Brick frowned down at the planks of the side porch, wondering if he was wearing the paint off them.
What if this wasn’t what Remi had wanted? He tugged at his collar. A small backyard ceremony had sounded like a good idea at the time. It was easy to throw together. Neither of them wanted to wait, and the reception was at the Grand Hotel so there was still some fuss.
But what if she’d changed her mind? What if between having sex with him last night and putting her dress on this morning, she realized she didn’t want to marry him. What if—
“Psst!”
It was coming from above him on the second floor. Brick stepped off the porch and looked up to see Remi hanging out of a second-story window. Her face lit up when she spotted him.
“I’m not supposed to see you,” he called back, glancing over his shoulder toward the backyard where their closest friends and family were halfway shit-faced on Darius’s Wedded Bliss specialty drink.
“Then close your eyes.”
“What are you doing?” he demanded as she shimmied out onto the porch roof.
“I’m sneaking out,” she whispered back. She wadded the dress up around her waist and nimbly climbed off the roof, dangling her legs over the side in search of the porch’s banister, before he plucked her down.
She’d left her hair down in wild curls. Her cheeks were flushed a pretty pink, green eyes sparkling. She looked like a mischievous fairy. Her dress was… Wow. She’d gone strapless with a fitted corset. There was lace and skin, which he liked very much. The full skirt billowed out in a pinky kind of wash, almost like watercolor.
“Wow,” he said out loud this time. There was no way he was lucky enough that this woman belonged to him.
She made a curtsy. “Thank you. You look pretty wow yourself.”
“If you run away, I’m just going to drag you back,” he warned her.
She slapped him in the chest. “I’m running away to you,” she clarified. “This is our last chance.”
“At what?”
“Unmarried sex.”
He relaxed. Only Remington Ford—soon to be Callan—would run away from her own wedding just to have sex with the groom before he became her husband. “You’re kidding me right now. I thought last night was our last chance at unmarried sex.”
“I figured we have fifteen minutes before the ceremony starts. This is our last last chance. Besides, I look sexy as hell in this dress and I don’t want one of your spectacular hard-ons stealing my bridal thunder in all our wedding photography. The flower girl is the right height to lose an eye.”
“Jesus, Remi,” he groaned. “What am I supposed to do? Pull up your skirts and fuck you right here between the azaleas?”
“Yes.”
He was instantaneously hard. It was the spell she had him under.
“See?” she said, pointing at his crotch. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. We’re saving a little girl from an eye patch for the rest of her life.”
Who was he to argue? If his bride wanted a quick fuck against the house minutes before she became his wife, he would deliver.
He reached for his belt and watched her eyes go glassy. “Turn around,” he said. When she complied, he used one hand to hold her against the cedar shake siding while he freed his cock with his other.
“Hold up your skirts,” he demanded.
She was already breathing heavy as she gathered the material at her waist.
“You dirty little girl,” he said, running his fingers over the sexy, silky red underwear that rode high on her cheeks.
“I thought you’d like it,” she whispered, a shiver running up her spine.
He dipped his knees to drop a kiss on her shoulder and then yanked the underwear down so he could line up the head of his primed cock with her entrance.
“Oh, God,” she breathed when he settled between her legs.
He couldn’t help himself. He landed a short, sharp slap on her ass and felt his dick thicken at her breathy little gasp. Her opening quivered around his tip. He did it again, then growled as she clenched around him.
Without warning, he dipped lower and surged up, fitting himself halfway into her tight channel.
He squeezed her shoulder when she gasped, a warning to stay quiet.
She tilted her ass toward him, welcoming his invasion. It was so fucking hot. Fucking the bride with a few dozen people close enough to catch them.
“Say your vows,” she begged.
“What?” He gritted his teeth as his dick pulsed inside her, already close to release.
“Say your vows while you make love to me. We have a secret engagement. I want a secret wedding.”
“Remington,” he rasped. “You are one of a kind, and I’m the luckiest man on the planet.”
“If that’s not in the vows it should be,” she said on a breathy whisper.
While the band warmed up. While their guests took their drinks to their seats. Brick gave his bride everything she asked for. Dark promises just between the two of them.
“Now you,” he whispered, yanking her hips back.
She gave a soft cry.
“Promise me, you’ll always need me like this. Promise me that your hand will be in my lap under the table. Promise me that you’ll love letting me make you come. Promise me that you’ll never let me make you unhappy.”
“I promise, Brick,” she whispered. He felt her body priming for release. He felt her fighting it.
“Don’t fight it, baby. Give it to me.”
“I want to give you everything, Brick,” she said on a broken cry.
She already had. She’d given him everything he’d been missing and more. She’d given him light in a gloomy existence. Purpose. A reason to embrace chaos and color. She was the puzzle piece that held everything else in his world together.
He told her so with his words. With fast, hard thrusts that her body accepted with gratitude. And when he felt her let go, he poured himself into her, whispering his vows to her as she trembled around him.
He loved and was loved. They were united, joined, partnered, paired. And that was without the words of the reverend or the piece of paper filed at the courthouse. By the end of the day, Remington Ford would belong to him in every way possible. And his heart would remain in her possession for all the days of his life.
“I love you, Brick. Always. Forever. Fiercely,” she promised as their bodies trembled against each other.
He’d never tire of hearing that.
“I love you, Remington.”
When she walked down the aisle to him, it was with his pink handprint on her ass.
Brick got a little teary-eyed when she made her promises to him in front of their family and friends and broke protocol by kissing her as soon as she’d said her vows. His father and Gilbert Ford blew their noses noisily from the front row.
“You look happy, husband,” Remi said that night as they danced under the stars to “Harvest Moon.”
Other couples shared the dance floor with them, Kyle and Kimber, Remi’s parents, Carlos and Camille, Audrey and Spencer. But he saw only Remi.
“I’m surprised they let you come back here,” Brick teased. “Last time you were at a wedding here, didn’t you get arrested?”
“You know, I’ve been thinking about that,” she said breezily. “I think for this to be a real full-circle moment, you’re probably going to have to use your handcuffs tonight.”
Her smile was so beguiling he picked her up in his arms and twirled her around. This woman. His wife.
“I’m afraid to blink,” he confessed.
“Why?” she laughed.
“I’m afraid I’ll blink, and the whole day will vanish like the dreams I used to have of you.”
“We have a lot of time to make up for,” she said, her voice breathy.
“Let’s start now,” he suggested, closing his mouth over hers.
Fifteen years earlier…
“You don’t look like a William,” the tiny redhead mused as she peered up at him. Sixteen and pretty as the little island they now officially called home.
“What’s he look like? Do I look like a Spencer?” His brother demanded, hopping from foot to foot on the boardwalk.
Those green eyes flicked back to his brother, and she grinned. “You’re definitely a Spencer.”
Will felt something warm and good when she returned her gaze to him. It was foreign to him. Most people looked at him and saw a carbon copy of his father. William Eugene Callan III most likely had the same destiny as William Eugene Callan II.
Cocking her head, she studied him leisurely as the popsicle stained her lips red. “Brick.”
“Brick?”
Her lips spread in a wide, sunny smile.
“As in masonry?” he asked.
“As in durable. Strong. Stoic.”
“Our dad’s in jail,” Spencer announced.
“Spence.” Will sighed. How in the hell was he supposed to make a fresh start if his brother was just going to tell everyone all about their past?
“I’m sorry to hear that. I hope it’s a nice jail.”
He blinked. This girl was something all right.
“Will—I mean, Brick says we shouldn’t talk about it because people will think we’re tainted or something,” Spencer said, shuffling his weight from foot to foot.
“Well, that’s just silly,” she announced. “How boring would it be if we all just went around pretending to be perfect? It’s things like your dad being in jail or me seeing music that make us interesting. Interesting is way more fun than perfect.”
Spencer looked confused, like he had an inkling he was in the presence of a sage philosopher and had no idea what she was talking about.
“How do you see music?” Will asked, more surprised than she was that he’d asked.
“It’s called synesthesia and it’s neurological. It means my brain makes extra connections to certain things. So to me, the letter S is yellow, and when I hear music, I see colors moving around like a light show at the same time.”
“So, your brain is like broken?” Spencer asked, frowning.
“Spence.” Will cuffed his brother on the back of the head in exasperation. Great. Five seconds with a pretty girl and his idiot brother had called her brain-damaged.
“It’s okay, Brick,” Remi said, waving the offense away. “It’s not so much broken as it’s like adding whipped cream to a hot fudge sundae. That sundae is pretty great by itself, but add the whipped cream, and now things are getting really good.”
His brother managed to wrangle an invitation to Remi’s house for his own popsicle. “You coming, Brick?” she asked, waving to his grandmother on the front porch.
“Maybe some other time,” he said. He watched them go, watched the way the sun hit that red hair and made it look like fire.
“I see you’ve met some of the locals,” his grandmother said, handing him the watering can so he could reach the hanging pots of ferns.
“Remington Honeysuckle Ford. She looks like trouble to me.”
“Oh, just get to know her. You’ll love her, Brick,” his grandmother predicted.
Maybe this place wouldn’t be so bad after all.
