Unlikely Hero

“You’d be willing to move here?”

“I don’t have anything in St. Augustine to hold me there, Allen. I have my shop, but it’s not exactly catching on well there. Miami is a busy area. I can see if I can find a place here for my store.”

“Jessie—”

“I mean, I’m not pressuring you. I know we’re barely seeing each other. This thing between us happened fast, but eventually, I mean… you know, not right away,” I rattle on, feeling my face heat with embarrassment.

“How long do you think you need?” Allen asks.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“I mean how long do you think you need before you know if I’m the one for you?”

“I don’t need time, Allen. I knew that from the first moment, but I mean men are different and—”

“I knew it too, Jessie,” he says, interrupting me.

“You don’t have to say that, Allen. I know I’m—”

“One look in your eyes and it felt like the world exploded around me. You are it for me, Jessie. I love you, and no amount of time will change that. I’ve loved you from the first moment I saw you.”

“That sounds crazy,” I whisper, tears gathering in my eyes. Happiness spreads through my body in a way that makes me know it will always be a part of me now. “Completely crazy, but I feel the exact same way.”

“Then, I guess that just leaves one question.”

“What’s that?”

“How soon will you marry me?”

“Marry you?” I ask, shock spreading through me.

“Oh yeah, Mouse. I can’t wait to have you legally mine. Plus…”

“Plus what?” I ask, laughing as he buries his head in my neck and kisses me.

“Plus that means we get to have a honeymoon.”

“We could start the honeymoon now…”

“Oh we will, but I want you in a bikini on the beach in Cabo, making love to you in the warm air, and the smell of the crystal blue ocean on the breeze.”

“What if I wanted to honeymoon in Alaska?”

“Then I’ll make love to you in six feet of snow and risk freezing my balls off. It doesn’t matter, Jessie, as long as I get to make love to you and as long as you’re my wife.”

“Allen, stop talking. I need you,” I whisper, my hand wrapping around his cock.

He groans and pulls me up until he’s lined up at my entrance. We stare at each other, and I use my leg that’s wrapped behind him to pull my body into him. He slides inside of me.

We make love slowly, our gazes locked on one another and it’s perfect.

Absolutely perfect.

Epilogue

Jessie

One Week Later

I look out over the beach as the sun slowly explodes into a rainbow of color. Slowly my gaze comes back down and that’s when I see Allen.

I walk toward him, my simple white dress flapping gently in the breeze against my legs. I’m holding a bouquet of blue flowers that Allen picked out specifically for today and I’m barefoot. Allen’s wearing a simple white dress shirt which has the first few buttons unbuttoned. It’s loose and flowing in the wind. He has on white slacks and he’s barefoot too.

I laughed when he told me what he was wearing. I mean, I know why I was wearing white, but his response made my heart swell with love for him.

“I was your first, Jessie, but honestly you were my first, too. You’re the first person I’ve made love to, the first woman to ever touch my heart, and the one person in this world that I want to spend the rest of my life with. You’re everything to me, Mouse—absolutely everything.”

If I live to be one hundred and four, I will remember those words for the rest of my life.

As I make it up to him, I know there are tears in my eyes. I can’t stop them. They’re tears of happiness and I’ve never been happier than I am in this moment. I don’t think it’s physically possible.

Roman, Ana and their son are standing there with Allen. They’re the only ones here and that makes it perfect. I didn’t really have family or friends and that means by marrying Allen, I gain that too. Ana and I are already close friends and I only see that getting stronger.

“You look beautiful, Mouse,” Allen whispers as he takes my hand and pulls me closer into him.

“I was thinking the same about you,” I respond.

He doesn’t say anything else, as the minister begins the ceremony. I listen to his words, thinking I should be nervous, but I’ve never been more sure of anything in my. life. I expect him to start the vows, dying to say those two words that will make me Allen’s wife. But Allen surprises me.

The minister looks at Allen with a kind smile.

“Allen has prepared his own vows,” the minister says. For a second I feel like I can’t breathe, those tears which have kind of died down now that the ceremony has begun, slowly begin to sting my eyes again.