasmed, Cherry was right there with me, panting and crying out as she gave her body to me and took all the pleasure that I could offer her. I had all of her and yet I wanted more. I never wanted to be without this feeling. I thrust harder, wanting to be able to remember this feeling even when we were apart.

My climax came on suddenly and powerfully. I felt my entire body tense and let out a strangled moan as my cock swelled, then began to pulse wildly within her. I pressed all the way into her and remained buried there as the tremors continued to flow through me. I could feel the hot streams spilling out of me, filling her, bonding us together. Finally, I lowered myself gently from my knees onto her and carefully rolled us over on our sides. I remained inside her as I curled around her. I didn't want the connection between us to end until it had to. Cherry took my hand in hers and held it to her chest. I could feel her heart pounding and the sweat on her skin. I kissed the back of her shoulder and laid my head on the mattress, so my mouth was close to her ear.

"I love you."

 

When I woke up the next morning Cherry was sitting on her knees at the foot of the bed. She was wearing my shirt from the night before and her hair was still tousled and out of control. The flush on her cheeks and brightness in her eyes made her even more beautiful and I loved that I was the only person who ever got to see her this way. She was completely mine.

Her hand was wrapped around a mug and I could smell the scent of coffee wafting through the air. I sat up and held out my hand to her. She smiled and crawled forward on her knees until she was sitting beside me.

"Want a sip?" she asked, holding the mug out to me.

"I thought that you only liked your coffee filled with cream and sugar," I said.

"I wasn't allowed to drink coffee while I was pregnant, so now that I can, I want it as real as possible. I've learned to love it this way. But all bets are off this summer. As soon as it's warm enough, I might just bathe in creamy, delicious, sugary, iced coffee."

I laughed and took the mug from her. I took a long swallow and felt the bracing heat rush down my throat. The bitterness woke me up and I moved a little closer to Cherry to kiss her shoulder where the collar of my shirt had fallen away, exposing her delicate skin.

"So, no more peppermint tea?" I asked.

"I don't know about that," she said. "Peppermint tea and I got pretty close. I feel like I'll probably keep drinking quite a bit of it. But for now, I'm on a coffee-in-the-morning kick."

"Good to know," I murmured against her shoulder.

I raised myself up higher so that I could reach the curve of her neck, and I took hold of the shirt and started easing it out of the way.

"You know what I've been thinking about?" she asked.

"That Georgia won't be back for another hour and we should really take advantage of it? Maybe we could visit the shower again?"

"Actually, she's already here," Cherry said.

"She is?"

She nodded.

"Apparently she didn't get the memo about our hopes that she would sleep through the night for your father. He called around sunrise and sounded like he was on the brink of tears even though he said he had a wonderful time watching her. When I asked him what they had done together he said that he walked and bounced, and she stayed awake. I know that it came from a place of love and he really did enjoy some of it, but I know he needed his sleep. It's been a long time since he's taken care of a baby. It's going to take some getting used to again. I told him to go ahead and bring her home. You were so peaceful that I didn't want to wake you."

"Where is she now?"

"Asleep," I said.

"Of course, she is." He laughed. "How long did it take her to fall asleep when she got home?"

"I could hear her gurgling when he carried her into the house and by the time that I had her in my arms, she was out like a little light. I haven't heard a peep from her since."

"Wait, you went downstairs and opened the door to my father wearing nothing but my shirt? And with your hair like that?"

"Of course not," she said. "I wore a bathrobe. I can't make any promises about my hair. But to tell you the truth, this was a man who was supposed to take care of a six-week old baby for a few hours, agreed to stretch it to the rest of the night when we asked him, and then had the baby keep him up until sunrise. I don't think that he noticed. I don't think he would have noticed if I had walked down there completely naked."

"He didn't drive, did he?"

"No. I'm fairly certain I saw him lay down in the back of the car before his driver could shut the door."

I laughed and sat up completely.

"I'll have to call him later and thank him again. He's going to be really happy when he hears about the wedding."

My relationship with my father had changed so much since I came clean with him about my arrangement with Cherry. Though we had gotten closer when we prepared for the first wedding and the baby to be born, the reality that I wasn’t honest with him from the start hung over me. When I finally confronted him and told him how I really felt, it felt like I had taken a sledgehammer through the walls that had formed between us as I got older. When the weight of losing my mother and running the company dragged him down. I felt like we were closer now than we had ever been. There were times when I even felt like he was the same man that he used to be. I knew, deep down, that part of him would never be the same. That was the part of him that went with my mother when she left this Earth. But I hoped that as Georgia grew up, she would get a chance to experience the fun man I knew and loved when I was a child.

"That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about," Cherry said.

"Are you already getting cold feet?" I asked. "The top drawer in the dresser over there is full of socks. Go ahead and put on as many pairs as you need to."

She laughed and shook her head.

"No, I don't have cold feet. I am elated at the idea of marrying you again."

"Then what is it?"

"I'm just not sure about the whole wedding planning process. Or the wedding itself, to be honest. It was all so much leading up to the first wedding and I'm really not looking forward to all of the pomp and circumstance again."

"Then we don't need any," I told her.

"We don't?"

I took the mug from her hand and took another sip.

"No."

I slid out from under the covers and went to my dresser to pull out lounge pants and a t-shirt. It was Sunday and that meant a day of relaxation with my favorite girls.

"Just 'no'?"

"Just 'no'. If you don't want it, we won't do the whole elaborate ceremony again. We don't have to do any of it." I reached for her hand and pulled her up off the bed so that I could wrap my arms around her. As much as I had loved seeing her pregnant, I was happy to be able to hold her so close again. "We can do as simple a wedding as you want. We could even go off and elope somewhere. You can have anything you want as long as it means you will be my wife, both legally and in our hearts, and everyone will know. This time it’s real."

 

Cherry

 

I put down my coffee and wrapped my arms tightly around Gabriel's waist, clasping my fingers together at his back so that I could squeeze him while nestling my head into his chest.

"When do you want to have the wedding?" I asked.

"I haven't really thought about it," Gabriel said.

"If you are willing to wait a year, I have an idea."

"I have already waited a lifetime for you."

"Then I would like to have the ceremony in the spring so that we can spend part of our honeymoon feeling like everyone is celebrating our marriage...in New Orleans."

Gabriel's head dropped back, and he let out a laugh, then pulled me closer and kissed me.

"You're always surprising me, Cherry Reed."

I glanced at the baby monitor on the bedside table. Georgia had remained quiet. We could steal a little more time together. I guided Gabriel back to the bed and pushed him over so that he landed with me sprawled on top of him. His hands ran up the backs of my thighs and lifted his shirt I was wearing out of the way, revealing that I didn’t have anything on underneath. He growled and captured my mouth with his. I felt happier and more content than ever before. At that moment I knew he loved me in a way that no man ever had, and that I loved him like I had never loved anyone before. We were truly meant to be together. It seemed like everything I had gone through, and all the time I had waited was absolutely worth it. We were finally together now.