Oliver was smiling in his sleep.
I haven't had more than a few hours of shut-eye myself, considering he'd made love to me through most of the night—slow, fast, rough and tender—but my bones were weightless, my body relaxed, my soul perfectly still.
Why sleep when you can gaze at the man you love instead?
Yes, I was a little tired but it didn't keep me from waking up at first light, snuggling closer to Oliver's warm, hard body and studying his features in repose, a little awed that after more than decade of secretly loving him, he was mine at last.
The room was awash with the muted rays of sunlight slipping through the curtain gaps, bathing everything in this soft, rose-gold glow—a romantic backsplash to the portrait of a sinfully seductive sleeping prince sprawled next to me in bed.
Oliver might be my prince but his beauty was rugged in a way that no one would really call him handsome, at least not in the traditional sense. They would call him hot or sexy (or orgasmic if it got a little blunt) because his sex appeal was far more powerful than his looks—he was mostly rough edges and stark masculinity. Even with a half-curve of a smile touching his mouth, he still seemed intimidating. His nose had a slight bend to it, having been broken at least twice that I knew of. His cheekbones were sharp and high, his jaw square and peppered with a semi-permanent five o'clock shadow. His strong profile was punctuated by the deep, wide cleft on his chin, a stark contrast to his soft, pillowy lips that often curved into an insolent smile. If one looked closely, they would see little white scars that marred his mostly smooth skin, the more pronounced ones under his lower lip, on his chin, and a long, curved one that cut across his left brow. His hands were rough and full of little nicks too, as if Oliver constantly got into brawls and lived on the streets instead of the luxuries an heir to a vast family-owned empire of hotel chains would enjoy—at least before his family's car accident. We'd spent a lot of time living in different states that I didn't always know if he was coming home bruised and banged up but I could tell the new scars from the old ones every time we saw each other. If anything serious happened though, Oliver would tell me. If he didn't, Stellan or my Dad would.
They wouldn't need to anymore. I don't plan on us living apart for much longer.
We were married now—husband and wife.
No married couple lived apart—at least not while they're still in love, and Oliver and I will be in love for a long time.
My husband.
That word was common enough but it evoked a fierce surge of pride and possessiveness in me, as if that word punctuated the very essence of how I'd always felt about him. I always knew that he would, one day, be that man for me and now that it was actually done, it didn't liberate me as it normally would when something you always wanted finally happened. It felt like I was even more tethered to him and that the force that bound us together was tangible yet irrevocable.
It would sound utterly ridiculous but it truly felt like the stars lined up and something in the gears of fate clicked and everything was as it should be.
Seized by an odd moment of what almost seemed like suspended belief, I reached out and traced the firm curve of Oliver's sculpted shoulder, my fingertips fleetingly grazing his warm, smooth skin as they made their way down his back, dipping by his narrow waist and lifting at the upward slope of his magnificently muscular butt.
Feeling reckless, I let my hand slip past the hard ridge of muscle along his pelvis and coast down to one side of the deep V that dipped right between his legs. My hand slightly trembling, I wrapped my fingers around the large, hot rod that pulsed hard and stiffened even more at my touch. A low, husky moan fell off Oliver's parted lips as I gave it a bold tug, my thumb resting on the moist tip of the rounded crown.
His eyes fluttered open for a brief second before they squeezed close again as I moved my tight fist up and down his length, fascinated by the play of pained pleasure on his face as my hand quickened its pace.
Thrill shot through me at the reminder that Oliver's pleasure was all mine to give.
Seizing the dark, exciting power that fired my blood, I push him on his back with my other hand, barely giving him a second before I straddled his hips, pushing him into the tight, hot space inside of me where I ached to be filled.
Grunting in approval, his hands gripped each side of my hips, lifting me with ease as he pulled back, drawing his length all the way out until only the tip of him remained, and slamming me back down against him just as he arched up, thrusting deep all the way into me. The rhythm grew fierce and erratic, our breathless murmurs and moans muffled by our raw, hungry kisses, building into an explosive release that shattered through our souls until we felt nothing and everything all at once.
Holding myself up above him, I paused to gasp some oxygen back into my system, letting it cool the molten heat in my veins.
"Good morning."
Grinning at his begrudgingly amused tone, I swept my messy, copper-colored hair off my face with an arm and tossed it over my shoulders, treated to the sight of Oliver smiling crookedly up at me, probably looking just as disheveled and worn out as I did.
"Good morning," I greeted back as I sat up straight which had the unintended effect of thrusting my breasts out at him.
He wasted no time in reaching out to cup them, his fingers strumming the tips that hardened back at his touch.
I groaned. "Did I sign up to be your sexual slave last night? I can hardly remember my name."
Chuckling, he lifted himself up to a sitting position with me still straddling his hips, his arms encircling my waist and drawing me close enough to him that he was able to brush a light kiss on my lips. "No. You signed up to be my wife and your name after last night is Mrs. Vivienne Yates."
I couldn't resist beaming like an idiot at that declaration. I shoved some pillows under him so he could lean back at a low enough height to allow me to drape over him and lean my face close to his. "Ah, yes. Silly me. I can't possibly forget a name I've been secretly signing in my diaries."
"You don't have a diary," he said with a smirk.
"I'll start one if only to get a chance to sign each entry as Vivienne Yates."
I would normally scoff at any man who thought I would just die to be theirs because the thought made me gag in its absurdity. It was absurd not because I thought I belonged to no man but because I belonged to one man that none of those lovesick fools could ever measure up to. I belonged to Oliver and if he was feeling damn pleased about it, I wouldn't stop him.
"You'll need to do some paperwork but sign away with your new last name because once we get back from our honeymoon, you'll be using it all the time," he said.
My eyes widened. "A honeymoon? Where are we going?"
"Well, for now we'll spend the rest of the weekend in Vegas since we're already here. We'll head back to Cobalt Bay together so we can tell your family and if they let us out alive, we'll plan a trip to wherever you want to go for a short honeymoon. We might have to wait for spring break so you don't have to miss school," he said.
I nodded. "It's the first week of March this year. That's only a couple of weeks away. I wouldn't normally want to wait but it makes sense to do it then."
"Yeah. It'll give us some time to tell everyone, book reservations and flights and hopefully, I can clean up all the details of the Cranston deal by then," he added.
Frustration flickered on his face and he quickly chased it away with a tight smile.
"Are you worried about telling people?" I asked gently, knowing whatever bothered him was only just under the surface. "'Coz I'm not. We might have skipped ahead but I can't imagine a single person who would be surprised."
His smile reached his eyes this time. "Your father might give me the lecture of my life and Stellan might give me the obligatory shiner for catching them off guard but no, I'm not afraid, Viv."
Beaming, I rested my chin on his chest. "You better not be."
"Loving you is the best thing that's ever happened to me," he said, reaching up to touch his finger on the tip of my nose. "If there's anything I'm afraid of, it's waking up and finding out that this was all just a dream."
My arms tightened around him, my legs squeezing around his hips enough to highlight the fact that he was still very much inside me, still hard and wanting.
I couldn't help smiling mischievously when he groaned softly. "That should tell you this is definitely not a dream."
In a breath, he rolled on top of me and trapped me underneath him, his hips moving in a slow, teasing pace. "Now that I've had you, I'm not sure I can last a few weeks without you, Viv."
"I'll come and see you every weekend," came my stubborn insistence when I imagined for myself just how empty it would feel to not be with him like this after the whirlwind that turned our lives upside down last night. "I'll fly out every Friday night and get back on Sunday evening."
He frowned a little and leaned his forehead against mine. "It'll be hard to be apart for most of those two weeks but I'll come see you as often as I can. I don't want you wearing yourself down with the stress of graduating and flying across the country every weekend. If we had planned for this better, we might have been able to make proper arrangements."
I smiled, probably looking guilty and pleased with it. "Oh, I'm not so sure that you would've been a big fan of 'proper arrangements' if you knew the kinds of plans I had for our wedding. I picked out everything from the location to the flowers, to the food, to the band we'd hire, to the gift bags we'll give our guests. And of course, I designed my own gown."
I had been sketching gowns for as long as I could remember, often reconstructing an idea I already shaped out into a few dozen versions until I got it exactly the way I liked it. When I was eighteen, promptly after Oliver left after spending the weekend with me in New York just as fall transformed the city into a kaleidoscope of warm browns, bright yellows and rich reds, I sketched my wedding gown, certain of its every aspect in that afternoon it took me that not a single thing had changed about it in the last three years.
Oliver must've seen something in my face as I daydreamed about that gown because he scowled. "I'm sorry that you didn't get your perfect wedding, angel. We can do a proper one if you want—make it everything you dreamed it would be."
I had never doubted, over the years, that my happiness ranked somewhere in the top of Oliver's priorities. He was clearly already beating himself up, thinking he'd fallen short this time.
I wrinkled my nose at him and pulled his head down so I could kiss the frown off his mouth. "Don't be silly. There's nothing to be sorry about. My dream did come true and that was to marry you. The rest is just minor details."
He watched me with those penetrating blue eyes and I patiently waited as he played a tug-of-war with himself. No one would describe Oliver as insecure but I knew, deep down, that he was hard on himself, often unnecessarily, and to try to change his mind would come across as an insult because he didn't even want people sensing that he wasn't too sure of his worth.
"Plan the wedding," he said firmly. "We can have it after your graduation. I know you'll be busy at the end of the school year but we can hire a wedding planner and all that. Invite anyone you want to attend. Make it as big as you want."
I tried to suppress a sigh, caressing the side of his arm instead. "Babe, I really don't mind not having a fancy wedding. We can do a small gathering with our family and close friends so they won't forever resent us for having been left out but that's about it. Unless you want a grand ceremony yourself."
He shook his head. "I don't care about any of that. I just want you to have everything you want."
Words weren't going to get me anywhere with him when he was being stubborn like this. So screw the words.
I smiled and twined my arms around his neck, wrapping my legs around his hips and urging him closer. "Oh, I already do. But if you don't mind, you can show me again."
***
I never thought I'd be the kind of girl who'd pinch herself to make sure she wasn't dreaming but I did plenty of that on my first full day as Oliver's wife.
It may have something to do with how abruptly things turned around—from being stuck in that friend zone to being wife to the man I've loved all my life without even having gone out with him on a first official date.
When I amusingly mentioned this to Oliver, he dragged us out of the hotel room with the promise that we were going to cross that off our list today.
He said he was determined to impress, even if he had to do the whole courtship thing backwards.
I let him because it would make him happy, and also because I wasn't going to miss out on any opportunity to be with Oliver like this, to be finally in love and out in the open with it.
First, we had a leisurely brunch at the patio of Mon Ami Gabi, a casual French-themed restaurant located right along Las Vegas Boulevard. It was an unusually warm February day even for Vegas, with clear skies and plenty of sunshine. Nature was probably in as good a mood as I was. We spent the rest of the day walking up and down the Strip, sight-seeing and shopping until I could no longer feel my feet inside my Repetto flats.
We returned to the hotel late in the afternoon to get ready for dinner. We made love before soaking in the tub with Oliver giving my tired, sore feet some much needed pampering while we shared a glass of wine and long conversations.
A little after six, I slipped on a ruby red lace dress that hugged my curves and skimmed my thighs while Oliver dressed with polished casual in a black suit with an open-collared white silk shirt.
We dined at the balcony of Picasso where we had an uninhibited view of the majestic Bellagio fountains as water and lights danced together in exquisite, breath-taking patterns. Sitting there, holding Oliver's hand and watching as the night sky illuminated with bright bursts of light and glittering water, the possibilities felt endless.
After that, we strolled to the O' Theatre in the hotel to watch a late evening performance of the famed resident Cirque du Soleil show. The daring acrobatics had me holding my breath a lot but it was the stunning visual mix of the vibrant colors and highly imaginative costume designs that kept me arrested. Colors and fabrics were spinning into gowns in my head but instead of diving into my sketch book the moment we returned to my hotel room, I was promptly undressed and thoroughly made love to. Nothing short of a natural catastrophe could usually suppress my creative flow but Oliver was no fumbling virgin in bed with his talented hands and coaxing mouth that did nearly everything, everywhere on my body. I did wake up in the middle of the night and despite my delicious exhaustion, I managed to put together a few rough sketches while Oliver slept soundly next to me. It was almost sunrise when I put my sketch book away. Oliver stretched one eye open and gave me a sleepy grin before hooking his arm out to catch me by the waist and drag me down to his side.
We slept well into Sunday morning and ordered a late breakfast in bed.
It was almost noon when we finally rolled out of bed. We had a flight to Cobalt Bay late in the afternoon and he reluctantly suggested that he should probably head out so he could pack up his room and meet with Wesley Greaves to close the Cranston deal over lunch. That hard look of concentration was back on his face and while I wanted to spend the rest of the day with him, I figured it was best to let him tie all the loose ends on this very important deal without my distraction.
Oliver had been back to his room for about an hour when I firmly closed my sketchbook and strapped it inside my carry-on, determined to clean up our room since we've refused housekeeping in the last couple of days.
I wasn't just a grown-up now at twenty-one.
I was a wife now, too. I had to learn to look after myself and my husband.
Ha! I may be a wife but I'm no domestic goddess and thank God I married a man who knows that fact all too well after a few close calls of food poisoning when he sampled some of my very poor attempts at baking.
I enjoyed great food and I had no qualms paying for it, knowing it was as much of a creative, high-skilled art as designing intricate pieces of fashion. Not everyone would have the talent for it. It certainly wasn't any accomplishment of mine. My mother had superb skills in the kitchen until she got sick and died. After that, we hired one highly-recommended cook after another that it was rare I ever had to put something together myself. Besides, my father and brother could cook pretty decently and I left them to it most of the time, preferring to add my time to the already pretty long hours I put into my sketches and designs. As for the rest of my home-making skills—yeah, they didn't really exist.
Oliver wouldn't expect them of me now, considering how long and how well he knew me, but it probably wouldn't hurt to learn a thing or two here. It wasn't because I was a woman and it was expected. It was because I didn't want to burden Oliver with the weight of a high-maintenance wife. He had money now but he was only putting his family's affairs back together. If my being less of a spoiled princess helped him, I'd do it.
I needed to start a list of things to do and the first one on it would be to tell my family about this one teeny, tiny technical change in my marital status.
I typed a short text to my brother.
Have something to tell you soon. Don't panic. It's a good thing.
Five minutes later, my cellphone beeped with a reply from Stellan.
Okay. Had fun with your friends on your birthday?
I bit my lip as I mulled over my response, ignoring the pang of guilt. Both Stellan and my Dad called me separately on Friday before my flight to Vegas to greet me Happy Birthday and I told them I was celebrating with friends. They didn't bother me after that, probably thinking that I didn't want to get checked up on too much. It was convenient to my plans then, but now that I'd accomplished those and far more, I was itching to tell them that Oliver and I were officially and blissfully wedded.
I haven't given my family's reaction much thought but I had no trouble predicting it.
I was the only girl in the family (if you don't count my missing baby sister) so both my father and my brother were quite protective of me. They learned long ago to give me room to do what I wanted but it didn't stop them from worrying over me all the time. They had explicitly expressed their disapproval over a few of the boys I'd gone out with in high school on a date or two but I never really pursued anything serious with anyone to warrant their intervention so this kind of awkward conversation we were bound to have had never really come up before. We would go from having no talk about some boyfriend they strongly opposed for me to one about me being suddenly married—to one of Stellan's best friends, of all people.
They would eventually be happy for me but not before their tempers exploded.
"Oh, well," I said to myself with a smile as I typed a short, noncommittal reply to Stellan. "I could've done so much worse and they both know it."
I was just getting back to picking things off the floor when I heard a phone ring, its muffled, curt ring tone immediately indicating it wasn't mine.
I glanced around the room to find it and when I couldn't, I grabbed the covers and yanked them off the bed with one hard tug. Oliver's BlackBerry was on the middle of the bed, the screen reading 'Greaves' just before the light flickered out as the missed call ended.
I frowned at the call display for a second before slipping on my ballet flats and a black silk maxi skirt, tucking a white shirt into it. After getting decent, I grabbed Oliver's phone and two key cards, mine and his since we'd swapped our second key cards yesterday, and headed for the door.
Oliver had an important meeting with the banker in half an hour or so and if something changed, he had to know. It was a huge deal with so much riding on it.
I took the elevator down a floor and walked to the end of the long hall to locate Oliver's suite, only recalling his room number. Without knocking, I slipped his key card through the reader and softly pushed the heavy door open, stopping in my tracks when I heard a mix of voices in what sounded like an argument.
The suite was smaller than mine but still spacious, with a wet bar right off the foyer and a small sitting area across from it. The voices were coming from somewhere to the right of that living area which probably led to the bedroom.
I frowned at the key card as I quietly let the door fit back into the frame soundlessly, not that it would've been obvious since the voices continued to rise in volume. I could've confused the room number but the key card Oliver gave me worked so that theory didn't make sense. With the plush carpet cushioning my footfalls, I took a few steps further inside, straining my ears to listen to the argument, still refusing to believe that I was in Oliver's suite because I could hear a woman's voice.
What would a woman be doing in Oliver's suite?
I tried to drown out the sound of my pounding heart which had filled my ears, trying to quell away the sudden weight of dread that settled in my stomach.
I could make out Oliver's voice now, low and gritty, as he said something he was probably displeased about but a woman's short, amused laugh cut him off before she started talking again. Her tone had a lot of highs and lows, some words ringing out more clearly than others.
"...after all this time... all that I've done for you...you deny me this one little thing... you've always enjoyed it... like good old times, darling... pay the premium... better deliver... goods... worth paying for..."
A low grunt of words and the woman's purr followed the snatches of conversation as they continued to swirl in my head like a storm picking up wind.
Appalled at the suggestion of those sensual but stunted phrases as they started to come together in my brain, I found my feet carrying me forward, stopping just by the sitting room where I had a view of the bedroom to my right.
Oliver's frame stood by the doorway, his shirt gone, his arms spread out and braced against the doorjambs as if it kept him steady on his bare feet which were spread slightly apart on the floor.
His head was thrown back, the muscles on his sculpted back tensing tightly as his hands curled into fists—a stance that indicated the strain of either violence or lust coursing through him.
A dainty hand was hooked on Oliver's left back pocket and I could see the outline of the woman on her knees in front of him. I didn't need to hear her soft moans to know exactly what she was doing. The wet, sloppy sounds of sucking and Oliver's harsh breathing were enough to tell me just what it was she was doing to my husband.
My fucking husband.
I suddenly no longer had a heart—just a block of ice floating inside of me—heavy and terribly cold.
The woman's head tilted to the side, showing me half of her face. She was beautiful from what I could see of her—dark-eyed, dark-haired and seductive—and clearly enjoying what she tasted of Oliver.
She caught sight of me and I drew myself up straight despite the icy stabs of pain that were clutching at my chest. But instead of stumbling back in horrified guilt, she smiled smugly at me before leaning her face even closer to Oliver's crotch, watching me with an evil, unblinking gaze as she took him deep and stole a low groan from him at last.
I jerked back in disgust, biting my bottom lip so the sob on my throat wouldn't escape.
As if watching a slow-motion train wreck that left me sick and close to hyperventilating, I backed away, dropping Oliver's phone on the plush carpet with hardly a thud just before my shuddering back encountered the cold metal of the door handle. I turned around, eyes filling with a rush of hot tears, and twisted the knob open with cold, trembling hands. I stumbled on my unsteady dash down the hallway, tears scalding my cheeks and my breath coming out in short, uneven gasps.
Wanting to get away from the horror of Oliver's betrayal, as if it were some kind of plague that was closing in on me fast, I bruised my knuckles on the panel when the damn elevator wouldn't open fast enough. When it finally did, I threw myself inside of it, glad that it was at least empty and bursting out in a hysterical laugh that I had something to be glad about when everything was so awfully painful.
Bitterness rose with the bile in my throat, sharp and acrid, burning a path close to the heart I could no longer feel.
I couldn't remember how I made it to my room.
All I could remember was that when I did, the moment I collapsed on my knees, hands clutching my stomach as if I could rip out the part of me that hurt so much, I threw up on the carpet and passed out.
***
So, what do you guys think?
Was that hard to read? Probably. It was hard for me to write but we knew it was going to blow up. Something to probably realize now is that the men in the CBB series are going to be quite flawed and their love stories are not going to be fairytale-easy but that's why we read them, right? To go through that rollercoaster ride. This is not to say that when some of these things happen to us in real life that we should act the same way. Fiction is not usually the rule but the exception so keep that in mind.
Anyway, more things will make sense in the next chapter and we'll see where these two land. Hope you stay tuned.
I'm a bit better than I was last week but I'm still coughing pretty bad. Hope I'm on the mend though.
Thanks again for reading and make sure you vote and comment!
XOXO,
Ninya
♪♪♪ Chapter Soundtrack: You Ruin Me by The Veronicas ♪♪♪
Job well done
Standing ovation
Yeah you got what you wanted
I guess you won
And I don't want to hear, they don't know you like I do
Even I could've told you
But now we're done
'Cause you play me like a symphony
Play me till your fingers bleed
I'm your greatest masterpiece
You ruin me
Later when the curtains drawn
And no one's there for you back home
Don't cry to me, you played me wrong
You ruin me
I know you thought
That I wouldn't notice
You were acting so strange
I'm not that dumb
And in the end I hope she was worth it
I don't care if you loved me, you make me numb
'Cause you play me like a symphony
Play me till your fingers bleed
I'm your greatest masterpiece
You ruin me
Later when the curtains drawn
And no one's there for you back home
Don't cry to me, you played me wrong
You ruin me