People were more ticked off than I had expected over the lack of a wedding night chapter… Again, sorry! Looking back I can understand how the no-sex thing might seem like a long set-up for such a chapter, but when I first wrote that in I wasn't even going to include the reception, the idea was to let the ceremony be the final chapter… Ironic, since I didn't end up having a ceremony chapter. All I can say is, I apologize.
As always, thanks a bunch to my reviewers! Whether you are positive or critical, I really appreciate anyone who takes the time to let me know what they think.
Just past nine o'clock in the morning on Christmas Day Chuck woke Blair up with a kiss. She gave him a tired smile before stretching and purring contently. She had already made up for one sexless week in the three days that had passed since the wedding. Only twenty-five to go and she intended on getting started on it right away.
Eyes closed she reached over to grab Chuck and give him a kiss, and was startled to find he wasn't there. Surprised she opened her eyes just in time to see him stand up and slip into his robe. She frowned and pouted.
"Hey!" she said. "Get back here. It's Christmas and I have something I want to give you."
"That's endearing" he smiled, tossing her the other robe. "Come on, get up."
"It's Christmas" she whined. "A day to lounge in bed. I don't want to go outside."
"Neither do I" he said. "But since when is Christmas a time to lounge in bed?"
"Since you got married" she said. "Come on. Breakfast in bed…"
She stuck a leg out from underneath the comforter and suggestively ran a hand from her knee to underneath the covers. Chuck's eyes followed her hand and she could see that he was tempted. She grinned.
"And I will be dessert."
"Wonderful as that seems…" he said with a gulp, "we really ought to get up. I already ordered breakfast, and it's been set up in the kitchen."
"Big bore" she pouted.
"Love you too" he said and left the room.
With a sigh she realized she wasn't going to get her way, and she flung the comforter off her and sat up, slipping into her robe. She walked over to the bathroom to freshen up and after one glance in the mirror realized why he hadn't been up for anything amorous. She wasn't the most enticing sight at the moment. Her hair needed to be washed, not to mention brushed, she had dark circles under her eyes from the lack of sleep and a quick sniff was enough to assure her that she desperately needed a shower.
Fifteen minutes later she had taken a quick shower and washed her hair. She was back in her robe, which really ought to be sent to washing, and she walked back into the bedroom pleased to notice that he wasn't there. She wasn't going to give up without a fight, she was getting her way with him, especially now that she was freshly showered and looked better. She opened her small suitcase, the one she had packed on her own, and with a smirk decided what to wear.
A few minutes later she was back in the bathroom, brushing her teeth when he came in and wrapped his arms around her from behind.
"Didn't you hear me tell you breakfast was ready?" he murmured against her neck before placing a kiss there. "It's probably cold by now."
"Needed a shower" she said, mouth full of toothpaste.
"You're so sexy when you're brushing your teeth" he teased.
She ignored him and finished brushing. He had of course already been up to shower and brush his teeth before he woke her up. It was a bit annoying that he was always a step ahead of her in that regard, getting to be clean and fresh and without morning breath when she first saw him in the mornings.
When she was finally done he took her hand and led her out towards the kitchen.
"I'm effing starving" he announced. "I have to eat like a horse to keep up with all the energy you're making me spend."
He flashed her a grin and led her inside the sitting room with the fireplace and the tree they had decorated the previous afternoon. Her eyes were on him at first, but when he stopped she stopped as well and looked around. What she saw made her gasp and a hand automatically flew up to her mouth.
When she had left the room yesterday the signs that it was Christmas had been limited. They had the tree, a few gifts underneath it and stockings on the mantelpiece. The room she saw now looked vastly different. There were ornaments in place every here and there, the decorative pillows on the sofa had been replaced with Christmas themed pillows and cinnamon scented candles were burning while soft Christmas music played from the stereo. But the biggest surprise was that the room was filled with gifts, far more than she could even begin to count. Wide-eyed she took in the sight and then turned to look at him.
The look in his eyes clearly showed how pleased he was with himself and with her reaction. She wanted to say something but it took her a moment to be able to form words.
"Chuck… What on earth have you done?"
"Happy Christmas to you too" he smiled.
"Happy Christmas…" she answered mechanically, taking another look around. "Look at all these… gifts! I knew you like to spoil me, but this is insane."
"Oh don't get too self-centered" he chuckled. "These aren't all from me to you. These are for us both."
"From who?"
"Well I don't know if you recall, but we had this wedding a few days ago and--"
She gave him a playful punch on the arm, cutting him off and causing him to laugh.
"These are our wedding gifts" he clarified.
"I… don't have the slightest clue how you managed to get them all here" she gasped.
"By air" he said, shrugging a shoulder.
"Yeah, that part I figured."
"Like I said, I wanted to make sure it was memorable" he said, wrapping his arms around her. "So do you like it?"
"I love it" she said, a grin spreading on her face. "But… How and when did you get all of this in here? How could I not have noticed?"
"You really think I carried all of these gifts in here?" he asked. "Please. I may have a romantic streak to me, but physical labor is where I draw the line. I arranged this, but the working bees did the actual work."
"That still doesn't explain the how and when. I never left the cabin after we left this room yesterday."
"I made sure they had access to a key" Chuck said, shrugging a shoulder. "Last night when we were out in the hot tub they began sneaking stuff in… Then I made sure to keep you occupied. Come on, you wouldn't have noticed if a parade of elephants had passed through our bedroom last night."
"I hope these walls are soundproof" Blair sighed, slightly uncomfortable at the thought. Then she thought of something else. "How are we going to get all of this back home?"
"Same way I got it all here?"
"It's much more difficult to transport stuff once it's opened and--"
"Stop worrying" he said, cutting her off. "Seriously… do you like it?"
"No" she said, shaking her head. Then she grinned. "Like I said, I love it. It's like the largest collection of Christmas gifts ever! Come on, let's start opening them!"
"Not so fast" he said, grabbing her hand as she was about to skip over to the gifts. "There's one more thing, and you failed to notice it. Look above you."
She looked up and saw a mistletoe strategically hung above the doorway they were standing under. She let him pull her in for a kiss, discreetly letting her robe slip open.
"Thank you" she mumbled against his lips. "Seriously, I can't believe you arranged all of this. You're awesome."
"I am" he agreed and kissed her again.
"Okay, I want to open presents now" she said with an excited giggle.
"Breakfast first" he said. "There are a lot of gifts in here. We need to refuel before we can get started on all of this. There are two breakfast trays over on the coffee table."
With a sly smile she pulled away, gave him a look and backed slowly into her room. When she did he noticed that her robe was open and she was wearing Christmas themed lingerie underneath it. He swallowed hard and her smile widened. The look on his face as he let his eyes run up and down her body left no doubt that she had him right where she wanted him.
He took two steps up to her and slid the robe off her shoulders before running a hand up her side. She shot him a playful frown and wiggled a finger at him.
"Uh-uh" she said. "None of that. We're having breakfast."
"You just put yourself on the menu."
"Yeah, no, no sweets before you've had a proper breakfast" she said sweetly, enjoying her upper hand. "Some toast? I'm starving. Was that porridge I saw on one of the trays?"
She bent down and picked up her robe, pulling it back on but letting it hang open. She then walked over to the sofa, sat down and treated herself to the breakfast laid out for her.
Chuck snickered and walked over to her, sitting down as close to her as possible. He moved her hair, still wet from her shower, away from her neck and placed a kiss where he knew he would get a reaction. He then picked up a piece of toast and took a bite.
"There" he said. "Now I want you."
He leaned over to kiss her but she placed two fingers on his lips and gently pushed him back.
"Uh-uh" she scolded with a smile. "I'm eating. Finish your breakfast."
"Is this your way of thanking me for getting all our gifts here?" he asked dryly.
"What? You were the one who said we should start with breakfast" she said innocently.
"And out of all the times you could actually do as I ask, this is the one you choose?"
"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day."
He shot her a look, but obediently began to eat. Every now and then he cast her a glance. She was contently humming along to the music, eating her breakfast like she had no care in the world and all in all acting as if she wasn't sitting next to him in very tempting lingerie on the third day of their honeymoon.
She was very pleased with herself. Her original plan had been to distract him from breakfast entirely and use the table for other purposes, but this was a lot more fun. He had turned down her advances earlier in the morning and now he was getting a taste of his own medicine.
She finished her breakfast before him. When he was done he turned to grab her, refusing to wait another moment, but she skipped up from the couch with perfect timing, leaving him fumbling in the air.
"I feel like a child at Christmas" she declared, clapping her hands with excitement.
She turned and the excited look on her face was one of such genuine happiness that he couldn't respond with anything other than a matching smile, and for a second he forgot that he didn't want to start opening gifts right away. But only for a second.
"Come on sloth, let's get started" she bubbled.
"Oh I intend to" he said seductively.
He got up and walked over to her, pleased that she had stopped right on the bearskin rug. She let him kiss her before plopping down in front of the crackling fire, taking a good look around her to determine the best strategy for opening all the gifts.
He got down next to her and with a hand on her cheek firmly turned her face towards him and leaned in for a kiss. She let him kiss her for a while, still with no intent of letting him have his way with her but enjoying the fact that he thought he was.
"So do you want to open the first one or should I?" she then asked casually, as if she had no idea what was really going on in his mind.
He leaned back and took off his robe, which left him wearing nothing at all.
"There" he said. "I went first. Your turn."
"Maybe we should start by opening our gifts to each other" she mused, showing no reaction at all to his lack of clothing. "After all, they are the actual Christmas gifts. And it would be kind of sad if they lost momentum after we've opened the other three hundred or so gifts."
It frustrated him to no end that she was ignoring him, or pretending to at least, so he decided to ignore her chatter right back. Gently he pushed her down until she was on her back, and with a grin he noted that she didn't resist but instead stretched out obediently. He leaned over and started kissing her neck, more than done with her little power play. Having been a good boy during six months of engagement the last thing he wanted now was for her to play hard to get.
"Only problem is…" she continued, trying to sound unbothered by his actions but not entirely able to hide her reaction, "we put our gifts there yesterday and they're at present hidden somewhere behind a wall of wedding gifts. Maybe we can open our Christmas gifts tonight in bed?"
He looked up.
"First decent thing you've said in a while" he mumbled, before continuing to feel her up.
She reached above her head and grabbed a gift, holding it up and studying it with faked interest. She didn't care a bit about the gifts at this point, but she wanted to string him along for as long as possible.
"Chuck, darling, would you mind getting a notepad from my suitcase in the bedroom?" she said sweetly.
He looked up at her with complete disbelief.
"That is the strangest sexual metaphor I have ever heard" he said. "Translation please."
"A notepad. From my suitcase" she clarified, grinning inside at the look on his face. "We need to write down who gave us what."
"You're not serious…"
"I'm dead serious! How are we supposed to write thank you cards properly later if--"
He shut her up with a kiss, forcing her mouth open with his tongue. She kissed him back and he knew he could win this game.
"One more word out of you…" he gasped when his lips left hers, "and I will grab your hands and tie them down with some tinsel so you can't open any stupid gifts."
"Threat or promise?" she smirked.
He shot her a look before standing up and pulling her to her feet. She looked surprised, having not anticipated this move. He slid the robe off of her again and removed the satin belt, rolled it into a ball and stuffed it in her mouth.
"There" he said.
She burst out laughing from the sheer ridiculousness of it all, removing the ball of satin from her mouth and untangling it.
"God, you're worse than a little kid on Christmas" she laughed. "But okay… If your self-control is that lacking then…"
He smirked at her.
"Oh I think I've proven since June that my self-control is far more apt than it should have to be."
She wrapped the belt from her robe around his shoulders and sat back down, pulling him down with her.
"Right…" she said seductively. "I believe I still have some making up to do for those six months… If my husband so pleases."
He grinned widely as she finally decided that the game was over. The presents could wait.
-
By the time they would normally have lunch they weren't even close to halfway finished with opening the gifts. They were on the floor, Chuck with his robe loosely wrapped around him while he leaned against the armchair by the fireplace, Blair sitting between his legs with a blanket wrapped around her front. They took turns opening wedding gifts and were in no hurry to get through the large collection of presents.
"Uh-oh" Chuck said, reading the card on the next gift he had picked up.
"What?" Blair asked.
"Jack Bass sent us a gift. This can't be good. We should have had a bomb squad check it before daring to open it."
"Oh come on, how bad can it be?" Blair asked.
She picked up her notepad and wrote down Jack's name, then turned her head to see what he had gotten them. Chuck eyed the box, gave it a little shake and seemed to contemplate not opening it at all. Blair gave him a nudge and he reluctantly opened the parcel.
When he saw what was inside he jolted and flung it off on the floor with a startled look on his face. Blair frowned and leaned forward to see what was inside.
"We should congratulate your uncle on finding the world's weirdest wedding gift" she said as she picked it up and shook it about.
It was a rubber spider in a box, with a card attached to it. Blair put the box down and picked up the card.
"I was not expecting that" Chuck said, eyeing the box with dislike.
"I could tell. It's not alive, you know. But if it had been, it would have been dead now anyway after you shook it around like that."
She read the card and shook her head.
"It says that now that we're married we're going to start building our own home, and no home is complete without a pet. Apparently he's sent a real tarantula to your penthouse, complete with terrarium."
"That's disgusting" Chuck said. "He probably thinks you're afraid of spiders and wanted to freak you out."
"You're afraid of spiders."
"I'm not afraid of them, I'm disgusted by them."
"Whatever" Blair said. "You're going to have to get used to them, apparently."
"What, you want to keep it? Why aren't you afraid of those things, anyway?"
"I don't know, I guess I just see too many similarities between myself and the arachnid" she said, shrugging a shoulder. "Spinning our webs, cutthroat attitude, fondness of silk… Dorota's hysterically afraid of them though. She's going to hate this."
"You seriously want to keep it?" Chuck asked with disbelief, glaring at the rubber spider with disgust. "In our home?"
"Why not? Great way of sticking it to Jack, who probably thinks we'll both freak. Plus we can show it to unwanted guests and they'll be quick to leave. Hey according to this card it's a girl spider."
"So?"
"We could call her Jackie. In honor of the person who gave her to us."
"You think Jackie is a good name for a tarantula?" Chuck asked. "Isn't it a bit too… pedestrian?"
"I like it" Blair said, shrugging a shoulder.
Chuck groaned and reached for the pillow sitting on the armchair. He threw it over the gift Jack had sent them, far from willing to keep looking at the thing. He hated spiders. Meanwhile Blair wrote down "Jackie" as the gift Jack had sent them and then put her notepad down before reaching for another gift.
"This one is from Serena" she said. "I'm guessing this won't be a pet."
He muttered something under his breath and reached for his mug of hot chocolate while she opened the present. Inside was a large glass jar and a bag of marbles. Chuck frowned.
"A jar… and marbles. Marbles, really? Is this Serena's way of telling us she lost hers?"
"Oh, I get it" Blair said and leaned back against his chest. "We were talking about it the night before the wedding. They say that if a couple puts a marble in a jar every time they have sex during their first year of marriage, and after that they take one out each time they have sex, they will never empty the jar."
"Remind me to thank my sister for giving us a chance to prove otherwise" Chuck said and grabbed the marbles and the jar from Blair so she could jot it down in her notebook. "But we're going to need a bigger jar. And a lot more marbles. I pity Serena's sex life if she thinks this will be enough."
He opened the jar and the bag, fishing out a handful of marbles. He counted contently as he placed one marble in the jar for every time they had had sex since the wedding. Blair smirked and made a mental note to thank Serena for this rather clever gift. Even more clever of her to bring it up the night before the wedding.
"Should we bother putting the lid back on the jar?" Chuck said. "We're going to be putting a whole lot of marbles in this thing."
"Best put the lid on for now" Blair smiled. "Hey what do you say we take a break? I'm starving and it's about time for lunch."
"I don't want to get up" he complained.
"Then don't. I'll go order us some food."
"Dressed like that?" he asked as she got up. "Or should I say undressed like that?"
"What?" she giggled. "I can use the blanket as a toga if you prefer. Or I can put the lingerie back on."
"Actually that would be kind of fun" he grinned. "The thought of you opening the door to let room service in dressed like that."
She smirked and picked up the discarded underwear from the floor before leaving the room to order food. He leaned back further and sighed. He hadn't wanted to get up, and he most certainly hadn't wanted her to get up either. But she had a point. His stomach was starting to growl loudly, and the thought of some lunch was very appealing. What energy he had gotten from breakfast was more than spent by now.
After a while she came back to the sitting room with a tray with something that smelled like pasta. By that time he had moved and was now sitting in the armchair. She sat down on his lap and revealed that she had indeed ordered one huge bowl of Pasta Alfredo. She took a bite and grinned, finding the food to her liking. She tried feeding him a bite but some of the pasta sauce missed its mark and landed on his bare chest.
"Ow!" he complained. "Okay, I'll feed myself I think."
"Sorry" she said before licking the pasta sauce from his chest.
"We're eating" he pointed out. "Try not to turn me on until after lunch."
"You are a big bore today" she smirked but obediently handed him the fork after taking another bite for herself.
-
Blair took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the scent of flowers, and closed her eyes for a second. She opened them and smiled happily at her dance partner. Diego was a tourist from Spain who had been complimenting her for days, asking her to save a dance for him at New Years. Now it was New Year's Eve and she had agreed to a dance with him.
She cast a glance over Diego's shoulder. Chuck was watching them with a smile from his spot over by the fountain. She had been surprised that he hadn't said anything when her new admirer came to collect his dance. Hopefully this didn't mean he had his sights set on dancing with one of the hot women present.
They were at a New Year's Eve dance a couple of miles from the beach house they had been staying at since they arrived four days earlier. Blair had insisted they go out dancing and Chuck hadn't objected, even though she knew he had hoped they would spend the evening alone together. But the thought of dancing the night away at such a lovely location was too tempting for her to pass up on, so they had had an early dinner together at the house and then changed their clothes and head off.
She was wearing a floor-length, sparkling dress in royal blue, a dress made for dancing in. Chuck had given it to her for Christmas, though probably not with the intention that she'd wear it for the first time at a party. He liked dancing as foreplay, but dancing out in public didn't quite serve the right purpose, especially not when her dance partner was her new fan from Spain.
When the dance was over Blair got a round of kisses to the cheeks, a declaration of her beauty and a kiss on her hand. Diego seemed set on making the most of the moment he had, but before he could get too carried away Chuck came up and grabbed her hand for the next dance. She gave Diego an air kiss, thanked him for the dance, and let Chuck lead her into the next.
"Poor fellow" Blair sighed. "Destined to forever love a married woman."
"A hundred bucks says he won't remember you two weeks from now" Chuck said.
"Hey!" Blair objected. "I'm memorable!"
"Well, who am I to argue Claire?" he teased. "But I wouldn't take his love for you all too seriously."
"You're just jealous" she smirked. "You should be thankful you managed to land such a hot wife."
He laughed and twirled her around on the dance floor. It was just past eleven and they had been at the party for a few hours. Diego wasn't the only man who had wanted a dance with her, but so far he hadn't been too accommodating to the men who wanted to test her skills in waltz and tango. He was getting more than a little sick of people always trying to cut in when he danced with her.
"Let's go for a walk" Blair said when the dance was over.
"A walk?" he echoed. "Really?"
"Lovely as this evening is, I'm getting a little tired of the crowd" she said. "And it's really hot here with all these people, I could really use some cooler air and a bit of solitude."
"What happened to my wife the party animal?" he asked.
"She'll be back shortly" Blair said. "She just went for a walk."
She led him through the crowd of dancing couples out to a little path that led down to the boardwalk by the beach. Holding his hand she walked slowly, taking several deep breaths as they passed by more kinds of flowers than she knew to identify. She loved how this place seemed to smell like flowers at all times. They walked in silence for a while, him letting her set the pace and direction.
"I can't believe our honeymoon is almost over" she finally said, breaking the silence.
"Two weeks go by fast" he replied. "Especially two weeks like these."
"We should have gone for a full month" she sighed.
"I know… But reality calls. I have to get back to my business and you have to get back to college."
She nodded in the dark, glancing down at their hands while they walked. Her left hand was in his right, the way he preferred. He had obediently walked on her right side during the engagement, and now that they were married he was back on her left. The whole circus that had begun when he got down on his knees in the limo seven months ago would be wrapped up in a few days when they returned to New York. Sure, they still had some things left to do before everything wedding related was taken care of, but the end of the honeymoon felt like the official end of the wedding circus.
In a way it made her feel sad. The wedding had been on her mind day and night from the moment she said yes to his proposal. She had waited her whole life to be a bride, to get to plan her dream wedding, and for seven months the upcoming wedding had overshadowed all other things in her life. Now it was almost over, and it was bittersweet. Why was it that you could spend years and years looking forward to one moment, and when that moment had come you almost felt disappointed that you didn't have that thing to look forward to anymore?
"What's on your mind?" Chuck asked when she had been silent for almost five minutes.
"Just… nothing" she said, offering him a smile.
"You seem a bit melancholy" he said. "Is something not the way you like it? Is there anything you need?"
"I have everything I need" she replied with a content sigh and rested her chin against his shoulder for a second. "I have you."
"Then what?"
"It just hit me that it's all really over in a few days" she said. "As far back as I can remember I've dreamed about my wedding. Now what am I supposed to dream of?"
"What is it with women and weddings?" Chuck sighed. "If I didn't know better I'd think you wanted the wedding more than you wanted the marriage. If that's the case then I'm sure we can have an annulment and get married all over again. Of course once we've done that a few times, people will stop showing up to our weddings."
"Ha ha" she said, making a face at him. "I don't want to get married again. I don't ever want to be a bride again. It's a once in a lifetime thing for me, that is what makes it special. But when you've achieved a lifelong goal you sort of find that it leaves a bit of a void. I need to find some other goal to strive for instead."
"How about your college degree?" Chuck suggested. "And after that, perhaps you and I should start thinking about starting a family?"
She nodded slowly.
"Yeah… Listen, I'm sorry if I sound disappointed that the wedding is behind us, rather than excited that our marriage is beginning. It's just that it was such a wonderful day, it was everything I wanted it to be, and those were some pretty high standards to live up to seeing as I've dreamed of it since childhood. I'm so excited to be married, but it's a bit sad to know our wedding day is over and will never come again. For the record though Bass, throughout all the craziness this year it's being your wife that I've wanted, not being your bride. I guess I'm just feeling the same kind of blues that you do whenever you leave a milestone in your life behind. Like the way it felt to graduate high school, or move out of my mother's penthouse…"
"Weren't you the one who said to me the night before the wedding that the wedding was the beginning, not the end? In fact, didn't you just say something to that affect thirty seconds ago? Feel a bit low that the wedding has come and gone if you wish, but on the other hand, we can always renew our vows in ten or twenty years."
She chuckled.
"Good point" she nodded. Then she looked up at him with a smile "Anyway, why waste time thinking about that now? It's still our honeymoon, it's only the second week of our life together, and it's New Years Eve."
"Speaking of, 2012 officially comes to an end in about twenty minutes" Chuck said, glancing t his wristwatch. "We need to get a move on if we want to make it back to the party. Welcoming the new year on a dark pathway isn't exactly what I had in mind."
"You forget, tonight is about what I had in mind" Blair said. "You planned Christmas, I planned tonight."
"I somehow doubt you planned for us to celebrate it out on this path."
"Who says that's what I had in mind? Don't you see where we are?"
He looked up and realized she had led them back to their beach house. She had taken a back route he hadn't even known was there, and it made him wonder when she had had the time to discover this path and where it led.
With his hand in a firm grip she walked up to the patio and fished out the key from his pant pocket. He smirked and let her lead him inside the empty house. Without saying a word he followed her through the rooms on the bottom floor and up the stairs leading to their bedroom.
"I was thinking…" she said as they reached the top of the stairs. "We should start our own new tradition. That's what families do. They make their own traditions."
"If you're thinking what I think you're thinking then we might find what you have in mind kind of difficult to keep up year after year" he said. "We usually spend New Years with other people."
"This year we're not" she smiled and closed the bedroom door behind them. "This year we're celebrating New Years Eve Bass style. But first… One more dance."
That's it for now. Hope you enjoyed the read.
