8300+words. Now enjoy.｡◕‿◕｡
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Hardin's POV:
"How’s it going?" Landon asks
me as I'm sitting on his right side in the chair on this small rectangular dinner table, while his bride is on his left.
The reception of a wedding is the most tolerable part. Everyone is a little less uptight and easily loosened up by a few glasses of free booze and an overpriced complimentary meal. Though my mouth is keep chewing the steak and my ass is seated on this cushioned chair but my stare is straight ahead on the woman in the silver dress and only on her as she is standing next to a table filled with wedding guests. But I know she's taking few glimpses of me although she is acting like she's talking with the guests.
Everytime I look down at my plate merely for a second to see what shit I'm eating, she looks up at me in that short amount of time so I couldn't catch her looking. And if she's thinking that I didn't find her eyes on me then she's hella wrong, I caught her quite a few times if she doesn't know that, or maybe she do and she's giving me some sorts of hint.
Is she giving me any hint?
Maybe.
Distracted by Landon's voice I pull my eyes away from her and look up at him on my left with fusses in my hair. "Bleh." I half smile. "How is it going for you? Do you feel any different now that you’re legally bound to one person for the rest of your life… well, barring a divorce." I tease him then shove a piece of juicy steak into my mouth.
Rolling his eyes he says, "Aren’t you a ball of sunshine?"
Cracking a smile at him I bring my eyes to the front to see the woman in silver dress, again. But I get panicked as I lost the sight of her where she was standing near the table that last time I saw her. Sitting up a little farther in my chair, my eyes scan the room and search for her silver of her sinful satin dress into the crowd.
"She’s there, by the door," Landon let me know sensing my panick and I relax as my eyes find her where he's saying she is at, near the second door of this small room. I watch her as Ken hands my little step-sister to her arms, and she giggles, a soft as cotton sounds spills out from her plump lips when Abby pulls her curled long blonde hair.
Adorable she is. Not my step-sister, well she is but I'm talking about the woman who's carrying her. She's just adorable as fuck.
"What are you two going to do?” Landon asks distracting me again and I just sighs to that. I look at him from the corner of my eyes as he tighten his grip on his bride’s hand.
Nowhere she will be going to go, you're stuck with her, forever.
I bring my fingers up to my mouth ditching the fork in my plate and gently tug my upper lip. “Get married.” I say and hear his mom's laugh at the distance as she takes Abby from Tessa's arms and freeing her blonde hair lock from the little demon's grip.
"Really? Does she know that?" He asks, raising his brow as I pull away from my woman who's now walking toward us, to look at him again.
"Yep. Why not? You two did it, and you haven’t even known each other as long as I’ve known Tess." I say looking down at the couple's hand together on the table. I have a point there, haven't I?
"Yes. But you two aren't even dating. I think you’re skipping a step, perhaps." He reminds and I grin at him—a plotting grin take over my whole face if only he could see.
I've an idea to how would I take her back, to bring the other half of my soul back into my life or let me in inside her life, either of those and that plan has into my pocket, written on a piece of cloth secure with me for now.
"The order of the steps isn’t important. Either way, we end up the same place." Grabbing my glass of water I lift my glass up in the air and looking at my gesture he raises his champagne glass too.
Sipping a little bit I gulp the cold water and wash off the food with it down my throat before I look back at the woman in silver. Staring over to the next table where she's standing and talking with Landon's sister-in-law and her husband, Todd with their little boy in his lap. That bitchy sister says something to Tessa before pulling her arms and taking a selfie with her wineglass and my woman at her side. They take another one as Tessa chug down the whole champagne glass that the bitchy sister forced her to drink. Annoying ass woman.
My eyes moves over to a man on wheelchair at that bitchy woman's left side with no emotion. He looks sad if I guess that right looking at his expression. I won't complain if my life turn out like him, paralyzed and on the wheelchair in his ex's wedding and sitting next to the loud woman, I would surely be sad too.
"Why he is here?" I ask Landon as he look where my stare at. "What's the reason?"
"Amir?" He spells his name and I nod. "I don't think you'd get my reason why I invited him."
"Try me," I challenge.
"Because Nora and I both like him and I want him here. He and I are very close friend."
"He's your wife's ex." I point out.
"A good one." He fires back.
"I won't be friends with my wife's ex nor I'd invite him in my wedding." Like what the fuck, it's bullshit, innit it?
"Because your wife's exs won't be as good as mine." I won't argue there. Tess's, my future wife's exs are shit as fuck.
I'm calling Tessa my wife and thinking about my wedding with her, repeatedly and I don't know why. I can feel it in my guts that some thing like that gonna happen to with us, a good thing obviously but I feel it near me. Maybe I'm going crazy maybe my mind isn't working properly around her but I can feel it. So close, do you? Do you feel it too?
I do though, but that doctor dickhead is in my way. However, he will soon push away from the path, stumble off the cliff and sink down the ocean and be death, far away from Tessa and me.
And that'll happen because of my speech the I wrote, though it is written for Landon's sake as I'm his best man but it's for her too, maybe even more.
•••
Tessa's POV:
The wedding was flawless: the groom, my bestfriend cried more than the bride my other bestfriend. And I am proud of myself that he listened to me and didn't hold back his emotion and just cried in front of room full of people to make even better and emotional. Though I didn't hear their vows much because of the man on Landon's side, I tried, I really tired to give my only focus of them but I just can’t keep my eyes or my mind off the best man.
My stare was soley on him and his on mine, he never leave a single sight of me and neither did I. In dinner reception he was staring at me and I was also catching his few glimpse too without having him notice, though I know that he knows I was acting like I wasn't looking at him and wherever his eyes wasn't actually at me I was looking at him delightfully in that short span of time and when he'd look up at me, I'd look away acting like I wasn't.
Maybe it feels dumb to play that type of game in the public but they weren't looking at us and I felt good-silly even and we played that for quite long before the whole dinner thing didn't get over.
And now the way Landon's arms are wrapped around Nora's waist and the way she's laughing at something he's saying as they dance across the floor in front of everyone, I would say the wedding went well. Super good and I'm proud that I was the one planning it to make my two bestfriends wedding absolutely perfect.
My eyes scans the big hall in search of that man again through the crowds and in just merely a second I found him. He's walking over the bar at the corner of the hall, standing in front of it with his right elbow on the bar top and stare down at the newly wed couple dancing around the black and white checkered floor.
He don't know that I'm sitting on the table nearest to the bar, maybe he do that's why he's standing there as I'm closet to him, but as he isn't looking at me at all I'd say he isn't aware of me here and staring at him just like I was staring at the time he was eating his dinner and I was roaming around the room. Let me stare at him one more time before he catches her staring, again, I pray.
He looks so put together, so devastatingly handsome in a black tuxedo with no tie. Black ink shows just above the clean white collar, His hair is longer than it looked in the pictures I’ve seen of him recently. I can’t help that I’ve been reading every single one of his interviews, every article about him, whether it’s true or false, and maybe, just maybe, I’ve emailed a few heated complaints to bloggers who have printed terrible things about him and his story. Our story.
The sight of the metal ring in his lip surprised me, even though I knew it had reappeared. And I also imagined him getting off as I do the same in my bed one night. Maybe every night since then. But I had forgotten how good it looks on him in person. I’m taken, absolutely consumed, by seeing him again, thrown back into a world where I fought hard in and lost nearly every battle that was thrown my way, only to leave without the one thing that I was fighting for: him.
And today I'll fight another battle to get him, propose to him and label him mine, and only mine before someone else snatches him from me right under my nose and I've to live my life alone without him in the drakness and far away from his light.
I see him as he tells the woman
behind the bar something and she points to the row of
bottles of liquor behind her.
Is he going to drink? I want him sober as I'm gonna propose to him later. Hope he doesn't drink much that he won't even stand himself up in his feet.
He says something to the bartender, maybe a drink's name and she stares him for a moment before nodding and filling a
clear glass with ice and transparent liquid, vodka maybe?
But why she was staring at him? Weird.
As I keep my stare at him and his actions as he brings his cold glass upto his mouth and tilting his head back he tosses off the cool and maybe strong drink down his throat without any reaction across his face from the strong alcohol. I see his adam's apple move slowly up and then down as he gulps the content down before licking his lips. In instinct I gulp the lump in my throat too and lick lips looking at him.
I am embarassed a little that he still affects me, my body from that afar distance and after so long without seeing him.
He suddenly turns his head to his left to look at someone. Vance is behind him with his very-much-pregnant wife next to him. He says something to them, though I could hear it but I keep my eyes on his side profile and look his mouth moving in that slow way it always has, as he talks to people. Though the room is dark but I see him clearly as he looks down at Kim's swollen belly then get feet before backing up to her face, which has sour expression.
What they are talking?
Kimberly says something angrily at him and he fired back something at her laughing at her expense. And the next thing I see her walking forward and slaps him across his face in front of everyone. What the hell?
A chuckle leaves my mouth looking at the spectacle and I prayed that he won't create any scene with her in public. My prayers get answered by him only rubbing his left palm on his cheek as if she actually hurt him, and she laughs when Vance calls say something to his son. The three of them keep talking, unaware of my eyes on them, mostly on him though.
But suddenly his head moves around to the dark room in search of anything. What he's looking for?
Then I look at Kim, who's grinning at him and nods her head into my direction and taking in Kim's gesture his head turns to me and his green eyes meet on my blue, instantly. In sudden surprise I snap my head on the dance floor quickly looking away from his piercing eyes. So they knew I waslooking at them? This is so embarrassing.
"Where she is?" Robert groans and hits his phone on his open palm few times in frustration. I almost forgotten that he's sitting next to me as my focus was at someone else.
"Who?" I ask, clearing my throat and giving my attention to him.
"Kelsey, Tessa. Who else?" He reveals. "She texted me that she's near the venue, fifteen minutes ago, but she hasn't arrived yet." He adds, slugging down his shoulder in melancholy.
"Maybe she got stuck in the traffic." I say to him, giving some hope.
"Maybe. But I really wanted to dance with her and now it's looking like she won't be here any time soon for doing it before it ends." He tells me, desperation to dance with his girlfriend is clear in his voice.
"She will. Have some patience." I utter but he still looks hopeless and sad. To see my sad friend happy I think it through my brain any ideas to make him a happy one. "If she didn't then I'll get arrange another dance sequel for you guys after the speech thing is over." I notify him.
"Really? You can do that?" He squeals. Rapture taking over his voice and a smile plastering across him face.
"Have you forget that I'm the wedding planner here?" Reminding I raise my brow at him. "Of course, I will." I state proudly.
"Thanks, Tessa." He tells me, grinning.
"My pleasure." I shrug at him.
Taking away my attention from him I look at the bar again to see the handsome and hot man on black tux. But he isn't there now only Kim and Vance who are now walking to another table. Where did he go? I search around the the dark in panick as his whereabout and in few seconds I immediately find him sitting few tables down from me on an empty table seated next to his little brother, Smith.
Now that I know they're brother by blood they seems more alike in appearance not much, as his brown hair are long and unruly while Smith's are short and perfectly combed. His black tux doesn't have tie while Smith's do. But even the difference they look similar and if Hardin would might be at Smith's age, he would quite look like the brainiac kid.
I look them closely and they're talking so serious, like they're talking business and doing something deal between the brothers. A secret deal.
And suddenly Smith stands up from his seat, walking over me promptly he greets, "Hi, Tessa."
"Hey, Smith." I smile up at him.
"How are you?" He asks, nervousness in his cute voice.
"Good. And you?"
"Bored." He tells the truth, which made me giggle.
"There you are." The handsome man walks over to his little brother, standing next to the boy he rests his hands on his brother's shoulders and looking at them so close to each other, my face lights up as the two are act brotherly.
"Will you dance with me, Tessa?" The little alike Hardin asks me, surprising me and making me embarrass. I would like to with his brother but his little version will do so I accept the boy's offer.
"Of course." I smile at him and uncrossing my legs I stand up in my feets helped by my friend, Robert.
Leaving the hot man and Robert on my table, I follow Smith out onto the dance floor, and he stands, freezed looking at me what to do. Smiling at him I take both of his small hands by his wrists and place them on my waist and look down at his small cheeks flushes. As I place my both palm on his shoulder and start moving my body at the slow song that Landon and Nora chose to play. He follow my moves and I move my feets carefully so I don't step in him, and my heels dig into his small shoes.
"Smith." I look down at him. He's short in height, even shorter with my highest heels on, but soon he'll be tall, as gaint as his brother.
"Yeah?" He keeps his stare at my feets, copying my steps.
"Did Hardin pressured you to dance with me?" I ask him and he looks nervous by my question, confirming that I'm obviously right. "Tell me the truth."
"He did." He reveals.
"Why?"
"Your Hardin said if I dance with you, he'll get me the customized train that I wanted that our dad didn't get me." He blurts the truth and a chuckle slips between my lips.
"Basically he bribed you?"
"Yep." He nods.
"You don't have to dance with me if you feel awkward." I say to ease him but keep our bodies moving.
"I have to though, or he won't get me the train." He states.
"Don't worry, if he won't get you, I will." I utter the truth.
"You will?" He looks up at me from our feets with happiness that I couldn't explain.
"I promise." I say and meant it. "But you've tell me where should I get that."
"Kim mommy will tell you, she knows it." He says showing his crooked and gap-toothed mouth. "Thank you, Tessa," he smiles which swells my heart. I wink at him and he flushes looking away from my stare and look down at our feets again.
Looking at his brother I see him walking over to me and my feets abruptly stops without my permission as my eyes meet his.
"May I cut in?" He asks. Without having anyone answer to him, he tugs at the back of Smith's dress shirt and moves him away from me and he replaces his brother's short body with his tall like a lamppost body.
His hands immediately moves to my waist and rest on my hips. He freeze a little bit feeling overwhelmed by his fingers touching me just like his brother but I lead and move my body so he follows me the way his little brother did with me, few seconds ago. So much similarity has between these two brothers, hasn't they?
It's been so long, too long, since the last time he held me. When I came to Chicago a year ago for my friend's wedding, but I didn't invite him as my date. I went solo, but he did showed up there anyway surprising me the hell out, before following me like a creeper, though I was angry he did that but felt good he did it. Then we went to his apartment afterwards the wedding and we fell asleep after we got off on his king size bed. But before that night, we had a date and we shared a massive mound of ice cream, topped with chocolate candies and too much hot fudge, my choice. Then I asked him to come back to my hotel room for some drinks— wine for me club soda for him— and we feel asleep after he made love to me onto my hotel room's floor. And also that spontaneous night in New York ten months ago, but I shouldn't be thinking at that night right now, that I was the worst night for us.
"I thought I would save you from dancing with him, he's a little short. Terrible dance partner," he finally says after staring into my eyes over a minute now.
"He told me you bribed him." Smiling at him I shake my head.
"That little fucker." He gives a glare at his little brother who sits back down at a table, alone.
"You two have gotten pretty close, even since I last saw you," I say with so much admiration I've toward them, and the man in front of me blushes under my compliment, like his cheeks literally turns to crimson color.
"Yeah, guess so." He shrugs like it's nothing, but it is to me, so much. I tighten my fingers on his shoulders, and he just sighs. A sigh of relief I would call it.
"You look very well." My eyes move down from his bright eyes to his shining metal pierced on his lips under the moving light at my mouth. I like that he put it on, I love them so much and this lip ring is just my favorite.
"'Well'? I don't know if that's a good thing." He brings me closer to him and I let him. I want him even more close to me that the soft cologne clinging to his tux rub off on my dress and my body starts to smell like him.
"Very good, handsome. Very hot." I eyes go wide as I accidently blurt the last word. It was supposed to be my inner monologue, in utter embarrassment I bite down on my lower lip.
"You're the sexiest woman in the room; always have been." He compliments to ease my embarrassed but it had the opposite effect on me, I get even more embarrassed by him. So I tilt my head down, trying to hide the embarrassment creeping on my face with the help of my mass of hair. "Don't hide, not from me," he quietly say. Nostalgia fills me at the familiar words, and I get reminded when was the first time I heard him say the words.
Before I loose myself again just like I did that day pleasuring by him in my sensitive bub near the stream, I quickly change the subject. "When's the release date for your next book?"
"Next month-did you read it? I had an early copy sent to
you." He asks though his eyes tells me he knows the answer already but I say it anyway.
"Yes, I read it." Telling him the truth he take the opportunity to pull me close to his chest. Hard chest, which I want my eyes to laid on. "I've read them all, remember?"
"What do you think?" Before I answer him the songs ends and another begins. As the female voice fills the room, we look into each other's eyes.
"This song," I laugh, softly. "Of course they would play this song."
"I didn't want to go to that wedding," he recalls his dad and Karen's wedding where this song played and we danced in that all that years ago. "I only went to make you happy, but now I thank you for pushing me to go. I really do." He tells by brushing a loose curl away from my eyes that fell off from my mass of hair, and I swallow, blinking slowly.
"I'm so happy for you, Hardin. You're an incredible author, an activist for self-recovery and alcohol addiction. I saw that interview you did with the Times about dealing with abuse as a child." My eyes well up, as I remember watching him say it in the interview how I healed him from his worst past.
"It's nothing, really." He shrugs again like it is not that big thing I should be appreciate but I know he secretly loved being appreciated. "I never expected any of this; you have to know that. I didn't mean for you to be embarrassed publicly by me writing that book." He said the same thing that he told me so many times.
"Don't worry about it." I smile up at him. "It wasn't so bad, and you know, you've helped a lot of people and a lot of people love your books. Me included." I flush and he do the same.
"If you loved them so much, why didn't you call after that night?" He points out.
"I tried a few times, but it became so hard to get in touch with you without making an appointment." I frown remembering how many times I tried to call him only to get his manager voice, saying I've to take the appointments to speak to him. "That night was terrible and I really don't want to talk about it. Everything worked out though, now we are at their wedding," I laugh to add a little humor.
"This should be our wedding," he blurts and my feet stop moving automatically. Soon that will happen, I wanna say to him but I can't, not right now.
"Hardin." I fake glare him.
"Theresa," he teases, but I know a hint of seriousness he has it in his voice. "I thought that last page was going to change your mind. I really did."
"It did change my mind. It made me want to marry you and run off into the sunset with you but the odds were always against us. You know that." He has to know.
"Who gives a fuck about odds now? You're here for this wedding and I'm here until last weekend before I fly back to Chicago." He points out as we keep swaying our bodies.
"It's been years, literally years."
"We were together last year, in New York." he reminds me.
"For one night."
"A really good night." He teases but frown a little as he reckons that night, the worst night because I snuck out from his hotel room after I read the hateful comments.
"Can I have everyone's attention, please?" the bride's sister says through the microphone. That woman is annoying but I'm glad she disturb us because I don't want him to remember that night again.
"I have to get ready for my speech," he groan, removing his hand from my body and swiping his hand through his long hair.
"You're making a speech?" I ask him even though I know it's his duty to make one and follow him to the designated table for the wedding party.
"Yeah, I'm the best man, remember?" He smirks.
"I know." Saying I gently shove his shoulder, and he reaches for my left wrist to pull it upto his mouth to press his lips for a kiss maybe? against my bare skin there, but stops as he notices a black ink circle craved on my skin.
"What the fuck is this?" He brings my wrist closer to his face.
"I lost a bet on my twenty-first birthday." I laugh as I reminds me how the hell this happened.
"You actually got a smiley-face tattoo? What the hell." Looking at the poorly done tattoo he laughs can't help but enjoy the beautiful laughter falls from his mouth.
"Sure did." I nod proudly, lifting my right hand and running the index finger over the ink on my left hand's wrist.
"Do you have any more?" He asks.
"No way. Just this one." I was scared as I was getting this little thing, no way I'm I want to go through that painful process, again to get another one.
"Hardin!" the sister calls for him, loudly which make me startle and I pull my wrist away from his grasp in shock.
He huffs at the sister as he walks toward the stage and take the microphone from the annoying woman. I also make my way to the front row and sit down on my designated seat as he clears his throat and says. "Hey." His accented voice sounds so good in the microphone, maybe weird to some people but a beautiful song to me.
"I don't like talking in front of a lot of people usually. Hell, I don't even like being around people usually, so I'm going to make this quick," he promises the roomful of wedding guests. "Most of you are probably drunk or bored to death anyway, so feel free to ignore this." I chuckle at his humor.
"Get to the point." Nora laughs, a annoyed laugh by her step brother-in-law holding up a glass of champagne and maybe frustrated that she can't cruse at him in from of everyone. Landon nods in agreement, and I laugh covering my mouth with my hand as Hardin gives both of them a vulgar gesture in front of everyone.
"See, I wrote this down, because I didn't want to forget what to say." He takes out a white cloth from his trouser's pocket and unfolding it he continues, "When I first met Landon, I instantly hated him." Everyone laughs as if he's joking, but I know he isn't. "He had everything that I wanted in life: a family, a girlfriend, a plan for his future." He says looking at Landon, who's is smiling, and his cheeks are slightly red by his brother's start. "Anyway, throughout the years that I've known him, we've become friends, family even, and he has taught me a lot about being a man, especially in the last two years with the struggles these two have had to deal with." His words are making me emotional. I feel the water pricking up in my eyes already.
"I'm going to end this shit now. Basically what I want to say is, I thank you, Landon, for being an honest man, and for giving me hell when I needed you to. I actually look up to you in a fucked-up way, and I want you to know that you deserve to be happy and be married to the love of your life, no matter how quickly you two put this together." The crowd laughs again and I join them too. "You won't know how lucky you are to be able to spend your life with the other half of your soul until you have to spend your life without them."
As his words hits me like a running truck and my brain register it through that he isn't talking or referring to the newly wedded couple but to me. He's saying that directed to me in front of everyone and without thinking anything else I stand up from my seat and walk fast through the crowd before he gets the chance to put the microphone down. I hear his boots hitting the hardwood floor behind me as I'm running fast away from him at the end of the hall.
I don't know where am I going? Or why I'm running away from him again like always, but I can't stay there and be seated at his… sad words, by hearing them out loud in public I need time to process them. As I see the woman's bathroom at the corner I push the door open and get inside thinking he won't come. But I know him well enough that the figure of a woman on the bathroom door won't stop him.
I stride over to the sink, resting my both palms on either sides of the marble I lean my body forward and close my eyes to gulp down the tears. As I hear the door opening signalling that the man has arrived as I expected him to be. I look up with my watery eyes and red tear stain cheeks at him through the mirror above the sink. "What the hell was that?" I shout at him with my hands flying into the air.
"Excuse me?" He raises his voice back at me as if he doesn't know what I'm talking about.
"You can't just—" I begin. "You." I don't know what to say and how to say.
"Talk to me, what's the problem? It was just a speech." He tells me, trying to calm me down but making me even more furious. In frustration I pace across the tiled floor and my heels clicking against the hard surface creating a ear piercing noise.
"You can't just talk about us like that. About our souls." I utter ending the sentence with a whimper that I didn't intend to.
"Why not?"
"Because…" I wanted to propose you with the quote that was written in my charm bracelet by you. Though the bracelet isn't in my wrist, it still is on Nora's wrist.
"Because you know I'm right?" He interjects.
"Because you can't say those things publicly like that. You keep doing it in your interviews, too." I give him the stupid reason by resting my hands on my hips.
"I've been trying to get your attention." He takes a step toward me.
"A phone call wouldn't do that?" I tell him, giving another dumb excuse, though I wouldn't have picked up. Suddenly I hear a door opens behind me and an elderly woman rushes from a stall and leaves the washroom without so much as washing her hands. Oh shoot. Hope there isn't anyone right now.
"I've called you, many times. You've called me many times. Why do we keep going back and forth? Why can't we both just stop being stubborn assholes and be together?" He asks me. That will happen soon babe, I wanna say to him.
But I act that I'm angry at him with my nostril flare, and I thought to stomp my foot like a angry child, but didn't do cause that made me I'm overacting and that I'm faking it. "We won't work we never do."
"Yet here we are, together in a bathroom during our best friend's wedding," he calls me out.
"I didn't come in here to come onto you, you followed me in here," my voice soften involuntarily as my eyes rakes down the handsome and sexy man in my sight.
"So you want me to come on to you?" He says what I wanted to hear.
"No, of course not." I lie, crossing my arms against my chest. "You piss me off." I pout, my heart is beating fast and I tell my eyes to not to stare at the beauty in front of me.
"Then why is your heart racing the way it is? Why can't you stop looking at me like you want me to fuck you on that counter?" He says beating my heart even faster by his filthy words and also making my hormones out of control, and he adds more gasoline into the fire as he reaches for the collar of his dress shirt and unfasten the top two buttons to revel some of his skin that I'm dieing to laid my eyes on.
"I—" I choke. "This is only sexual, my heart racing has nothing to do with any feeling or anything." I lie, again. It's the lust that I have towards this man and with love adding that never lessen towards him over the years, making both the feeling mixed together in heavenly combination and let them course into my vines.
"Sure, sure." He reaches his arms out for me. "Come here," he begs. How could I say no to his beckoning arms? No, I couldn't even if I tried to, so I oblige by walking into his outspread arms and he hugs me. Hugging him back tightening my arms around his neck, I nuzzle my head into his crook of his neck and sniff the soft cologne he has on himself. As my shoes are so high it making my height as near as his height and his long hair ends are so long that I have to push them back away from his shoulder to hug him without tugging it. "I've missed you so much," he says into her hair making my hormones amplified.
I want him, right now so without stalling any further my hands move to his shoulder and push back the heavy jacket off of him, and the expensive customized cloth falls to the floor.
"You're sure?" He holds my cheeks between his large hands and asks me, as he get my intentions.
"I'm always sure with you." I admit and press my lips to his trembling lips, breathing slow and deep as I feel the relief he gets from my actions. The coolest that I missed from his lip ring against my corner of my mouth I feel the coolest again.
Too soon, he pulls away, and my hand drop to his tux trouser's button to unfasten it, fast. "I'm just blocking the door." He assures me.
"We're really doing this?" I ask him as he leans down to lift my floor-length dress from the floor, up to my waist.
"Are you surprised?" He laughs into another kiss.
"No." Mu fingers hurry to unzip my pants, and he gasps when I grasp his thickness through his boxers.
"When's the last time you…" I begin to ask without spelling the words.
"With you in Chicago." Revealing he urges me, "You?" Before I can answer him he shakes his head. "No, don't tell me. We don't want to talk about that. I don't want to know about you and him." I sense the vulnerability in this tone about Robert and me together.
"Same, and we haven't." I say the truth.
He pulls me back, looking into my eyes to find the only truth behind them what I claim for. "Really?" He asks even though he reads mu eyes like an open book.
"Yes, no one else. Only you." I can't with anyone but him, and only him. The way he touched my body, explored every nerves I have to please them, I don't think anyone could do that me, making me feel that way, the good absolutely estatic way he gives me.
Without thinking much I tug his boxers down, and he lifts me onto the counter away from the door, spreading my thick thighs with his both large hands. "Fuck." He bites down on his bottom lip when he looks down on my crotch. What?
As I look down to see what he's seeing to only to find out that I'm not wearing any underwear. Oh God. I almost forget about that and I was roaming about the venues like a commando the whole time. "There was a line with my dress." Flushing I tell him the truth. There was outline of panties at my behind of the dress, right? Or I was tripping seeing things that wasn't actually there.
"You're going to be the death of me, woman." He says through his clench teeth as I keep stroking his length with my both hands moving up and down on him.
"We have to hurry," I whine. I'm desperate and pooling down there when he slides his finger over my swollen bud. I groan in relief; my head falls back onto the mirror behind me, and my legs open farther.
"Condom?" He asks.
"I can't…you know. It's impossible." I state the harsh reality with sadness in my voice.
Instead of saying anything further, I pushes a finger inside me and caress my tongue with his. Each kiss feels good and felt like they holds a confessions that he wanna express to me as he keep kissing me. I feel his hardness push inside me and I moan as he fills me deliciously. "So fucking tight," he whimpers.
It's been so long since I've felt him inside me, surely a year ago when he had me over his apartment in Chicago. Those three days I spent with him was the best days of my life. Nothing we cared of only sex and love and madness we had with each other and didn't cared about anything but us, and only us.
"Oh God." I claw at his back as he pulls out of me and then enter me again, this time completely and entirely. I feel my inside walls stretch around him, like my body knows exactly how to adjust to fit him the way it always has been. It is really something to feel. "Hardin," I moan into his neck. Opening my mouth I press my lips on his skin and then gently graze my teeth on his neck the way he loves it when I do.
His one hand goes to my back, pulling me closer to him, lifting my legs slightly to reach a deeper angle inside me, and then he use his other large hand to massage my breast. I have no idea when they spilled out of my dress as my solely focus is on his actions and the feeling that he's giving me. He wraps his lips around my flesh and start to sucking, tugging at my hard nipples with his plump lips, groaning and moaning my name I feel him cum inside me filling me whole.
"H-Hardin," his name comes in quick pants as he rubs my swollen bud while his thickness driving into me continuously. The entire bathroom is echoing with our moans, heavy breathing and my thighs smacking against him and the counter too, which is so hot more me. He's so hot for me.
I glance up on his shining lip ring and get remind of him bringing the metal in between his teeth while stroking himself in my imagination go through my mind and with that image, him naked above me pleasuring himself while I do the same and begging me to say the thing, the meaningful words to him that he hasn't heard for so long which I suppress inside me is leaves from my uncontrolled mouth.
"I love you," I finally say to him as I cum too, my voice strain as I loose myself with him. My body goes limp, leaning into him, and I rest my head on his hard chest as I catch my breath.
"I heard that, you know?" He presses a kiss to my sweat coated forehead, and I smile at him, a euphoric smile. I wanted him to hear it, that was my first step–to let him know that I do love him, before I propose him.
"We're a mess," I whisper, lifting my head up so that my eyes can see the happiness in his.
"An undeniable, beautifully chaotic mess." He corrects me with his writer brain.
"Don't go all writer on me," I tease him, out of breath.
"Don't pull away from me. I know you've been seeing the waiter." He purses his lips out like an angry yet cute child.
"You were calling him a doctor thirst minutes ago."
"Well, he's both. But right now you're mine, not his."
"I've never been his." I tell him the truth. We tried dating once, about ten month after I yelled at Hardin to go back to Chicago as I read the harsh comments about us online, but it just didn’t work out. I shouldn't have date Robert in the first place and waste my time with him. You shouldn’t date someone if your heart is owned by someone else. It doesn’t work, trust me. And now that I know and accepted it that Hardin is the one who owned my heart, always has been, I don't wanna date anyone but him.
"Then, you've been missing me?"
"Yeah." Of course. Sitting on the edge of the marble counter I wrap arms around his waist, and he pushes my hair back off from my forehead.
Should I tell him now? I want to marry me or should I wait for the reception to get over? Looking into the eyes, gorgeous greens whom I haven't at stare and embraced them for so long are deeper, not as guarded as they always were. I’ve missed him more than I’m letting on. I’ve only seen him four times in the last two years, and each time only made me ache for him more. I suffered and lived my days without him and the comfort he always brought with him; and I surely know he suffered them too, so now I should just let him and me out of the suffering.
"Will you stay with me tonight. We can leave here now. Just stay with me," he begs. Leaning up again, I push my breasts back into my dress and I look up at him.
"Can I say something?" I ask.
"Since when do you ask?" He touches the tip of my nose with his index finger.
"True." I smile. "I hate that you didn't try harder."
"I did but—" he begin to explain but I holds up a finger to silence him and interrupts the speech that I memorized in my apartment's bathroom last night.
"I hate that you didn't try harder, but it's unfair of me to even say that because we both know that I pulled away from you. I kept pushing and pushing, expecting too much from you, and I was so angry over the book and all of the attention that I didn't want, and I let that rule my mind. I felt as if I couldn't forgive you because of other people's opinions, but now I'm angry with myself that I would even listen to that. I don't care what people say about us, or me. I only care what the people I love think of me, and they love and support me. I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for listening to voices that didn't belong in my head." I finish.
He just stands there in front of the counter, with me seated on the marble, silently listening to me. "I don't know what to say."
"That you forgive me?" I nervously whisper.
"I forgive you, of course." He laughs. "Do you forgive me For everything? Or close to everything?"
"Yes." I nod, reaching for his hand.
"Now I really don't know what to say." He runs his other hand over his long hair.
"Maybe that you still want to marry me?" My eyes goes wide as I spill the words as I planned to say it.
"What?" His eyes goes wide too as if they are gonna pop out straight from their sockets.
I flush. "You heard me."
"Marry you? You hated me like ten minutes ago?" He gape, still shocked by the words..
"Actually, we were having sex on this counter ten minutes ago." I point out.
"You actually mean that? You want to marry me?" Still hasn't believing what I said. "Have you been drinking?" He asks furrowing his brows.
"No, I had one glass of champagne over an hour ago. I'm not drunk, I'm just tired of fighting this. We're inevitable, remember?" I mock in his accent. He just kiss my mouth, maybe silencing me to not to continue with the terrible accent I blurt.
"We are the least romantic couple that's ever been; you know that, right?" His tongue swipes over my lips.
"'Romance is overrated, realism is in,'" I speak the quote from his latest novel, which I love so much and the meaning behind it, the true meaning behind it.
"Marry me? Really, you will?"
"Not today or anything, but sure, I'll think about it." I climb down from the counter, adjusting my dress.
"You'll change you mind, I know you will." He muster and adjust his clothing.
"I may, but I may not." I shrug playfully smiling at him. I may but I won't leave him, not again.
"Vegas, let's go to Vegas right now." He digs into his pocket to pulls his rental car's key out.
"No way; I'm not getting married in Vegas. You're crazy." He is kidding, he has too.
"We're both crazy; who gives a shit?"
"No way, Hardin."
"Why not?" He pleads, taking my face between his large palms.
"Vegas is quite a long way." I glance at his reflection through the mirror after turning my body to see my makeup. "I need to think about this. I only decided to minutes ago." Should I take his offer right now? If that then when we will go? What should I pack? What type of gown should I buy? Who to invite? Where would be the venue? Oh God, there is so much to plan as I know because I planned my bestfriends wedding.
"Don't you think that is long enough to think about it?" He jokes, pulling the chairs away from the door as I follow behind him.
Then I shock him by cocking my head and saying, "Yeah, I guess so."
__________________________________
Finally I included every single fucking thing that happened (mentioned in all seven books till this^) in the past two years of Hessa's separation.
The end.
Or is it? ಡ ͜ ʖ ಡ
Do it!⭐