“I’m proud of you, son,” he says. Then Mr. Quint—Antoine, I’m going to need to practice this—turns to hug me next. “And I’m so excited to welcome you into our family, Dee.”
“Oh, goodness.” Kara starts, grabbing my arms to spin me around. “What are we going to do for an outfit, though? I don’t know if I have anything white that would be your size…”
That’s when another voice pipes up, from a little side nook off the main room that I didn’t even notice earlier. “I’ve got the perfect thing.” Jasper’s cousin Sofia pokes her head around the corner. She has a half-finished breakfast plate in her lap and an apologetic look on her face.
“I woke up early. Wanted to sneak away for breakfast before the kids got up. Sorry, I didn’t mean to spy, but you all sort of just flooded the room before I could warn you I was here…”
Jasper laughs. “It’s fine, Sofia.”
Sofia extends a hand to me. “I never thought I’d get a chance to use this dress. It doesn’t fit me, now I’m starting to show, but… well, come and take a look, Dee.”
The next day is a whirlwind. Word slowly makes its way through the armada of cousins, and together, Jasper’s family pulls together everything almost as smoothly as though this had been the plan the entire time. I know it’s a whirlwind, but somehow, after wearing his engagement ring practically since the day we met—first the fake one and now the real one—and after calling him my husband for days, it doesn’t feel rushed or hurried to be getting married to him now.
It feels like it has been inevitable all along. Like somehow, deep down, from the moment we first met, this was always going to turn into the real deal.
And having Jasper’s entire extended family in town for it only makes it more perfect.
The resort is accommodating, too. Originally the fourth night we were here was supposed to be a big family dinner, for which Jasper’s father rented the ballroom banquet hall in the resort.
Now, however, when that fourth night arrives, I peer through a crack in the door into a room transformed. Jasper’s little cousins, Sofia’s kids and Chloe’s twins, helped tie together bouquets of flowers, which dangle from wall sconces and decorate the backs of the chairs Jasper’s uncles lined up in neat, orderly rows. With the chandeliers lit, and candles all around the front of the room, where the hotel helped set up a little dais with an archway above it, the place looks like the kind of wedding hall you’d plan for months to get perfect.
Instead, in what seems to be our luck, we just stumbled into it by accident.
I turn back around for one last double-check with Sofia.
“You look stunning,” she tells me, smiling wide. She’s in a jaunty little green summer dress, ruched and lovely on her. She’ll stand next to me at the altar, as my maid of honor, and Jasper’s father will be his best man.
“Thank you again for the loan,” I say, taking another spin in her gown. It’s a beautiful white off-the-shoulder dress, knee length and made from silk that feels amazing against my skin. It could pass for a cocktail gown dress in summer, but on me now, paired with the bright blue heels we borrowed from another cousin and with a veil one of Jasper’s aunts dug out of her suitcase pinned into my hair, it looks like exactly the type of wedding gown I would have chosen for myself. Subtle, not too over-the-top, but beautiful in an understated way.
“Of course. But actually…” Sofia smiles at me. “I shouldn’t be the one walking with you right now.”
A frown-line appears between my brows. “What do you mean?”
“Jasper sent one last little surprise…” Sofia steps aside, crosses to the far end of the little alcove where I’m waiting, and sticks her head around the corner. “Come on in.”
Melissa steps into the room, a huge, ear-splitting grin on her face, dressed in a gorgeous blue dress that compliments my dress perfectly.
“Holy shit!” My jaw drops. Before I can even properly react, she’s launched herself across the room and wrapped her arms around me tight. “How did… how’d you even…?”
“Jasper found me on your Facebook page,” she admits into my shoulder. “He noticed we’re listed as sisters on there.”
I laugh into her hair. An old joke, that sibling listing, which we put up years ago. Because Melissa’s my only real family left, and always has been. “But…”
“He emailed me last night. Explained everything. Offered to book me a flight here, all expenses paid. How could I say no to Greece?” She smirks up at me. “Oh, and I guess my best friend’s wedding, that too.”
I laugh and hug her again. “I can’t believe him.”
“You’ve got a real keeper, Dee.” She squeezes my shoulder. “I’m so happy for you. You ready to do this thing for real?”
I glance from Melissa to Sofia, beaming. “Ready as I’ll ever be.” The three of us turn together to face the aisle before us.
Through the gap in the door, I can see the whole family assembled. And there, at the head of the dais, waiting for me beside his cousin Alexander, who it turns out has one of those online minister degrees we’d joked about in our fake wedding ceremony, is Jasper. He’s wearing a tux and black tie, and with his hair falling across one eye, the way it always does, and his beard freshly shaved, he looks like he could be modeling for GQ right now.
Is that really the man I’m about to marry? Part of me has to resist the urge to pinch myself and make sure I’m not dreaming.
“Go get him, girl,” Melissa murmurs, right before she and Sofia open the doors to stride up the aisle before me.
Right on cue. Somewhere in the distance, Jasper’s aunt Alyssa strikes a cord on the piano. A song I recognize begins to play, and I have to smile to myself at the choice. Jasper picked a song we listened to on our first getaway in Newholme, at a little beachside cafe with a string quartet playing for coins out on the boardwalk outside.
To that, I walk through the double doors and into the next chapter of my life.
17
Jasper
I hold Dee in my arms and spin her across the floor. With the makeshift wedding room we put together now cleared away into dance floors and buffet tables, we have plenty of space to move. I spin her through the air, away from me and then back again, catching her in my arms and dipping her backward over my arm a little.
Her eyes flash when I pull her upright again, and I’m struck all over at how lucky I am. How impossibly perfect Dee is.
“Are you enjoying yourself, Mrs. Quint?” I murmur as I pull her flush against me for the tail end of our first dance. The music fades out, a new song strikes up, and my cousins, aunts and uncles flood the dance floor in pairs and gaggles.
“More than you could possibly know, Mr. Quint,” she whispers against my ear. The whisper of her lips against my skin drives me wild. All I can think about is tonight, what I plan to do to her once I get her back to our suite, all alone in my arms.
My wife.
A few days ago I was already calling her that, and it sounded so right, despite the fact that it was all a sham. Now… Now it just feels natural. Normal.
Perfect.
“I don’t know about that,” I murmur in response, pausing to nip playfully at the soft spot on her neck just below her ear. I savor the faint sigh of desire she makes. “I think I have a pretty good idea how enjoyable this whole day has been. And every day, in fact, since the day I first met you.”
She turns her gorgeous smile on me then, and I can honestly say I have never been happier in my entire life.
We eat, drink and dance the night away with my family. We listen to my father’s embarrassing toast about how he can’t wait for the grandkids. Melissa, Dee’s best friend, who I mistook for her sister online, but who’s turned out to be an even more perfect addition to this wedding, delivers an equally embarrassing toast about Dee’s exploits. Dee dabs her teary eyes through my mother’s toast about how overwhelmed with gratitude she is about being able to witness our special day and be here with us for it.
Sofia
cracks us all up with story after story of the crazy shit I did when we were growing up together. Then Alex starts in on more embarrassing details about my childhood, and I finally have to intervene and save the day.
“Dee,” I say, when I take the microphone from—well, more like wrestle it off of—Alex. “When I first met you, I knew there was something different about you. Something remarkable.” I hold her gaze, hope she hears the note of humility in my tone. I do still feel bad about what made us pull her file out of the pile, what made Greg recommend her to me. But not that bad, because if Greg hadn’t picked Dee to be my fake wife, we wouldn’t be here today. I’d never have met her, never have gotten to know her vivacious personality and everything else that makes her impossible to forget.
“Every day since then,” I continue, “you’ve proven to me, over and over, that I was right that first day. You’re the perfect match for me. The perfect wife. And I promise you now, I will strive to be the perfect husband for you, in turn, in all the days left to come. Thank you for shaking up my life, Dee.” I flash her a secret little smile. “And for forcing me out of my abject bachelorhood.”
Laughter fills the room.
“I love you, and I wouldn’t have this any other way.”
I love you, Dee mouths back, and my heart could burst.
* * *
“Finally alone together, Mrs. Quint.” I tighten my arms around her. Run them along her curves, exploring her skin through the silky fabric of her dress. “Now, I think it’s time to take advantage of my husbandly duties for the first time.”
She grins up at me, eyebrows raised. “Is that so, Mr. Quint?”
“Oh, yes.”
We’re on the balcony outside our suite. The rest of the resort is dark, lights out, most people passed out asleep, stuffed full of food from the buffet and drinks from the open bar tab we kept running late into the night. Somewhere far down below, in the gardens on the first floor, I see a pinprick of light, catch distant strains of voices, too far away to make out, from the aunts and uncles still up late gossiping.
But up here, on the terrace, it’s just the two of us and the moon overhead, full and bright, shining down and illuminating Dee’s skin and eyes so she looks otherworldly.
She shifts against me, and I feel every inch of her body against mine like a shot of adrenaline in my veins. My cock jumps against my zipper, strains toward her. I tuck her hair behind her ears, cup her chin in both hands and tilt her face up toward mine, claiming her mouth with mine, savoring the feel of her velvety soft lips parting under mine, the twine of her tongue through mine.
She turns back toward the room, but I stop her with one hand, a smile tugging at the edges of my mouth.
She draws back from the kiss, and her eyebrows rise. “Out here?” she whispers.
I glance around us, pointedly. Aside from the lights far down in the garden, not visible unless you lean over the edge of the terrace, there’s nobody else awake. And no one down there could see us up here either. “Why not?”
Her cheeks flush in the moonlight. “I married a dirty man, didn’t I, Mr. Quint?”
“My wife has a dirty mind herself,” I counter, stepping toward her and reaching down to catch the hem of her gown. I lift it up slowly, teasing, enjoying the sight of her skin being revealed inch by inch in the moonlight. The warm breeze hugs us from all sides, but I still notice goosebumps rise on the edge of her neck when I draw the dress completely off, and she stands before me in a lacy little bra and thong set, a sexy barely-there lingerie outfit like I’ve never seen on her before.
If I was hard before, that’s nothing compared to the pulse of white hot desire I feel go straight to my cock now.
“You like it?” Dee turns, and the sight of her tight ass in the thong makes me want to bend her over the railing right now and take her. But I plan to take tonight slow. I plan to enjoy every inch of my brand new wife.
My wife. Just the thought makes this hotter—knowing she’s mine, we belong to one another.
“I love it,” I reply. “But I’d like it on the floor better.” I smirk. She reaches to hook a thumb under the thong, but I stop her. “Not yet.” I tilt my head. Undo my tie first, and toss that back into the room, before I start to undo the buttons on my tuxedo shirt.
It takes me no time at all to strip down, and when I pull off my boxers, Dee’s gaze goes straight to my cock, her tongue wetting her lips like she can already taste me—like she’s as hungry for me as I am for her. “I want to feel your cock inside me, husband,” she murmurs, and the sound of those words make me tense even more. “No condoms tonight.” She raises her eyes to mine.
“I agree.” I step toward her, eyes locked. Closer and closer until the tip of my cock presses against the soft, velvet-smooth skin of her belly. She reaches up to cup me between her hands. “I want to take you raw. I want to come inside you, wife.”
She shivers with delight, and strokes her hands along me, gaze locked to mine. “I want you to put a baby in me, husband,” she whispers.
Only then do I hook my fingers under her panties. Slowly ease the thong down her legs, and kick it aside. She steps toward me, but I grab her hips and spin her around. Bend her forward, so her chest touches the wide railing on our balcony. I spread her legs and position myself behind her, both of us looking out over the amazing view. But me, I have eyes only for the view right beneath me. My wife, looking sexy as fucking hell when she turns around to gaze up at me over her shoulder, her lower lip caught between her teeth in a taunting, teasing smirk.
“You want to take me right here, husband?” she asks, voice low. “In front of God and the whole world?”
“Fuck yes I do.” I slide my hand between her legs, pausing to cup her ass, massage it between my firm fingers. Then I slide those fingers down to her slit, slipping between her lips to run my middle finger through her slick juices. She’s already soaked for me, and she only gets wetter as I begin to stroke my finger along her, coating my finger in her juices, making her so wet that a trickle runs down her inner thigh before I finally position my cock behind her, raw like we said.
I trace my tip along her slit now, collecting her juices, coating the tip of my fat cock in them. “Do you want me to claim you, wife? Do you want me to make you mine once and for all?”
“Fuck yes,” she gasps, her voice hissed through her clenched teeth. “Take me, Jasper. Fuck me, right here.”
I press into her slow, an inch at a time. She twists against me, pushing her hips back to try to speed me up. But I pin her in place with one hand, and reach around with my other to tease her breasts, drawing one from the confines of her lacy bra to massage with my hand. She moans and arches her back forward toward the sensation, and I roll her hardening nipple between two fingers, pinching her just hard enough to let her feel it, not enough to hurt.
“God your pussy is so fucking perfect, Dee. Have I ever told you that?”
She bucks back against me, but I tighten my grip on her waist, hold her there, bent over the railing, and take my time stroking in and out of her. Long, slow strokes so she can adjust to my girth, feel the full length of my cock as I stretch and plunge into her pussy. “You… might have… mentioned,” she manages to pant.
Her moans grow longer, lower, throatier, as I start to move a little faster, thrusting into her now, both of our bodies rocking with the motion. She lifts her tight little ass toward me, and I pause caressing her breasts to lightly swat her ass, just hard enough to make her gasp and buck in surprise, not enough to hurt.
She flashes me a coy smile and reaches back to grab my ass, pull me forward into her again.
Eventually I build up to a rhythm, fucking her hard from behind, loving the sight of her tits bouncing below her and her eyes, still on mine with her head half-turned toward me, hooded with pleasure.
“You like that, wife? You like feeling my thick raw cock in your pussy?”
I slide one hand down the plane of her stomach, until I reach the mound of her pussy. If I h
old my hand there, I can feel the pressure from my cock thrusting in and out of her, stuffing her full all the way to her belly. Then I circle my fingers around the edges of her clit, moving closer and closer to it in concentric circles.
“Fuck… Jasper… I’m going to come, fuck. Don’t stop.”
Before long she cries aloud, unable to stifle the sound, and gasps, her pussy convulsing around my cock, gripping me like a fist when she comes. But I can tell from the way she glances around us that she’s worried someone will have heard that. So before I near my own climax, I pull out of her.
She lets out a little mewl of protest, but I just reach down and flip her up into my arms and carry her back across the threshold. “Enough sharing you with the whole world tonight,” I say, my voice a low growl. “You’re all mine now, wife.”
Back inside our suite, we collide with the wall, and I wrap her legs around my waist. She tightens them around me and grips my shoulders to hold herself up, while I position my cock against her entrance again. I hold her there, pinned against the wall as I thrust in and out of her, fast thrusts that grow faster as the pressure starts to build at the base of my cock. “Come again for me, wife,” I say, tilting her head to kiss her neck, her shoulder, the spot where they meet. “Come for me, Dee.”
Her breath speeds up as I continue to fuck her. I angle her against the wall so my cock curves up against her inner walls, stroking over her G-spot, my tip dragging against that little sensitive spot until her breaths become pants and moans of desire. “I’m so close, Jasper. Don’t stop.”
“Tell me you’re mine, Dee.”
“I’m yours. Fuck. I’m yours,” she says, the second time louder, nearly a shout, a cry, as she rushes over the edge into another orgasm, stronger than the last. Her legs tense around me, and her toes curl, her fingernails digging into the bare skin of my shoulder as the orgasm races through her.