Thanks for all the concern/disapproval over Emily's interrogation. If she was looking for anything other than a strong commitment from Masen, she must have been sorely disappointed. Every review has been fascinating this week.
Ipsita also interrogates, and I realise I'm not so committed to a specific sentence or action. It takes someone else's eyes to show you what you cannot see. Thanks, sis.
With Emily giving up the spotlight, the conversation shifts to our plans for the next two days. I've spoken to Elwood Bathers' event manager several times, but we need to get a sense of the space beforehand. The celebrant still has to verify our ID's, and she is going to meet us there to give us a mini rehearsal, so we'll have a chance to drop off the seating plan and the wooden names we're using as place settings and keepsakes for our guests. I've left it to Esme and Sue to make all decisions about who sits where, and they've generously offered to oversee the setup on Saturday morning.
Mom and I will also be paying the florist a visit. Along with the bouquets and buttonholes, I've ordered aisle decorations, table centerpieces, and large arrangements for the ceremony and reception. I've seen photos of the restaurant set for a wedding, and I'm satisfied it's enough decor when we have such incredible views of the water. The florist has offered up some bold guarantees about the quality and fragrance of their flowers, and I know Mom will erupt if they don't live up to the stupid amount of money I'm paying.
Rose reports that she and Harry are going to Ballarat in the morning to pick up Nana Edwards, saying she hopes it's a wise idea that she attends the wedding. Nana is in her eighties and declining mentally, and I now know that Nana backed out of Christmas with Sue and Harry at the last minute. Apparently, she can be cantankerous on a bad day, but I'm looking forward to meeting her, especially when I have no living grandparents of my own.
Tyler and Gianna live close to Elwood, so the boys will get ready there. Alec is now sharing an AirBnb with Jasper and Alice, arriving in Melbourne tomorrow afternoon, so he'll bring Alice with him. Sue will drop off Rose and take Mom and Esme to supervise the set up for the reception. To transport the bridal party, we're using one chauffeur driven car for three short trips: firstly, to take the boys, then they'll return for the bridesmaids, finally coming back for Dad and me. I like that I'll have a little time alone with him because it happens so rarely.
Seeing a look of shock on Gianna's face, I go over to hear what Alice is saying to Gianna, Tia, Charlotte, and Gemma. I wrap an arm around Alice's shoulder and ask what is so fascinating.
"We were just comparing our experiences of having our babies, Bella," Alice explains.
"Tell her about the guns," Tia urges.
"They gave us a brochure on what to expect from the hospital stay—what they would provide and what rules we had to follow. I know I was hormonal at the time, but I burst into tears when I read they had a 'no weapons' policy, even for visitors with gun permits. I didn't feel safe the whole time I was there, and we went home twenty-four hours later. I'm going to attempt a home birth next time."
"Why would anyone bring a gun into a maternity ward?" Gianna questions, shaking her head.
"I did three months in an ER in Chicago," Gemma states, "And the number of people who came in with gunshot wounds was bloody frightening. Having said that, I cannot condemn that wonderful city because I met my beautiful wife there." She and Charlotte get a little lost in each other, probably remembering the time when they fell in love.
Alice sighs heavily. "I'm not staying much longer, Bella. I'm starting to fade."
"Totally understandable, and I so appreciate that you came. How was the flight with Jane?" I imagine it can't have been easy.
"I was just saying I think the word 'nightmare' is probably a little too strong but I hope she sleeps tonight. Um ... who do I pay for dinner?"
"It's already covered," Gianna replies with a wave of her hand.
It's the first I've heard of this. "Why is it already covered?"
"We have a bit of a tradition where the groomsmen pay for a bridal party shindig." Before the objection can leave my lips, she adds, "Part of the wedding gift."
"Honestly, Gianna, we meant it when we said no wedding gifts. We're about to go on the road for a year."
"Not all gifts come in a box." She bumps her shoulder against mine as a smile spreads across her face.
"Okay, I'm outta here," Alice declares, giving me a quick hug. "It was great meeting you all and thanks for dinner! See you Saturday!"
"How are you getting home?" I ask.
"Uber."
"Then I'll come downstairs with you."
"I'll come, too," Masen adds, taking my hand.
The Uber arrives quickly, and Masen has his arms around me, leaning his cheek on my head as I wave her goodbye.
"Did you know the groomsmen were paying for tonight?" I ask.
"Yeah, we've done that for each of our weddings."
I spin around in his arms. "And that they are planning to give us a gift?"
"It's supposed to be a surprise."
"So, you know about it!" Grinning mischievously, he twists away when I try to tickle him. "What is it?"
He captures my wrists so I can't attack. "It's a surprise!"
I huff because he's not budging. "Okay, what about Emily, then? What was that all about?"
"Truly, babe, it's not worth discussing. She's just gotta get over it."
I really don't like the sound of this. "Get over what? Why are you being secretive all of a sudden?"
"It's not an appropriate topic for a busy street. Can you wait until we go home?"
"Not with where my mind is going. Is she your ex-girlfriend?"
His mouth drops open as he releases my wrists. "I'm shocked you believe I'd be that cruel."
I frown and shake my head because I don't know what that means.
"Do you honestly think I would openly praise my fiancée like that in front of an ex-girlfriend?"
Okay, that put me in my place. "I'm sorry, Masen. I didn't give that enough thought."
"Come inside and I'll explain." He steers me through the hotel's lobby to an alcove where we can sit and talk privately. "Emily paired me up with her best friend for their wedding. Vicky was recently single, and I reckon she must have shared every detail of the breakup. I tried to lend a sympathetic ear for Emily's sake, but it was awkward hearing her say she had saved her virginity for marriage."
"Do people still do that?" I ask, hardly believing it.
"Apparently, but I avoided the details. She asked me if we could go out sometime, and I didn't have an excuse ready, so I agreed, but told her it would have to be in the new year. I was about to go interstate for work and then stay with my parents in Sydney. Except I ended up spending that Christmas with you and following you to Anchorage not long after."
"Two years ago?" I question, trying to understand Emily's motivation.
"Apparently, Vicky still hates me, even though I called her as soon as I came back. She is obviously not in a sound place mentally, but she's not my problem to fix."
I can barely look at him because I was once the brunt of a cruel joke when the popular boy thought he was funny asking the skinny girl to prom. I was that sad girl who naively believed he liked her, who got dressed up and waited for him to arrive at her door, who never showed her face at prom, and took a while to get over it. Only Charlotte knows what I was like back then, always in jeans and baggy tops with my gaze directed down. In those days, my happy place was the room I shared with a misfit lesbian.
Of course, this is not the same thing, but I understand how little it takes to damage someone who already has a shaky sense of their self-worth.
"Maybe Emily hoped you were the one to fix her friend, and now we're getting married, she has to finally accept it's not going to happen."
His beautiful eyes roam over my face for the longest time, and then he takes my hand, saying we should go back upstairs.
The Secret Garden is less crowded when we return, and Tyler has our group's attention. He is definitely the biggest personality of all the boys, and the anecdotes keep coming, no matter who tries to protest, mostly involving general misbehavior during and after games of football. Apparently, they only tolerated Masen playing rugby union for the university because he was an outsider who knew no better. I learn that Australian rules football is Melbourne's game, invented here a hundred and fifty years ago, and it's ingrained in the culture of the city.
They all seem very proud of where they live, and Masen has warned me not to get drawn into the rivalry between the two biggest cities in the country. It hasn't taken long to sense the vibe here is different from Sydney, but I don't share my observations, especially not on my first day in town.
Masen and Garrett huddle together, finalizing tracks for the wedding playlist. They're still adding more, and I will be asking about Masen's reaction to including Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out Of My Head," because there's definitely a story there to uncover. I'm starting to see why Garrett is one of Masen's best friends. He's quite charismatic when he loosens up.
Tyler declares that no one has given him a job yet, so he's planning to sprinkle rose petals at the ceremony. I've already seen his mischievous side, and I'm worried he'll take flowers from my arrangements and rip them apart. I don't want him to feel like I'm trying to maneuver him, but he was expecting a job, so I tell him I love his idea, adding that I'll be eternally grateful if he could pick up the flowers from the florist and bring them to the three locations. He'll be saving us the delivery charges, and I'll know they're in good hands. I will add a bag of petals to the order for him to scatter around.
I get that Tyler doesn't know what to make of me, but he agrees, and after that, there's a definite shift in our relationship when he includes me in his conversations, asking for my opinion, listening when I answer. Randall offers to help him as well.
It's affection and humor that tie the four men together, and these people are all nice, even Emily. I don't know if someone spoke to her while we were downstairs, but she apologized to Masen. Everyone was welcoming with Charlotte and Gemma, protesting when they left for their swanky hotel room downstairs.
We wind up the evening at eleven. Some of us have work in the morning, and the trams stop running at midnight on weeknights. Melbourne apparently has the largest tramway network in the world, and everyone uses them. Rose, Emmett, Tyler, and Gianna are even taking the same one as ours.
Rose and Emmett are first to reach their stop, and Rose reminds Masen to call Sue as soon as our parents arrive in the morning. It's been obvious all evening that they are a devoted couple, rarely apart and usually touching. I read her beautiful words about Emmett in the post about the fire, but it makes me emotional seeing the depth of the love they share.
"Ring if you need anything!" Tyler sings out as Gianna yanks on his arm when the tram doors start to close. We have two more stops until we get off and we're finally alone. The evening has been awesome, but we only have the house to ourselves for one night, and my thoughts have been drifting in that direction for a while.
While I have truly loved having our parents around, we can't be spontaneous when one of them might knock on the bedroom door, hear us having sex, or catch us naked, so this is our night of complete freedom. I've learned a lot about pleasing Masen sexually, and I want to return his beautiful compliments in my own way.
His scent is like a magnet to me, and I slide my nose along his jaw, seeking the perfect spot to taste him.
"Bella?"
"Hmm?" I respond, lusty and dreamy.
"I'm gonna molest you if you keep that up."
"Is that bad?" I ask, imagining what that might mean.
"On CCTV? Yeah, probably."
Stiffening, I sit up straight while he chuckles and puts an arm around my shoulder. I had no idea there were cameras recording a twenty-nine-year-old woman carrying on like an oversexed teenager. Our stop can't come up quickly enough now.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be," he says with a hug and a kiss to my forehead.
We walk the short distance from the tram stop, and I can't remember the last time I had such a great night.
"I like your friends, Masen, and I really enjoyed tonight."
"I did, too, but it's not over yet, lady," he growls into my neck and squeezes my ass.
Batting his hand away, I ask, "What's with Kylie Minogue? I saw the way you and Garrett reacted."
"It's nothing."
I tug on his hand until he comes to a stop. "But I wanna know."
"Righto, well I may have had a thing for Kylie when I was a teenager, and they may have teased me about it."
"She's like … twenty years older than you."
"Have you seen her lately? She's still bloody gorgeous."
"So, now I find out just before our wedding that you prefer blondes?" I ask, only playing, as we arrive at the front gate.
He leans down to open it for me, then doesn't let me through, using the voice that always melts me. "Kylie isn't always a blonde, Bella, and it was more about the body than the hair—how she looked in a certain white jumpsuit."
With the air suddenly crackling around us, he slides his hand between my legs as I enter the pin for the door, and I only escape for a few seconds before he captures me inside.
"There's no one here, baby," he purrs, kissing my neck and pushing himself against my backside. Before he starts peeling my clothes off in this hallway, I pull him into the kitchen so I can quench my thirst. I'm not drunk, only dehydrated from the salty food and herb-infused gin I consumed tonight, but he lifts me onto the counter, returning his lips to my neck.
"I need a glass of water, Masen."
He gets one for me immediately, and I smile at him being courteous when he has thirsts of his own. Once I finish the water, I cradle his jaw, kissing him for his trouble, and he runs his hands up my thighs, squeezing my hips.
"So, you like my green slacks?" I ask, reminding him of his public declaration.
"I like what's in 'em," he nibbles my earlobe, hitching my thigh over his hip.
"I've been imagining the whole waiting for marriage before sex thing."
"Completely bizarre," he declares, kissing my neck.
Running my hands over his shoulders, I ask, "So what if I had asked you to wait until our wedding night?"
He looks up, frowning. "For what reason?"
"I don't know. Religious grounds, some notion that you might not marry me if I gave it up?"
He shakes his head. "Then we probably wouldn't have a relationship if I'm being honest. Wouldn't you want to know we were sexually compatible?" He presses his erection onto me to demonstrate.
Wrapping my legs around his hips, I grind against him. "I think we could establish that without having intercourse, don't you?"
Pulling me closer, he asks, "Maybe. Would you have agreed to oral sex?"
"I don't … that's very intimate, Masen. I doubt we would do that prior to penetration."
He sighs in frustration. "See, in this scenario, my dear, you wouldn't be throwing around words like 'penetration' while I was in a deranged state."
"Deranged?" I can't help giggling.
"Don't you think I'd be out of my fucking mind wanting to penetrate you every waking minute?"
"Really?" I'm actually shocked by his ferocity. "Would it consume you so much?"
"Bloody hell, I have no idea what would happen on the wedding night."
I want to remind him it's just a game we're playing, and I grind on him again. "You were slightly deranged the night you wore nothing but a Viking helmet."
He slides the zipper on my pants all the way down. "Slightly."
"So, what if we had waited and we now have this house to ourselves for one night only. What do you think we'd do?" I smirk, thinking the smile and the slightly raised eyebrow don't do much to hide the filthy thoughts filling his head.
"We'd be getting naked for sure," he offers, taking my pants off and dropping them on the counter. He spreads my legs, and his Adam's Apple bobs as he stares at my underwear. "Two days before the wedding, I would have been around this pussy, and rubbed myself against it, maybe even slid in there in the heat of the moment. No one would need to know we didn't actually wait."
His voice has always been seductive, but right now it's pornographic, having a physical effect on me, and I whimper when he slips his fingers into my underwear.
"If I was a virgin, you couldn't just slide in there, could you?" I ask, getting lost in the pictures he's painting in my head. His lips are just inches away, and I stare at them, willing him to kiss me.
"Baby, even if you were technically a virgin, I would have destroyed your hymen by now."
I gasp as he curls two fingers inside me, out of my mind with arousal when his thumb massages my clit. He kisses me with so much passion, I know I'm in for one hell of a crescendo of pleasure.
-0-
"I love you, Masen," I call out when we're finally in bed and he's inside me. He's all hands and tongue, groaning every time I sink down on him. God, he's so sexy like this.
Suddenly, he stills me. "Stop. It's too much. I'm gonna cum."
I graze his neck with my teeth. "We can do it again in the morning."
"No, I want to fuck until I feel you cum again. Please just stay still and let me slow down the pace."
Oh, he wants one of those orgasms. Well, I'm happy to oblige. We sacrifice and do things for the ones we love, and if it means I have to withstand another wave of orgasms to please my man, then so be it.
When I chuckle over my silly thoughts, he rolls us over and pins me down. "Keep still, woman!" he commands, making me giggle even more.
Thanks for reading xo
