Marry Me Now: An Arranged Marriage Collection

14

I don’t even remember how we found the cave. I just remember running across the sand, my hand in Luke’s. Every few feet he’d stop and pick me up and whirl me around, kissing me, before he’d set me back down again to run some more. When we finally stumble across the cave, set deep into the cliff face, we can’t even hear the music down the beach anymore, or the crackle of the bonfire. There’s just the slow, steady crash

of the waves, and the whisper of the wind between the rocks over our heads.

He spreads out his coat again, and this time he’s the one who sits down, right before he pulls me onto his lap, holding one of my thighs to each side of his waist so I’m straddling him, my hike splayed over his lap. He wraps strong hands around my waist and draws my hips down against his, until I can feel the hard throb of his cock beneath me.

“I love you, Celia,” he repeats, and it feels more meaningful than ever now, everything we’ve done, all the sex we’ve had.

I arch my hips against him, dragging my crotch against his, savoring the hard press of his cock against my pussy, through the fabric of my panties. “I love you, Luke,” I whisper back, just like I have a million times before in my head, in my fantasies of this moment.

It feels so much better in real life than it ever could have in my imagination.

He uses his thumbs to hook under my panties and tug them down. I reach down to push off his pants at the same time, and it doesn’t take long before we’re naked again, skin to skin, me poised over him on the sand. He guides me toward him, until I feel the press of his cock against my lower lips, and then between them.

“I love you,” he repeats, just as the tip of his cock finds my entrance and presses inside. I let out a little half-moan of pleasure and sink lower against him, lowering myself onto his cock inch by inch.

“I love you,” I whisper back, once he’s fully inside me, every inch of him filling me up, stretching me, making me feel full. My pussy aches from last night still, but it’s a pleasant, bone deep ache. The kind that only makes me want more.

But it’s different this time. He guides me, setting the pace, and we move together slowly, sweetly. It’s not a searing hot, rough wildfire like our sex has been before. It’s a slow build. He holds me tight against his chest, so I feel every inch of our bodies pressed together, his naked skin against mine, his cock buried deep inside me. He drops one hand between us to run his thumb gently across my mound, before dipping it lower to graze my clit, until I gasp.

He smiles, watching me. “So fucking sexy,” he whispers, as he strokes me, gently at first, then a little faster, enough to make my head fall back as I arch my back into him, nearing a peak. “God, I love watching you come, Celia,” he murmurs, even as I let myself go, let the orgasm sweep me away for a second, rushing through my whole body.

He keeps going the whole time, gently rocking up into me, slow and steady until neither of us can stand it anymore. “I want to feel you come,” I murmur. “I want to feel your cum inside me, Luke.”

He obeys me this time, tightening his grip on my hips and speeding up his thrusts until he’s driving up into me, again and again, until I can feel the shudder building in him. When he comes, I pull him against me, kissing him hard to muffle his groan. I feel it in every inch of his body, the pleasure, the release. The way he breaks apart to gaze at me with awe, like I’m some kind of magical, beautiful creature who he can’t quite believe is with him right now.

I know the feeling. I slide off his lap, and we lie side by side on the sand, face to face, on top of his coat. He traces my lower lip with his thumb. I reach up to run my fingertips along the sides of his face, his jawline, the edges of his lips.

“Did you mean it?” I whisper, eventually.

“Did I mean that I love you?” he responds, reaching up to pull me against him more tightly. His lips find my temple, my cheek, my jawline. He nudges forward, kissing the spot where my neck meets my jaw, and I gasp a little before I sink into him, surrendering.

“No,” I breathe, trying to keep my heart rate steady, my breath from hitching. “Did you mean it… when you said that the dream doesn’t have to end?”

He pulls back, and I freeze, worried I’ve done something wrong. He shifts me off him and stands, and then he wraps both hands around mine and tugs me to my feet.

“What are you doing?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer me. He just takes my left hand in his, ever so gently.

“Can I have the ring back, Celia?”

My heart sinks. So, no, he meant. He didn’t mean it. The fantasy does have to end. Trying to ignore the sting in the back of my throat, I reach up with shaking fingers and slide the ring off my finger, before I pass it to him. I hold my breath, unsure what he’s doing. Unsure what any of this means now.

“I don’t want you to be my wife for now, Celia,” Luke murmurs, and my heart starts to stutter, to beat faster with fear. But then he sinks down in front of me, onto one knee in the sand. He’s still holding my left hand in his—he never let me go. “I want you to be my wife forever,” he says, kneeling in front of me, looking up at me in the dim glow from the moon that’s starting to rise outside our little cave. “Will you marry me for real, Celia?”

My eyes sting with fresh tears all over again, but these are happy tears, tears of joy. It takes me a moment to find my voice. I just start nodding at first, and he laughs, and then I laugh too, and it all bursts out of me at once. “Yes. Yes, Luke, I’ll marry you for real.” He slides the ring back onto my finger and stands, picking me up in his arms and spinning me around, sand flying around our feet.

He kisses me, again and again, and I smile into the kiss, unable to stop. When he finally sets me back on my feet, we’re both breathless, laughing. I lift my hand and wiggle my ring finger, studying the diamond in the light.

“It feels heavier now,” I observe. “Like it really means something this time.”

When I glance over, I find him studying me closely, through hooded eyes. I recognize that look. It’s the look he gets when he wants me, so badly he can hardly stand it.

It’s one of my favorite looks.

“That’s because it does,” he replies, taking a step toward me. He catches my hand and brings it to his lips, kissing the ring first, and then each of my fingertips in turn. “It’s because this time, the ring was given with intention,” he says, smiling. I smile back. I wonder if I’ll ever stop doing that instinctively, smiling at him whenever he does. I hope not.

“I love you, Celia,” he whispers. “I can’t wait to be your husband for real.”

Copyright © 2019 Penny Wylder

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or businesses, organizations, or locales, is completely coincidental.

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1

Mara

“To girls’ trip!” My best friend Lea laughs and raises her shot glass to clink it against mine.

I take a deep breath, trying not to let the cloying scent of tequila or the stickiness of this nightclub floor get to me. Or the absolutely terrible layout and lighting situation. Did they really think blue underlighting would flatter anybody? Amateurs. I knock my shot—calling it a glass feels far too classy for the plastic neon glowing-in-UV-light container—against Lea’s and toss it back without breathing again. That helps to dull the immediate throat and nostril burn of the tequila as it slides down my throat.

With a triumphant “Ha!” I slam my second shot down against the countertop. The cheap plastic container promptly breaks in two pieces. I shoot the bartender a wry smile as he reaches over to scoop it up, rolling his eyes.

Lea, on the other hand, elbows me, looking for all her worth like a proud mama bird who’s just shoved its poor fledgling out of the nest headfirst. “Look at you! Mara Greene, a regular party girl. Who’d have thought.”

I roll my eyes. “This is not going to become a trend, Lea.”

“Hey, a girl can dream.” Her grin widens as she grabs my hand and tugs me toward the dance floor. This particular overly loud beat does sound pretty familiar, in a way that reminds

me of college, where Lea and I met. She was the loud and bossy socialite majoring in acting, I was the nerdy shy girl on stage crew who preferred to operate the spotlight rather than stand in front of it. Normally you wouldn’t peg the two of us as being a good match, but Lea marched right up to me after I worked on a background set for her solo tryout, wrapped me in a hug and announced that anyone as good with staging as I was had to be her friend.

We’ve been close ever since. Even if we don’t share too many weekend activities—Lea’s more of the club scene girl, and I’m more of the “in bed by 9pm so I can wake up pre-dawn to go fishing with my father” type.

A pang that has nothing to do with the tequila strikes me right in the chest. Right above my heart. I rub at it, wincing, and try to force my thoughts away from my father. It’s been two years since he passed, but it still hurts just as much as it did on the day he died.

“Are you gonna start dancing, or do I need to buy you another tequila?” Lea shouts in my ear over the heavy thud of the bass.

I sway my hips in tune to the music and she flashes me an approving grin. I have to admit, after the tequila works its way into my bloodstream and I start to work up a sweat on the dance floor, it does feel nice to cut loose.

“So?” Lea calls again, when that song peters out and before the next one gets up to full speed. “How are you loving Vegas?” Her eyes twinkle with amusement.

I laugh and roll my eyes. She talked me into driving out here from LA where we both moved after graduation last summer. Lea’s waitressing and going on auditions every spare moment. And me? I just landed my dream job. Like an actual, honest-to-goodness stage coordinator gig, designing and building props for a huge media company, Pitfire Media, hosting their first play at the biggest theater in the city.