I reached over to the bedside table and show him the fuzzy handcuffs. “I thought I’d been naughty, so I was going to let you punish me.”
He didn’t laugh.
Instead, he cuffed me to the headboard.
“That doesn’t mean we can’t use these. If you want a long engagement, then it just means I get to take my time giving you everything.”
The things he did to my body that night make me blush to this day, and we’ve done plenty of exciting things in the bedroom since then. More importantly, what he does to my soul…every day…makes me light up from within.
And now, it’s our wedding day, and it feels like time has flown by.
The year-long engagement has allowed Bear and I to really get to know each other.
Everyone from the TV station is there, as well as everyone we met on the road that fateful Christmas Eve night. Even the camel, and little Mary-Violet.
Jenna and Violet have outdone themselves.
The New Year’s Eve wedding night is a riot of snowflake decorations, candles, glittering white lights, and red poinsettias.
The dress that Jenna has picked out for me hugs me in all the right places, especially at my hips. The plunging open back makes me nervous, but, as Jenna says, “I’ve seen the way he looks at your ass. You’re wearing this dress.”
Violet, of course, steals the show in a majestic Dolly Parton costume. I had let it slip that Dolly was my favorite singer, and there was no walking Violet back from that decision.
Everything is perfect, but the only things I really care about — Bear and the cake — are beyond perfect.
When Violet declares us husband and wife, Bear scoops me up, much like he did a year before, on the night we met. Everyone cheers and claps as he kisses me deeply, passionately on the mouth.
But instead of putting me down, he starts walking us down the aisle, just like that. “Where are you taking me?”
“I’ve waited long enough to call you my wife, now we’re going to go mark the moment,” he growls.
Bear carries me all the way backstage to one of the prop rooms, and locks the door behind us.
“Not up against the door again,” I say, but actually not caring how this plays out. His urgency has me wet and ready.
“No. Here,” he says, nodding to a large, ornate throne that must have been used in some kind of big, elaborate burlesque number.
I scoff. “We can’t do it on Violet’s throne! After everything she’s done for us, that’s so disrespectful.”
He rumbles, “Trust me, baby.”
“What other choice do I have?” I ask, teasing.
My Bear sits down on the throne, spins me around so I’m sitting on his lap, my back to him. I’m about to ask the question, but he’s already answering it with his hands and his mouth.
His lips and tongue are urgently ravaging my bare back. His hands are sliding underneath the fabric of my dress, reaching around to the front, cupping my breasts. My nipples ache for his touch inside the corset that contains them.
“Baby, it’s too much work to take all of these undergarments off, just to put them back on again in time to cut the cake.”
He grunts, “We can skip the cake and go home.”
I grab his wrists, “What did you just say to me?”
He’s growling now. “Babe, if you want that damn cake you’d better figure out a way for me to make you pregnant right this second.”
I moan at the commanding tone. I like it when he’s bossy.
Knowing that he’s going to do wicked things to me in my wedding dress is getting me even hotter, and I’m starting to worry about soaking right through the chiffon. My body trembling in anticipation, I stand up and hike the hemline, gathering all the fabric up to my waist.