Chapter 10: Picture Perfect

Spencer's POV

As I shut the front door, kissing the last of our guests goodbye, watching the last of the tears and smiles and hearing the last of about 400 congratulations, I lean against the door, almost exhausted, and find her smiling at me from across the room. She has a handful of wine glasses and makes her way into the kitchen to set them by the sink, her eyes never leaving mine.

"Let's clean up in the morning," I urge her as she starts to turn the sink on. I walk up behind her, wrap one arm tightly around her waist, and turn the faucet off with my free hand. Turning her around, I tell her, "We have all day tomorrow. It's Friday, remember?"

A look of satisfaction comes across her face, and she begins rubbing my back. "No argument here. What do you say we go to bed early tonight?" She feigns a yawn and pats her lips.

"Somebody sleepy?" I ask with mock disappointment. "Ok, fine, let's go to bed…"

As I pull out of her arms and start to turn towards the stairs, she grabs me roughly and pulls me back into her front. "Just to be clear…" she begins and her hot breath is in my ear…"we may be going to the bedroom, but we are not going to sleep anytime soon."

I feel the wetness immediately form between my legs. I turn and pull her into my lips, our lust suddenly growing exponentially as we moan and groan and grasp one another hungrily. I think to myself that over the last two weeks, Ashley and I had made love almost every day or night, sometimes multiple times and every time it was earth-shattering and amazing. But our love-making, while hot and passionate and sensual and fulfilling, had been a little on the sweeter side of things in the aftermath of our engagement. As I feel Ashley desperately pulling at the hem of my dress and pulling it up over my body, I look at her and we both knew that tonight we are not making love, we are going to fuck.

I crash our faces together again and our tongues battle sloppily and hungrily. She picks me up so that I am straddling her waist and we make our way up the stairs. She literally throws me on the bed and I lay there in my bra and panties, waiting for her with such anticipation I am about to touch myself.

"Get it out…" I point towards the nightstand but she's already read my mind.

Neither of us can speak, but our heavy panting and satisfied murmurs say everything our minds are trying to convey to one another. I pull myself closer into her and glance at the clock. It's after two in the morning. I look at the picture of us Ashley had brought to the beach house and remember my gift that had been forgotten. I slip out of the sheets.

"Hey! Where are you going?' She groans and reaches for me.

"I'll be right back," I promise as I walk to the dresser and grab the present I had wrapped with some white tissue paper and tied with blue ribbon. Turning back towards her, I hold the present in front of my naked body.

"What is that?" She sits up and I see her face light up with that same childish, but adorable Ashley look that makes my heart swoon.

"Well, it's an engagement present," I say shyly as I take my lower lip in between my teeth.

"Well what is it?" She exclaims as I join her on the bed. I laugh loudly at her impatience.

"Ash, I am not telling you what it is. You have to open in, silly." I set the present in her eagerly awaiting hands, and curl my legs up under me. She hops up and folds her legs under her, fingering the ribbon and smiling lovingly at me. "Open the card first," I urge, knowing Ashley, while an absolute poet in every card she has written to me, would love to skip cards altogether and get to the gifts underneath. Again, just like a child.

"Okaaayy…" she says slyly as she opens the envelope. It's a black-and-white portrait of two women, sitting at an outside café, laughing. The inside of the card is blank. I found it in the "friendship" section. I guess they don't make a lot of "my lesbian life-partner just proposed and I want to tell her thank you" cards, so a card meant for friends is the only one I could find with two women. I had to insert my own fitting message.

She reads the words out loud to me. "Dear Ashley," she begins, and smiles at me before continuing. "You have spent the last ten years making me the happiest girl in L.A., but in Malibu, with a beautiful ring and a proposal that you expressed from your heart, with nothing but the tips of your fingers, you succeeded in making me the happiest girl in the entire world." She grabs my hand, and brings the ring to her lips, kissing it sweetly like she has so many times since putting in on my finger. "The feeling is mutual baby," she says so honestly.

"Keep reading," I urge her.

"I cannot wait to spend the rest of my life with you, me beautiful love. I hope each time you look at this, you remember how happy I was on that day, and how happy I continue to be with you by my side. I love you baby, Spencer."

She looks deep into my eyes and I know she is thinking about kissing me, but I cannot wait any longer. "OPEN IT!" and with that, childish look back on her face, she tears open the tissue paper and throws it aside. Holding the photograph up so she can get a better look, I see the face of a little girl turn to that of a woman, a woman very much in love with the other woman sitting in the bed with her, a woman who is looking at her whole future in a simple black and white photograph, in a black frame, taken the day after she asked that other woman to marry her.

"Spence, it's amazing…" she starts slowly and I can see her eyes glisten with moisture. She traces her fingers over the glass, right where my face is positioned in the picture. "It's perfect," she says, softly and honestly, letting a single tear fall down her cheek.

I scoot around so I am sitting next to her, her head on my shoulder as we stare at the photograph that depicts the joy and love between us. I look at Ashley's beautiful face, her lips pressing softly against the ring, her head lower than mine so that she is gazing up in my eyes, the smile on my face absolutely genuine as I gaze back down at her. The picture is perfectly close up so that you can just see the tops of her swimsuit straps and the tops of mine. It's so unbelievably intimate that it's hard to believe it was captured, that it was somewhat staged, though not really as it was very much just us in the moment.

"Claire outdid herself, darlin'" Ashley kids in a hilarious southern accent. I giggle and kiss her cheek.

"You look just as purty as a piece a pumpkin pie, darlin," I play back and we both laugh uncontrollably.

Wiping the tears from her eyes, from her earlier emotion over the picture and then from our outburst, she gets up from the bed. She picks up the picture of us that currently sits on our nightstand and moved it to the top of our taller dresser, replacing it with the new photo. "Perfect," She exclaims and runs her fingers over the glass one more time before re-joining me on the bed. "Thank you, beautiful," she says sincerely as she cups my cheeks in her hands.

"I'm glad you love it as much as I do," I whisper glancing at the picture again and closing my eyes, feeling the breeze and hearing the ocean in my head, almost feeling the warmth of the sun on my body again. As I open my eyes, I realize the warmth is Ashley's hot breath on my skin. I wrap my arms around her neck and settle into the bed and her warm sweet kisses…