“I don’t care.” Hudson increases his speed, and I know him. He isn’t going to stop until I come. He’s grunting with the effort, and through the sudden blaze of pleasure I hear the director call my name again. God, I’m so close. She’s going to hear me come. Hudson crushes my lips with his just as he plunges deep. It’s the last spark I need, and I go over the edge, shaking in his arms. He’s coming too, I can feel the warmth spreading in my pussy and it sends me further into my orgasm. It feels like hours until I come up breathing again, completely wrecked from all the sensation.
Hudson lets me down slowly, and I’m glad that I wore a long dress because his come is now running down my legs and into the rocks. The director calls again. “Over here,” I answer back.
She peeks around the corner and spots us in the dark. “We’re ready for you.”
“I’ll be there in just a second.”
I watch her nod and head back inside before turning and playfully punching Hudson in the arm. “She almost caught us.”
“I know,” he grins.
“You’re lucky I love you.”
He catches me around the waist again. “I love you too.” His voice is serious. “Now let’s go and make your speech and wine and dine these people so I can take you home and fuck my fiancée all night.”
“All night?” I ask him as we walk back inside.
“You better believe it,” he says. “You can challenge me, if you like.”
I roll my eyes. He loves his challenges. “I think you do that enough all on your own.”
The gallery director spots us and waves us over to the low dais where I’m supposed to make my speech. Oh man, I’m going to feel sick. There’s a tray of champagne nearby, and Hudson grabs two glasses and hands one to me. “Everyone, can I have your attention?” he calls.
“In just a second, this lovely lady is going to thank you for coming, but I wanted to say first that I’m the happiest man in the world because she just agreed to become my wife.”
There are cheers and applause and I find myself blushing. He doesn’t stop though. “So please join me in raising your glass to my new fiancée, Christine Everett. One of the best people I know and a rising star on the photography scene.”
Everyone in the room raises their glasses, including Hudson, but he doesn’t drink. He presses a soft kiss to my lips, to the cheers of the crowd. “Knock ‘em dead,” he says. “I love you.”
“Thank you,” I whisper. “I love you too.”
I look out over the crowd and take a breath, not afraid anymore.
Epilogue
Somewhere in the Bahamas
The nights we’ve had like this remind me a bit of Phoenix. The sky is perfectly clear, a deep blue expanse of sky with nothing but gorgeous stars. But I have to say, I prefer these nights with the sound of the ocean in the background.
It really has been the perfect day, and I look down at both my rings as they sparkle in the moonlight. The tide washes up around my feet and pulls the sand out from around them and back out to sea. Earlier today, Hudson and I got married. Married. Every time I think the word just an insane amount of happiness bubbles up in my chest and I can’t keep the smile off my face. When we get to Phoenix we’ll have a wedding reception for everyone to enjoy, but we wanted this to ourselves. No chance of my family interfering or causing any kind of drama, just the two of us and our vows. And now, just the two of us on a remote private beach, with nothing to do but enjoy each other for the next two weeks.
Hudson is asleep now, but I have too much energy to sleep. I’ve never been this happy in my life, and right now I don’t want to miss a second of it by sleeping. I wiggle my toes in the sand, loving the feeling of it massaging my toes. I’ll have to move soon. The tide is coming in and I’m going to be soaked soon.
I hear footsteps behind me, letting me know that my husband is approaching. That same giant smile crosses my face at the word husband. Hudson sits down next to me, nothing but a light pair of pants on his body, and I think I could stare at him forever in the moonlight, body a map of shadow and list what makes me want to capture it with my camera.
“Can’t sleep?” he asks.
“I probably could,” I say. “But I don’t want to.”
He chuckles. “Why?”
“I don’t want to miss anything. It’s too beautiful. Too perfect.”
His arm slips around my waist. “Yeah, you are.” Even after all this time, I blush when he says things like that. Without warning, he pushes me back into the sand, leaning over to kiss me. “If you don’t want to sleep, I could think of other things we could do.”
“Oh, really? Like what?”
His lips graze my ear and down to my collar bone. “Naughty things.”
The water rushes up my legs, cool and refreshing “If you want to do any naughty things we might have to move.”
“Or we could stay,” he says, “Haven’t you always wanted to have sex in the ocean?”
He’s got me there. “I do. But maybe not tonight.”
“In that case,” he says, kissing me as the water rushes up and around our shoulders, “let me help you.” He stands and swings me into his arms as if I weigh nothing, and carries me back to our little house on the beach. It’s the perfect little cottage with a bedroom that has doors that open right onto the beach. But instead of tumbling me onto the bed like I expect, he carries me into the bathroom.
“Sand,” he answers the questioning look I give him. Right. Sand. He turns the shower on hot and then we’re both under the stream of water.
Hudson takes his time undressing me, pressing his mouth to the skin that he uncovers, tossing the wet clothes out of the shower. “If not the ocean,” he says, “then maybe just water.”
He runs his hands across my breasts, and I let out a moan. It seems like I never stop wanting him. I’ll never stop wanting him and the pleasure he gives me. I strip his pants off and find his cock already hard. Mmm. Hudson grabs my hips and turns me towards the shower wall. The cool stone sends goosebumps across my skin that contrast with the heat of the water and his body behind me, and the scrape of it on my nipples sends ripples of pleasure straight down to my clit.
“I wonder,” he says, rubbing his cock against my ass, “if taking you like this will ever not remind me of that night in the club. With the St. Andrew’s cross.” His hands are stroking down my back, dipping between my legs to tease my clit, and my breath is shallow.
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Hell no,” he says. “It makes me hard as a rock. Too bad I can’t restrain
you in here.”
I shudder, remembering the night he’s talking about. It’s one of my favorite memories too. Hudson takes my arms and pulls them behind my back. Pressing his body hard against mine, they’re locked in place. “Don’t move,” he says softly in my ear. As if I could. As if I would want to get away. Tipping my hips back, his cock slips inside me. I’m not used to the feel of him like this, bare, with nothing between us. We agreed that we could go without condoms once we got married, and this feeling, it makes what was already exquisite that much better. My knees are already shaking.
He leans back a little, keeping my hands bound with one of his as he starts to pound into me. He’s not gentle, but that’s not what I need right now. It’s explosive. White light breaks open behind my eyes and I cry out as he pushes himself into me again and again. Ever since we’ve been here we’ve both been in a state of arousal, and nothing ever seems like it will be enough. He thrusts faster, and an orgasm crashes over me like the waves we were just sitting in, and I feel the rush of it flowing down my legs.
Hudson turns off the water, hauling me out of the shower and spreading me out across our bed, towels be damned. He’s over me in a second, sliding back in, and I moan as he reaches the hilt, buried in me so deep I don’t ever want him out. “How many orgasms have you had today?” He asks.
It’s hard to think, still coming down from the adrenaline rush of the last one. “I don’t know. Three?”
“I’ve decided your right. Everything is too perfect to sleep.”
I look at him, suspicion rising. “What are you saying, exactly?”
“I’m saying that I want to fuck my wife until the sun comes up and see just how many times she can come.”
My eyes close on their own, a sharp line of arousal searing through me. Hudson moves his hips and I arch up to meet him. I’m ready to come again just because he said that. He speeds up, and I bite my lip because it feels so good. I love this delicious friction of his skin on mine. Sex feels entirely new, and it’s glorious. He pounds into me, faster and faster, until I’m begging him to send me over, but he doesn’t, keeping me on the edge of pleasure until I think I might go mad.