A/N: This time I want to give special thanks to one of my most loyal readers, Melanie. You really shook me out of the hibernation I seem to be in lately. Of course I'm grateful for all the other reviews as well, it still amazes me how much you guys like what I've written. I hope you keep enjoying.
TOW the happy day
The next day they came into the coffeehouse together, greeting Phoebe, Mon and Chandler who sat on the couch.
"Hey guys."
Phoebe looked up at them and grinned widely. "Hey, look. It's the Tribbianis."
"Phoebe!" Joey admonished, glaring at her.
"I think you guys went on a date last night? So how was it?" Phoebe asked, unfazed by Joey's behavior.
Rachel sat down and tried to defuse the situation. "It was nice."
"Whoa… nice… wonder how you two managed to make a baby with that attitude."
Phoebe obviously still didn't want to let that go. She had always been the one pushing them. And although it had done them some good, it could be immensely irritating sometimes.
"We just talked about stuff," Joey said evasively.
"What stuff?" Monica asked.
"Actually we talked about you guys, and how you never found out about us, although we had some pretty close calls," Rachel said and noticed with satisfaction the grin vanishing from Phoebe's face.
"We already talked about the episode with the inappropriate touching," Phoebe said defensively.
Joey now joined the conversation too, grinningly smugly as well. "It wasn't just that."
"Yeah, and we already established that I was completely blind not noticing that I had walked in on you two doing it," Chandler admitted.
"Hey, we weren't doing it… we… well, at least not right at that moment."
Too bad that this comment from Joey made the other ones grin again, and it obviously encouraged Monica to ask a question that must have been bothering her for months.
"What about our wedding? You went missing for… at least an hour. And when you came back…"
Both Rachel and Joey smiled dreamily before Rachel said, "Oh yeah, that was an awesome day."
"You two should see your smiles. What happened?" Phoebe inquired curiously.
"I don't think this is something we should tell."
"Oh come on, please, can you at least tell us part of the story?" Phoebe asked again, "I mean we don't want to know all the gory details, but we know so much about all the pain and heartache you're going through, and we totally missed the time when everything was nice and happy between you. Why don't you tell us something like that for a change?"
"Pheebs, you don't really want to know that," Rachel said sadly, looking down on her hands.
Monica scooted closer to her and put her hands over hers. "You keep saying that all the time, but it's like Phoebe said, we know all the bad things, why don't you tell us about the good ones?"
It took a while, but eventually Rachel took a deep breath and began. "Okay, so… that day, before we went to the wedding, Joey told me he loved me."
Rachel took another shuddering breath after saying that, which made Monica think that it might not have been such a good idea after all to have them relive the memories of the times when everything was okay between them.
Since Rachel seemed to have problems continuing, Joey cut in. "And Rachel told me she loved me back, so… we were really… really happy."
Phoebe flinched at the crack in Joey's voice, regretting having pushed them to this. But the moment she contemplated telling them to forget it, Rachel spoke again. "Yeah, it was one of the happiest moments in my life. I felt like telling everyone 'I'm in love with Joey and he loves me too'."
"But of course, we couldn't do that and decided to wait until you came back from your honeymoon."
"Wait, wait, why couldn't you tell us?" Monica implored.
"Because it was your wedding day. I didn't want to steal your thunder again," Rachel replied softly, trying not to sound accusing. After all, what she had pulled on Mon's engagement day hadn't been nice at all.
The resulting somewhat awkward silence was interrupted by Joey saying, "And we figured that we had to tell Ross first anyway, and that it wouldn't matter if we waited ten days longer."
"But still, we were in love, deliriously happy and barely able to keep our hands off each other," Rachel continued.
They both wore little, wistful smiles and looked as if they were turning inwards, back to a place where they'd been happy.
"Yeah, in retrospect, the timing could've been better," Joey admitted ruefully. "It was the first time I said that to a woman and really meant it and I didn't know better, but telling someone you love 'em and being told they love you back and then being in a room with three hundred people when you desperately want to be alone with the one you love… not easy."
"And Joey had found some room where we could have a bit of… privacy."
Chandler seemed to remember something.
"You're not by any chance talking about that room you told me you walked into by mistake when we went to the hotel together? You were… location scouting?"
A light chuckle was Joey's reaction to that. "No, I really walked in there by mistake, but I thought it couldn't hurt to remember where it was."
"Quick question: am I right to assume this was not the first time you did it somewhere else than in Joey's apartment?" Phoebe asked.
Now Rachel was the one chuckling. "Yeah, you're right. Remember during the blackout when we talked about the weirdest place?"
"Yeah…?"
"Well, let's just say if we had to play this game again sometime, I would have a hard time deciding which place to pick," Rachel grinned.
Joey looked over to her for a moment and they shared a look that brought a whole bunch of highly erotic memories to life.
"Aw, look at you. You're so in love," Phoebe gushed, startling them out of their reverie.
Joey shook his head, smiling sadly. "Love wasn't the problem between us, Pheebs."
Monica saw a pained expression on Rachel's face and wondered what she must be going through every time Joey said something like that. Only now did she fully understand the reason behind Rachel's breakdown a month ago.
"Why don't you tell us the rest of the back story of our wedding?" Chandler chimed in, attempting to lighten the mood again.
"I suppose the rest falls under the 'gory details' category."
Of course the rest was not all 'gory details' as they had called it. But Joey did not trust himself enough to be able to tell more without starting to cry, when even the memory almost brought tears to his eyes. And there was no doubt Rachel would feel the same way.
Of all the fifty two days they had been together, that day had been the happiest one. The day they had confessed and celebrated their love for one another, while two of their closest friends had vowed to love each other for the rest of their lives. It was quite poetic, really. Not to mention almost ridiculously romantic. And although romance always seemed to him like a means to an end, when he fell in love with Rachel, it was like the icing on the cake, like something that completed his happiness. This overwhelming feeling of having left the real world and living somewhere where nothing and no one could harm you. He held this feeling of untainted, carefree happiness close to his heart as his most precious memory.
(Flashback to day 40)
Although concentrated on the bride and groom he was supposed to be marrying, Joey had been acutely aware of Rachel through the whole ceremony. Every time he stole a look in her direction, he had seen her smiling at him in a wonderful, heartwarming way. He had tried to imagine how it would be when Rachel and he were standing in front of a minister. How he would feel. And nothing but the happiness he felt when he looked at her filled his heart at that thought. He never would've thought it could be that easy to fall in love like that.
After the ceremony was over he tried to get to talk to Rachel alone, but there were photographs to be taken; speeches to be made and toasts to be proposed. They were sitting at the same table but not beside each other, so all they were left with was communicating with their eyes. Another thing nobody had even noticed.
Since they arrived a bit late, he hadn't even had the opportunity to show Rachel the room he had found, so their only option was to sneak out together. He jumped at the chance that presented itself after everybody started dancing. Before Ross even got out of his seat, Joey was at Rachel's side, asking for a dance.
"What about a tour of the hotel?" he whispered into her ear while they were swaying to the music. He chalked it up to his imagination when he felt her tremble.
"Are they gonna find us, if they should decide to come looking for us?" she replied, the trembling he thought he had felt even apparent in her breathless whisper.
"No, the room can be locked from the inside."
"Good," she said, lightly leaning her head against his chest, "I really need to be alone with you for a while."
The song ended and he took her hand, smiling at her. They walked out of the room hand in hand, not even thinking that someone might see them. Finally in the storage room, Joey locked the door behind them and turned on the lights. Light flooded the room with eye-piercing brightness.
"Wow, Joey … the light … it's awfully bright."
"Yeah, I know," he smiled, "but I have that covered."
He went to the file cabinet and took out the candles he had stashed there, put them on the file cabinet and lit them. Rachel switched the light off and smiled relieved.
"Better?" he asked.
"Much … much better," she said, walking in his direction.
"Wait, that's not all …" he grinned and opened another drawer, " … what oh … I can't believe this!"
"What is it?"
"I had two glasses and a bottle of champagne hidden in here …it's gone."
Rachel leaned against the table and shook her head. "Come here, Joe."
Reluctantly he shut the drawer and walked over to her, looking at her apologetically.
"I'm sorry Rach, I put it in there two hours ago. I can't believe it's not there anymore."
"I didn't come here to drink champagne, you know?" she said in a low, sultry tone that made it perfectly clear what she had come here for.
"I know," he said, not quite consoled over the way his perfect plan had been spoiled, "it's just … I wanted it to be perfect."
She smiled up at him while slowly tracing the color of his shirt with her index finger. "It is, Joey. It is. We're here… together… alone… finally alone…"
He let his head sink into the crook of her neck and inhaled the scent of her perfume mixed with the unique scent of her skin. It made him ache inside. "I love you. I wanted…" he stopped mid-sentence and shook his head.
"What did you want?"
He pulled back and looked at her seriously. "I didn't want to just have sex in some storage room. Not today, not after… what we told each other this morning. I wanted it to be something special, I wanted to… make love to you."
She smiled at him and lifted her hand to caress his cheek lovingly. "Who would've thought you a hopeless romantic?"
"Only took the right woman," he smiled back.
"So let's say we wait a few hours, and then we go up to our room and have all the time and privacy we want … let's say we even have a bottle of champagne and two glasses. What would you do?"
"At first I would want to drink to… us… to being in love… forever. Then I would take your glass and would put both of them away… you know… we don't want to get drunk…"
She nodded. "Got it."
"Then I would kiss you."
She cocked her head and made the impression of seriously contemplating his words.
"On the mouth?" she finally asked.
"Actually… no," he answered, getting into the spirit of the game she seemed to want to play. "I would kiss you here…" he gently touched a spot on the crook of her neck and ran his finger up until it almost reached her ear, " …and here… and here…"
Rachel closed her eyes and cocked her head a little to the side to allow his wandering finger better access to the places she needed him to touch. "Mhhmm… sounds nice."
He leaned closer to her so he could make sure she heard his next seductively whispered words.
"Then I take your hand and we go to the bedroom. Big comfy bed, white satin sheets …"
"…fluffy pillows?" she breathed.
" …lots of those," he confirmed.
"You sure know what I like."
"Then we kiss and I pull down the zipper of your dress… like this…" he imitated doing this by running his index finger down her spine which made her gasp.
"And then I take your dress off… like this…" he put his hands on her shoulders and gently ran them down her arms and he could feel heat starting to radiate from every inch of her body, indicating that the fantasy was coming alive in her head, that she really could see herself naked in front of him, just the way he saw her in his mind's eye.
He brought his hand to her favorite spot on her neck again. "Mhhm… I really like it when you kiss me there… it's… mhhmm yeah…"
He moved his finger further down and lightly skimmed over her breast.
"Joey… " she sighed. His other hand reached around her to her back as if to open a bra clasp.
"I'm not wearing… a bra," she whispered, having obviously picked up on his intention, which a lot of other women didn't even notice until their bra was dangling from his hand. But it wasn't her perceptiveness that surprised him right in that moment.
"You're not?" he asked, eyes wide.
A slow, lazy smile spread over Rachel's face and she looked at him with half-lidded eyes, some sort of triumph shining in them.
"In fact… I'm not wearing anything under this dress,"
He sucked in a deep breath and swallowed painfully because his throat had gone completely dry all of a sudden. "Nothing?"
"Nothing."
He took a few calming breaths and stared at her. "You're making this… really hard, Rach."
"I hope so," she grinned, and only then did he realize what he'd just said and grinned back a bit embarrassed.
"Yeah, that too."
Then he looked at her and got serious again. "You're beautiful. You're perfect." His hands lightly roamed her body and he brought his mouth close to her ear again. "Everywhere."
She took a shuddering breath, trying to form words, her smugness from before forgotten. "What… what do you do after… looking at me?"
"I lay you down on the bed and then I kiss you again… " he touched her lips, "…here", her neck, "…here", her breasts, "…here".
Then his hand wandered further south, traveled lightly across her belly, came to a halt at her pubic area, " …and here."
"Yeah…" she crooned, slightly leaning her head back and closing her eyes, "I love it when you do that."
"Me too."
This made her eyes snap open and she looked at him incredulously.
"You do?"
"Why else would I do it?"
"For… for me?"
Joey chuckled. "Rach, I know you like it and I try to make sure that it's… really good for you, but… I wouldn't do it if I didn't like it."
"What do you like… about it?" and it struck him as odd that she even had to ask. It was unfathomable that she shouldn't know. But either way, he was determined to let her know.
"I like the sounds you make when you're… getting excited," he whispered between feather light kisses placed along her jaw. "I like the way you feel, the way you smell and I… I really love the way you taste."
"Wow… I… I didn't know that."
He pulled back and looked at her searchingly. "You always thought I didn't like it?"
"No I didn't think you didn't like it, I just wouldn't have thought that you'd like it so much."
Another thought struck him, making him feel uneasy. "Is this because you don't like… doing the same with me?"
Rachel shook her head no, smiling again. "I like making you feel good."
While he still contemplated her answer, she added, "And while we're at it… do I get to kiss you too? Because the way it looks to me, I'm naked on that white bed, probably just had a great orgasm and you're still in your tux. Not that I don't like seeing you in that but… it seems a bit one sided."
Joey shrugged. "I figured I would get naked somewhere in between. You know… this is actually my own tux, so… "
" … you wouldn't have to get out of that many clothes, right?"
"Right."
In a movement he wasn't prepared for, she suddenly spun him around and pinned him against the table she had leaned on before.
"Okay so, first thing is," she said, "you lie down on your back and now it's my turn to kiss you …here … here… and of course… here", with the last word, she cupped his erection through the fabric of his pants and he groaned loudly.
"Rach… please… don't…." he panted almost in a panic. He felt too close to the edge already. There was no telling how long his well cultivated control would last under an assault like that.
"And since you were asking," she continued unfazed, while starting to unbuckle his belt and open his pants, "I like doing this with you, because I just love the way you say my name when you come."
With that she went down on her knees and took him into her mouth and conscious thought left him in a rush. When he felt his knees buckle under the intense onslaught of sensations, he put his hands on the table behind him, steadying himself. It wasn't long before he groaned her name in that way Rachel seemed to like so much.
After she'd gotten up and he had dressed again, she smiled at him sweetly. "Good?"
"Incredible… but , this was so not how I wanted…"
"Shh," she whispered, pressing her index finger against his lips. "Don't be silly. This was just me helping you to get through the rest of this evening. Because I really like that scenario you told me about."
"Well, I'm not done," he grinned back at her.
"You're not?" she asked coyly, cocking an eyebrow. Her playfulness brought a new surge of arousal, an unquenchable need to explore the depths of this seemingly boundless attraction between them..
"Let's just assume that in my 'scenario' I hadn't got the best blowjob of my entire life. And we're both… ready. So…"
He grabbed her around her waist, spun her around again and sat her down on the table and stepped between her slightly parted legs. Her dress made it impossible for her to spread her legs as far as she would've needed to get him close enough to feel at least a little friction where she needed to feel it.
A new appreciation for what she had done before came over him when he realized that this would give him the patience and control to continue the game they played.
"I slide myself inside you, slowly… carefully," he murmured in her ear seductively, while gently pushing his hips further against her and noticed how a violent shiver went through her. Her reaction encouraged him to pitch his voice even lower to a rumbling growl that seemed to affect her like an actual touch. "And it feels so good… to be inside of you, to feel you around me… to be one…"
"Oh my God, Joey… oh…" she panted.
"… and I can hear you moan my name next to my ear and this makes me so hot … and I can feel your nails digging into the skin of my back and you wrap your legs around me and then … then I start to move … slowly, controlled at first … "
" … yeah… like that… Joey yeah..."
"… but the sounds you make, the way you urge me on and the way this just feels so indescribable … it drives me insane and I can feel my control slipping and I just…"
"… yeah…"
"I just let go and I'm… going at it… fast… hard… "
"Oh my God, Joe, please… please…"
Her panting breaths had a sobbing, pleading quality to them and he found himself unable to deny her unspoken request. He slipped his hand between her legs and found her swollen, pulsing and dripping wet. It surprised him a bit because he wouldn't have thought he could get her that far just by talking about doing it. Suddenly he understood why they said that the brain was the most important erogenous zone of a woman. Hadn't made much sense to him before.
Rachel seemed to have caught his surprise. "You have no idea how much I want you, do you?" she whispered breathlessly, pulling him to her so her mouth could crash against his in an eager, hungry kiss.
"Why don't you tell me?" he managed a challenge in between frenzied kisses, his fingers teasing her opening, but still not quite giving her what she so obviously craved.
"I've never wanted someone as badly as I want you… ahh…"
He plunged a finger inside her and pressed his thumb against her clit. She closed her eyes and let out a long moan.
"Not just now…" she panted while he started to slide his finger out and slowly in again.
" …not just today… always… "
He could feel how close she was when suddenly she opened her eyes again and what he saw in them almost knocked him over.
"I love you," she said, voicing what he had thought he had seen before she closed her eyes again and he could feel her inner walls fiercely contracting around his fingers.
Her orgasm left her shaking and gasping for breath. It amazed him. She never ceased to amaze him. Whatever he'd thought would happen in that room today, it wasn't this. He knew he loved her for this… not the sex… okay, not only the sex; but for the way she still surprised him sometimes, for her enthusiasm, her curiosity, the way she made him feel wanted, appreciated and truly loved. He took her into his arms and held her close to him, unable to imagine ever letting her go.
"I love you, too. That you love me back is… like a dream," hemanaged around a strange tightness in his throat.
Rachel pressed a lingering kiss against his temple, as if she wanted to leave a permanent mark. "I can't even imagine anymore why I never saw in you what I see now," she said when she let go. "You're the man I've always wanted to be with."
He drew her even closer, almost crushing her in his possessive embrace.
"Have you any idea what this does to me? I feel… so much. It's like my heart's gonna explode. I wasn't unhappy before, but what I feel now makes me think I was. My life's never gonna be complete without you anymore. I love you, Rachel. More than I could ever say."
(End flashback)
Coming back from his memory, he saw his friends looking at him with so much compassion in their eyes, it was disconcerting. He was used to being pitied by them, it was nice in a way to know that they cared for him that much, but this time they looked as if they wanted to cry.
He noticed that they didn't just look at him, they looked at Rachel, with the same expression and when he looked at her he knew why. Tears were running down Rachel's cheeks and she was staring right ahead, probably living through the same memory he just had.
The thought that he'd seen her cry so much over the last months suddenly overwhelmed him. He'd never wanted to make her cry. He had made a promise… a promise never to do that. He had actually vowed to himself never to do that. But still, it was all he seemed to be doing lately.
"Hey, Rach, baby, don't cry," he said, gently wiping away her tears with his fingertips.
She smiled at him through her tears and gently touched his face. "You're crying too."
When he looked into her eyes, he saw something that went straight to his heart. She looked at him the same way she had looked at him back then. It was that look that had swept away his doubts, it was that look that had told him that her heart was his – forever. And she still – after everything – looked at him that way. In this moment, he felt himself believing in her again. In this moment he was starting to think he might have been an idiot for doubting her love for so long when he had all the evidence to the contrary.
"It really was… an awesome day."
Rachel nodded mutely, still smiling. "I never got that champagne, you know."
"Which, as we know now, was a good thing."
A loud sniffle made them aware of their surroundings again.
"Hey you guys, please," Joey said with forced cheerfulness. "That wasn't a sad story. And it gets even happier. After we came out of that storage room, we had a lot of fun on your wedding party and then… we went to our room and… had a lot of fun there too."
"Wait… wait. What do you mean 'our' room?" Monica asked.
"Rachel and I had booked a room together."
Phoebe gasped and asked. "So what I heard wasn't really you watching porn the whole night, right?"
Joey couldn't help but grin.
"That would be a definite no. Although… if you heard us, didn't it seem strange to you that those porn actors kept calling out our names all the time?"
"I tried not to listen that closely and I guess I fell asleep after her third orgasm."
"Wow, Rachel, three times," Monica said before pointedly turning to her husband. "Seems like someone had a lot more sex on my wedding night than I had."
Chandler shrunk a bit under her gaze. "Mon, in my defense, I was the groom, I had a very stressful day… and lot of alcohol."
Monica smiled and patted Chandler's knee, making it clear that she was only kidding. Only Joey felt the need to clear up a fact important to him.
"And to my defense, it was more than three. Phoebe said she fell asleep after the third so…"
Chandler sighed in mock exasperation. "Oh thanks so much, buddy, for making me look even worse."
Phoebe smiled to herself.
"I guess it was that kind of attitude that brought you the baby, huh? Seemed you two were really hot together."
Rachel, who had finally got a grip on her emotions again, felt compelled to reply to that. "Yeah, Pheebs, sex wasn't our problem either. It's trust. Without that, nothing else matters. Joey… doesn't trust me anymore. And I can't blame him for that."
tbc