Chapter Twenty One
Bella
I get to do it again – take Jacket’s arm and walk down the aisle with him. All my family is there gazing up at us. At the back there are some women I don’t know and have never seen. It stirs my stomach to think they might be here for Jacket.
We arrive in front of the minister who smiles at us and for a moment I have a fantasy that she’s there for us. To join together me and Jacket.
Then I pull myself together and turn back to watch Stick come down between the upturned faces, looking proud, and shy and really happy. He shakes hands with Jacket and stands at his side, looking relieved he’s not up there alone in front of all these people.
Then, I look up to watch my sister walking smoothly toward us with Daddy and holy crap....
My eyes fly over to Stick to see his reaction. He looks like he’s choking back a ton of emotion. Then I dart to Jacket who’s also choked up but looking really pleased.
“Did you do this?’ I mouth at him.
He nods like it’s no big deal. Now I get what all the texting and facebooking on his phone was about. Because walking in two columns, escorting my sister and father are a unit of strapping military men. They grin at the women, some with kids, at the back. Then I realize those must be their wives. Army wives.
Stick is swallowing down his feelings as he looks at his bride arriving with all his army buddies flanking her on both sides. One of the men leads Pebble on a leash. He’s wearing a big white bow tied around his neck and behaving perfectly. He’s such a smart dog.
It’s amazing that the men all showed up and at such short notice. It meant so much to Scherri and she looks so happy after wanting them to be here. My Dad looks so proud and suddenly the tears press at my eyeliner. One fat drop escapes and I shake it off my cheek. I can’t resist a glance up at Jacket who’s still gazing at me with a smile.
Oh that smile, so tender, so filled with – no don’t think that.
It’s all too much and I’m just fantasizing because I’m caught up in the love my sister and her soon-to-be husband are spreading. I cant be in love, I hardly know this guy. But damn, if I were going to fall in love any time soon, it would definitely be with Jacket.
As soon as the ceremony is done, Stick scoops Scherri up for a kiss and leads her out among the guests. Jacket reaches for me. He pulls me into his chest, his hard arm banding my back so I arch into him. Then he clamps his mouth down on mine with as much hunger as Stick just claimed my sister.
“I need you,” he burrs before somehow we’re swept apart by jubilant members of the party all wanting to hug and congratulate.
“Is this your girl for reals, you lucky dog?” One of the military guys shouts to Jacket before bending down to give me a hug.
He told them about us? When there isn't an us to speak of.
“This the famous Bella he told us about?” Another guy squeezes me in a bear hug.
“Jacket so needs a good girl to take him in hand.”
“Another wedding another meet up,” the first guys says.
I look around for Jacket but he’s lost in the swarm. I roped him into my little tall story and he’s gotten deep into the role. So deep he’s even telling his friends that we’re engaged. He didn't have to do that – this was my thing with my family.
But still I can’t help but feel a warm glow around my lungs that he’s proud enough of me that he wants his friends to think we’re getting married.
“Wasn’t that just lovely?” Aunt Giselle hangs onto my arm to get my attention.
I look down and she’s wiping a tear from her eye.
“And it will be you next,” she adds.
“Not if I have any say in the matter.”
I whip around and daddy’s standing there looking very handsome in his suit, refusing to go anything other that formal for his little girl’s big day. But his face is more thunderous than I’ve ever seen. I’m starting to think Jacket’s right in his assessment of my father’s disdain for him.
“Daddy, if you’re mad that he didn’t come to ask permission for my hand...”
“That was bad enough, but I’m getting used to it with these SEAL types that think they’re above all that,” he cuts in, making Giselle startle and grip my arm harder.
“If what your mother just told me is true, embarrassing me right in front of the few family friends I still have in this ex-family of mine, then he isn’t getting another one of my daughters.”
I give my father a ‘seriously?’ face. Surely he of all people knows that mom, his ex wife, is prone to flights of fantasy. Where she can cook up some drama placing herself front and center, and start to believe it’s actually true. What’s she been saying now?
Two of those family friends, a couple from the neighborhood we’ve known since we were kids, draw Daddy and Giselle into a conversation. I slip away to go to the bar, set up under the trees. A hand grabs me from behind and pulls me into the dense stand. He drags me with him like we’re escaping and I have to trot to keep up. I’m laughing so much I forget to ask if he has any idea what the hell is going on between him and my parents.
When we’re in the midst of the thicket Jacket stops and drags me into his chest. His hands stroke the length of my hair hanging loose down my back and just that sends goosebumps along my spine. Then he looks down at me with such a turmoil of emotion it almost seems like he’s in pain.
One huge hand palms my mid back and the other slides down to the top of my ass sending twinkling sparks direct to my core.
“I need to be inside you right now,” he grits out in a voice cracking with emotion. “I can’t look at you in that dress, my beautiful, naughty angel without wanting to fuck you again and again.”
“Should you be telling everyone that we’re engaged?” I laugh.
“I thought that’s what you wanted,” he husks, barely able to speak coherently.
His face is a picture of hard lust, not grinning his usual cocky smile. I’m in no doubt what he has in mind and it makes me wetter than ever. He drags me tight against him, then suddenly I’m being propelled backward as he storms us through the tree trunks until I’m halted by one at my rear. He shoves both arms high above my head, pinning them there in his steel grip so I’m trapped, sandwiched under him and the trunk.
His hot breath falls on my chest and my pussy starts to throb violently, his desire instantly transferring into me. This is happening here right now, under the twinkling fairy lights with the voices from the wedding guests audible through the trees. Anyone might walk into the stand and see us but I don’t care. The heat of my need is too intense.
“My family is one thing,” I pant, stretching my neck to give him access. “But now all your army buddies as well.”
His mouth travels from the spot under my ear lobe all the way down the side of my neck, demanding, ravenous kisses. Claiming my flesh like he hasn’t seen me in an age, like he’ll never have me again and needs to fill us both up.
“Isn’t it making it more difficult,” I gasp out, panting for air as his hungry mouth moves along my shoulder blade.
He pulls both wrists under one huge hand so my tits lift a little higher with the stretch on my arms and that drives him even more crazed as he plants nips across the bare tops of my breasts. Or maybe it’s the final few words I manage to gasp out before desire overwhelms us both.
“When we have to go our own ways?”
We’re hands and mouths everywhere at once. The pressure building inside me is so intense I twist my head side to side seeking urgent relief. I close my eyes tight, with my next strained to the left. Then I open my mouth and graze the skin of my pinned arm.
The soft flesh of my upper arm right there at my lips is irresistible. I bite down on it as Jacket bites my neck and his hands drag the length of me. Down the other arm I’m not gnawing, over my breast, waist, hip before flipping up my lifted short skirt and tearing my underwear to one side.