***SEE BOTTOM FOR IMPROTANT MESSAGES AFTER***
Her Rising Saviour:
Chapter Eight – Pre-Wedding
"No, no, no!" Tomoyo screeched to the florist. "Those flowers go in the back! Urg! Do I have to do everything?!"
The florist, a woman in her fifties, mumbled something impolite and began moving the order of white roses and lilies to the back.
Tomoyo sighed and turned to Sakura. Sakura was confused as to whether she wanted to laugh at the girl's reaction, or be horrified. She forced a shaky smile, "Calm down, Tomoyo. It's not even the wedding yet and you're going off your rocker."
"How can you not be nervous?!" Tomoyo screamed. "We have less than twenty-four hours to get this backyard set!"
"Exactly," Sakura smiled bright. "A whole twenty-four hours. That's plenty of time."
Tomoyo groaned, irritated, and stormed toward the backyard. Sakura sighed and followed. There were different crews from different companies setting things up. Three men from Bird-Furniture was setting up rented iron-n'-glass tables and matching chairs. On the chairs were pink and green bows. Another company, a co-company with the floral, was setting up an arc for the ceremony. Flowers and vines were intertwined through the trellis arc-way.
"There'll be a white silk carpet along there," Tomoyo pointed to an invisible isle, heading toward the arc-way and in the middle of rows of white wood fold-out chairs on both sides. "And I'm going to litter it with cherry blossom petals. I've also ordered cherry blossom petals for Hua-Lin, the flowergirl."
"This is..." Sakura's mouth remained gaped open. "This is amazing, Tomoyo. Absolutely amazing."
"Oh, no it's not," Tomoyo turned to her friend, her eyes sparkling. "It won't be absolutely amazing until the bride walks down that isle." Sakura flushed, making Tomoyo giggle. "You'll look gorgeous, Sakura. Believe me."
And she did.
b.K.d
Eriol watched Syaoran mop the kitchen floor to his and Tomoyo's house, a tight and thoughtful look spread across his face. He had been like this since Tomoyo had shoved them both into the house and ordered them to clean while she and Sakura prepared the outdoors
After watching this look on Syaoran's face scrunch and unscrunch for what seemed like hours, he sighed and put down the Windex he was using on the kitchen window.
"Just go," Eriol told Syaoran, making him jump. He gave a small grin, "You have something else to do, right? Just go do it. I'll cover your ass."
Syaoran blinked twice, confused, "How did you...?"
Eriol shrugged, "It's written all across your face. Something's on your mind. Now go! Before I change my mind."
Syaoran gave a slow grin and nodded. He ran out of the room and grabbed his shoes. "Thanks! I owe you!" He called out as he opened the front door.
"Duh!" Eriol called back as the door closed.
Syaoran raced home and quickly dug through his desk drawers. In no time, he found note-cards bound together in a paperclip. He smiled at them; his finished vows. After finishing them a month before, he had thought they were perfect. But after re-reading them a week before, he found that they were far from what he thought was perfect. When he read them, he felt a hollow pit in his stomach begin to grow. As if something was missing from them. And that though ate away at him for th e remaining of the week. Only this morning did he realize why he felt this way, but had had to hurry to the Hiiragizawa household to help prepare it for the wedding.
The thoughts of the new vows circled Syaoran's mind as he drove downtown to a small cafe/bakery. He parked close to it and hurried inside. After ordering a coffee and slice of chocolate-raspberry torte, he took a small table in the corner by the window and pulled out the cards and a pen.
He took a sip of coffee, then began to write.
How do I start? There is so much to say, but it would take hours. Days. And unfortunately, I only have minutes...
b.K.d
As soon as she got home, Sakura collapsed to the bed and sighed heavily. Her eyelids drooped close, the darkness comforting her as sleep began to slowly take over.
It was nearing nine o'clock. She had been working non-stop with Tomoyo trying to get the outside ready, as well as making sure everything was set up for Tomoyo to get her ready tomorrow. It was all very tiring, she wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep for the past three hours now.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard the door open in the distance and shortly after someone creep into the room. One should panic under such a situation, but she recognized and welcomed the presence. Though her eyes refused to open, wanting to remain closed so sleep could come to her. She heard the rustle of clothes being changed, and then the bed sank with a weight. Warm, strong arms encircled her and pulled her side into the warmth.
Sakura smiled, letting him know that she was indeed awake. He caught this and began trailing small, light kisses along her hairline. "Rough day?"
Sakura groaned tiredly, "You have no idea. Tomoyo's a maniac right now."
"Hmm..." Syaoran mused aloud. "So instead of a Bridezilla, we've got a Maid-Of-Honour-zilla on our hands, do we?"
Sakura giggled and willed her eyes to open. She pushed herself up and brushed her lips across Syaoran's. "And how was your day?" She kissed him again, "I've missed you all day."
He smirked, remembering his trip to the cafe/bakery to re-write his vows. It had taken much longer than he thought it would, but after many copies and many re-writes, he finally got his thoughts down in a way that made him feel light and complete. There was nothing missing from them.
He moved his hand and began trailing it along her face, caressing her soft skin, "It was busy, but very rewarding and very productive."
"Oh?" Sakura asked brightly, though didn't push it.
"Mm-Hm," Syaoran smiled, pulling down his lips to hers again.
Sakura smiled against his lips and began slowly kissing him back. When he pulled away, she gazed into his eyes for a moment before her stomach began to knot with a familiar feeling of want. Pure want. She turned herself slightly to her side and wrapped her arms around his neck. Before he could protest, she pulled his face down to hers again and pushed her lips to his and hungrily began moving her lips against his. Within seconds, Syaoran began kissing her just as hungrily and the two began gasping and moaning into each other's mouth.
And then suddenly, it was over. Syaoran pulled back, his breath ragged and lustful. He looked down at Sakura with dark eyes, seeing her chest heave in and out, demanding air. He gave a small groan and close d his eyes, then collapsed and rested his head on her shoulder. His head followed her breathing, moving up and down with her chest.
"One more day," he groaned into her skin, reminding both himself and Sakura. "One more day."
"S-Sorry," Sakura apologized, trying to catch her breath. Shame washed throughout her as she began running her hand through his hair. "I'm so sorry. That was...That was completely my fault."
"It's fine."
"No, no it isn't," she scolded herself, then moaned in frustration with herself. "God, and we were doing so well!"
"We both got carried away," he assured her. He turned his head slightly and pressed a soft kiss to her neck. "Just one more day."
There was a small pause as Sakura's eyes fluttered closed again. Then, something clicked with her as she moved her leg slightly from underneath Syaoran. She stopped, ceasing her movements across his scalp. More shame encased her, "You're, um, hard."
Syaoran chuckled lightly, "It'll go away. I just got a little excited."
"Do you want me to take care of it?" Some part of Sakura hoped he would say yes. But, of course...
"No, it'll go away," Syaoran repeated. "Don't worry about it."
"But I do," she chewed her bottom lip for a moment, then sighed and brought down her voice into a mumble. "It's not like we'd be having actual sex, anyway."
Again, Syaoran chuckled, "Close enough to it, my dear. And we've been so good at not touching one another..." he paused with a sigh and kissed her neck again. "It's one more day. We can hold out one more day, can't we?"
Sakura sighed, "I suppose so..."
With one last chuckle, Syaoran rolled onto his back and pulled his wife-to-be into his side. He kissed her head goodnight as she rested it onto his chest and quickly fell asleep.
When it was morning, they weren't woken pleasantly as one hoped to be. Instead, they were awaken by a screaming Tomoyo literally pulling Sakura out of the bed.
"The groom can't see the bride before the wedding! It's tradition!" She screeched, not minding if Sakura was decent or not – though thankfully, she had fallen asleep still fully clothed. She had just been too tired to change from her jeans and tee.
With Sakura half awake, Tomoyo kidnapped her for preparations, leaving a very stunned Syaoran behind.
Author's Note (please read!!!): First of all, I just want to start off my thanking all my awesome reviewers. You are all awesome and this story (the sequel) wouldn't be here without you. Honestly.
**I also want to take this time to apologize to everyone; readers and reviewers. I've been horribly, incredibly, disgustingly greedy and selfish of asking you all for x-many reviews. I feel horrible and I promise not to do it again. It's disgusting, I know. But I hope you'll all forgive me. It took an awesome reviewer to bring me to that light, and I thank her very much. So I'm sorry, and I hope you all forgive me. If you don't, I understand.**
Quick thanks to my awesome beta, xXShining ShadowXx ^.^ You're absolutely awesome hun!! You edit amazingly quick!! Thanks so much!! You know how awesome you are LOL
Also, sorry for the shortness of this chapter...It's honestly just a filler I needed. But the next chapter IS going to be longer than usual ^.- So hopefully that'll makes up for this chapter?
XOX, Riva
Next Chapter: WEDDING TIME!! What are Syaoran's vows? Is Yelan going to show up? Will jealousy erupt because of a slightly unexpected guest? And what is Rika up to??
**TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN, PLEASE READ**
To "unknown" reviewer – I understand why you're so upset about that, and now that I've re-read my work, I completely see where you are coming from. I'll try and fix it within the next few chapters or so. I'm terribly sorry. I promise that the characters will grow, so please forgive me again.
To "kana-chan-chio" reviewer – First of all, I didn't take that as a flame at all. I honestly take criticism to heart and fully use it as much as I can. I won't 'review-whore' anymore, and as above, I feel horrible about it. And as lame and inexcusable as it sounds, I honestly DON'T trust my work. I'm not trying to sound 'oh, woes with me!', but I grew up with people not giving a crap about my work. People don't give a lot of thought to writers at my school. I would say I wrote something, but no one bothered to look at it. I've grown real insecure. And I begin wondering, 'well, what can I do so people will like it?'. So I've never trusted the quality of my work, I honestly don't. That still doesn't excuse my 'review-whoring', I know, but please...I hope you'll forgive me. It was wrong, I know. I'm sorry. And thank you for telling me how annoying it is. Again, thank you and I'm sorry.