Marry Me Now: An Arranged Marriage Collection

Epilogue

Mara looks incredible in that gown. It’s bright red, tight in all the right places. A cascade of glitter and silk. It flares in just the right place to hide the bump underneath.

Less than a month now, until the newest member of our family joins us. I can’t wait to meet him—we opted to find out the sex in our last ultrasound. We’re having a boy. My parents would have been thrilled, if I hadn’t cut them out of my life for the time being.

It won’t be forever. I’ll let them see their grandchild someday. It’s important to Mara that we rebuild a relationship with them at some point, too. After all, family is family. But for now, I’m strong-arming my parents until they behave and start to treat my wife with the respect she deserves.

No more gold-digging comments. No more implying she’s some kind of kept woman, or anything less than the brilliant architect of the best reviewed play about to leave previews in this city.

Tonight is opening night. Everything we’ve worked toward. And even eight months pregnant, Mara looks like the most beautiful woman on the red carpet tonight. She blows all the actresses out of the water, without even trying.

And I’m the lucky man who got to show up on her arm.

“How does it feel to be married to LA’s biggest startup heartthrob?” one of the reporters asks, and Mara catches my eye. I’m standing a little to the side of the red carpet, her purse tucked under my arm.

One glance is all it takes for me to read her mind, and I step in, bringing my hand to rest against the small of her back. “Shouldn’t you be asking me that question?” I tell the reporter with a grin. It draws a laugh from the surrounding reporters. But it does the trick, too. I watch them jot down a note, and the next person to address Mara does it properly.

“What were some of your biggest challenges in creating this set?” they ask her.

Mara flashes me a grateful wink, and turns to answer for herself, talking enthusiastically about the design, the props, everything that went into giving this play the background life it needed.

There’s already been buzz about the sets. Talk of award nominations. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mara wound up with awards on her first attempt out in this business. After all, it’s just the kind of perfectionist she is.

Just the kind of career-focused woman I married.

The reporters ask me a few questions as well, and I give my usual talk about Pitfire, about our goals as a company, and how this play ties into them. Toward the end, unprompted, I add a little about how it’s been working with my wife—about how she inspires me to push myself, to question my decisions, and to always improve on old ideas. To never settle for the easy way, the way everyone expects you to take.

The reporters lap that up like kittens with spilled milk. I’m usually not one to give interviews about my personal life or to talk about my dates with the general public. But this is different.

Mara isn’t some date I’ve got on my arm for the time being. She’s my wife. She’s my forever. And I’ll always be happy to tell the world how much better she makes my life and our work together.

When we finish with the press gauntlet, we’re finally allowed into the theater. Mara loops her arm through mine, and I tug her close to my side, one hand slipping around her waist, then lower, unable to resist, tracing the familiar curves of her ass. She shivers against me, and shoots me a little half-annoyed, half-turned on glare. One I’ve gotten used to over the last eight months together.

“You are terrible,” she whispers, but she’s grinning as she says it.

“So that’s a yes, you will meet me in the bathroom in fifteen minutes?” I whisper back, one eyebrow arched, a grin fixed on my mouth.

She rolls her eyes. “You don’t want to even watch the play that we just spent months preparing?”

“We’ve seen the dress rehearsals approximately a hundred times,” I point out.

“But this is different. It’s opening night.”

“Which means the actors will all be nervous, and it will, frankly, be worse than the first rehearsal,” I fire back, and she laughs, but rolls her eyes in that way that tells me she knows I’m right. Even if she doesn’t want to admit it.

I expect her to resist, but her lips purse, and she studies the balconies. Then, to my surprise, she shoots me a sly smile. “I have a better idea.”

It doesn’t take us long to give the reporters the slip. After all, they aren’t allowed past the main lobby—except for the ones who have tickets in the orchestra section, down on the first floor. Mara and I climb up to the top together, and she slips a key out of her pocket. The key to the rear projector room—one with glass windows, and a view of the stage. But we put the sound board for this show one level down. The only things in this room are spare parts, extra bulbs for the huge spotlights… And a nice view of the stage, with our own private lock and key.

“Good thinking,” I murmur, grinning as she pushes the door open. I don’t wait, but drag her through it, one arm around her waist, and pin her against the windows, my lips going to her neck, tracing down the line of her dress toward her cleavage. “I knew I married you for your brains.”

“I thought you married me because I was the sexiest bad dancer you ever met,” she counters, wriggling her hips against mine to demonstrate. Between the bulge of her belly and the sexy shimmer of those hips, it’s enough to drive me wild. I trace my hands over her stomach, following the wide curve over and down, until my hand slides between her thighs to cup her pussy.

She gasps a little, shifting against me as her desire builds.

“That too,” I reply, grinning. “And for how fucking sexy you look in this dress… do you know how hard it’s been to keep my hands off of you tonight?” I murmur, my hands sliding around to grip her ass, pulling her against me quickly.

She can already feel the hard bulge in my suit pants, I’m sure. I’ve been hard as a rock since the moment we stepped into this enclosed space. “Probably as hard as it’s been to stop myself from getting too wet,” she replies, shimmying against me. “After all, I’m not wearing any panties under this thing…”

“I also married you for your dirty mind, you know.” I smirk.

“Dirty, or practical?” She arches an eyebrow with a grin, as down below us, the house lights dim, and the stage begins to brighten. “At least from here we have a view.”

Gently, I

turn her around so she’s facing the window too. And then I draw her dress up, inching it higher and higher, my hands tracing along the hem as I do, fingertips trailing up the back of her thighs until I reach the crease where they meet her hips. I run my hands over her firm, tight ass, squeezing hard, drawing her back against me, grinding my hips against hers, before I dip one hand between her thighs.

She wasn’t lying. No panties whatsoever. And clearly the wet factor really was becoming a problem. I stroke a finger along her soaking wet slit, coating my fingertip in her juices, swirling it against her entrance.

“My wife really is impressively dirty,” I murmur against the back of her neck, my lips moving against her skin.

She shivers and arches her back against me. “My husband sure knows how to tease and toy with me,” she replies, her breath so hot it fogs the glass she’s leaning against.

Down below, the curtains part to reveal the stage she worked so hard on. The play that’s a culmination of my long dream.

Our dream, now. Like everything else in our life, we share it. And we work best together. United.

“You are incredibly talented, you know that, Mara?” I nod toward the stage. “Look at what you built.”

“What we built,” she corrects softly, leaning back to kiss my cheek, even as I continue to stroke her slit faster, feeling her growing even wetter beneath my touch. “We did this together.” Her hips arch beneath me, and I suck in a sharp breath as her ass grinds against my rock-hard cock.

“It’s sexy, how well we work together,” I reply.

In the foggy glass, I catch the reflection of her grin. “I couldn’t agree more.”

Below us, unaware, the play begins. The actors recite their lines—lines that, like I told Mara, the two of us have already heard at least a hundred times. But she’s right, too. There’s something different about tonight. About this being the real thing, the true first performance—even if there have already been reviewers sitting in on rehearsals for the bigger newspapers. Tonight is the night that will determine the play’s real performance. How the LA theater crowd—and the world’s bigger crowd on the whole—views it.