NOTHING BUT MINE
Little Church of the West Wedding Chapel – 4:10 am
The bride wore…Levi's and a Rolling Stones t-shirt…Lily shook her head at herself in the mirror of the chapel bathroom, pulling her tangle of messy curls into a decent ponytail, Jesus, if my mother could see me now, she thought with a soft laugh that was interrupted by a knock at the door.
"Lily?"
It was Jeff, the other half to this nonsensical charade, the ringleader in fact.
"You okay?"
She wasn't sure how long she'd been in the bathroom, deliberating and debating with herself in the mirror, but it must have been long enough to make a CIA agent nervous. She rolled on some lip gloss from her purse and then turned for the door again, pulling it open just as his head moved up from the wall beside it.
"How cold are those feet of yours?"
His smile was soft and his hand softer when he reached out for hers.
"They aren't," she gestured quietly, tucking her hand in his as she led him back toward the outside ceremony platform, where lights twinkled in the desert trees and candles built a path to the white gazebo in the dark. They were the only ones at the chapel this time of night, or rather early Sunday morning, at the end of January.
Lily slowed and stood near the altar where she imagined an ordained Elvis might be standing any minute, but her hand never left Sands'. He hovered beside her, feeling the heat of the desert and twinkling lights on his face.
"Twelve years…" he sighed and she looked up at him, seeing her reflection in his glasses.
"Since what? You were free of me, completely?"
He shook his head with a smirk and squeezed her hand tighter.
"No, smartass. Twelve years I've been thinking about this night."
"I don't buy it."
"Oh no?" He pursed his lips towards her. "What will it take to make you believe me?"
"Twelve more years of exactly who you've been tonight," she whispered back with a quick kiss on his cheek, "I just missed you, that's all."
"I can do that. I will," he finished before the loud voice of a thankfully, normal looking minister broke their trance.
"Welcome, welcome. Looks like you two want to get married, tonight."
Lily smiled at the round, lapel and cowboy hat laden man and she heard Jeff snicker, just thinking about it, as he held her hand without restraint.
"Now don't go telling me ya just decided to marry each other off the street or something. I don't think I could take another wasted set of vows in this here place."
"No sir," Lily replied.
And Sands added, "This is a long time coming."
"How long?"
"Well…" Sands chuckled a little, "…June of 96' was the first date we set."
The minister laughed wildly which made Lily giggle too.
"So ya'll are finally making it to the altar then, that's good. Real good to hear."
"Tell me about it," Sands remarked dryly. To which Lily nudged him with a gasp.
"Ignore him, he thinks he's funny."
"I am funny. That's the only reason you're marrying me isn't it?"
The minister, who said his name was Randy, was nothing short of humored to death by the two of them; livened by them even.
The ceremony started quickly thereafter, drifting by casually in the crisp desert night air, and eventually staggered to a romantic, teary-eyed (on Lily's end) close. Sands' thought he could have easily shed a tear or two, something he'd never tell her or anyone if he actually could, but he couldn't ignore the thought for himself. It was all too ridiculously perfect. His plan had worked somehow. He'd left the hotel room and blindly found a cab driver who assisted him in getting to a 24 hour jeweler in the city, then in getting to the motel to find Lily.
And she'd said yes, after reassurance of course.
"I Lily, take you Sheldon, to be my husband, my best friend, my lover, and my other half from this day forward. I will cherish our union and love you more with each passing day. I will trust you and respect you, laugh with you and cry with you, care for you and protect you…"
He felt his heart sink when she said those words. He'd never felt it sink like that before.
"And for the groom's vows."
Sands gulped back laughter not fear, "I Sheldon, take you, Sweet Cheeks…"
Lily kicked him in the shin with her sneaker as the minister went on cackling under his breath as Sands' repeated the words he spoke so eloquently.
"Fine…I Jeff, take you, Lily, to be my best friend, my lover and my wife. I will be yours in times of plenty and in times of need, in times of sickness and in times of health, in times of joy and in times of sadness, in times of failure and in times of victory. I promise to cherish and respect you, to care and protect you, to comfort and encourage you, and to faithfully stay with you, for the rest of my life."
"Thank you," she whispered with a giggle.
The ceremony continued, thoroughly and respectfully so, until there were two tiny bands on each of their fingers and commitment spoken deeply between them. Then, when neither of them truly expected it all to be happening or true or anything but an insane game, the minister made it all reality.
"And now, by the powers vested in me by the great state of Nevada, I present to the world for the very first time, Mr. and Mrs. Sands…"
There was a pause in the universe, a laugh here, a tear there as Jeff squeezed her hands tight and Lily felt every muscle in his palm twitch with relief and excitement and anxiety all at once.
"…Mr. Sands, you may now kiss your Sweet Cheeks…"
Lily's crying was washed away instantly as she felt Jeff's laughing arms swallow her whole and lift her completely off the gravel desert ground and up into the late night sky. His mouth found hers like no task at all, his hand holding the nape of her neck hostage as he pinned her to him, tasting the sweetness of matrimony, of her finally being his forever, right there on her lips. He could taste a tiny cottage with blue shudders and a white picket fence on Chatham Bay, he could taste satisfying passion and eternal devotion and loyalty and promises on her mouth, all the things that once scared him and now only pricked the skin of his immune exterior for her.
Lily was his life, she always had been. She was his only home, ever. And he had no problem at all, getting that, and so much more, back in his arms for good.
"Love you, Sparky," she hummed against his warm lips.
"Love you, Mrs. Sparky."
4 am Vegas wedding chapel service…$475
All-night, Nevada state marriage license and certificate notary…$62.50
Case of cold Budweiser and drive-thru tacos…$40.15
Getting lost in the middle of the desert outskirts of Las Vegas, before sunrise, in an armored CIA vehicle with your hour-long spouse and lifelong best friend…can't buy that stuff.
"Didn't I say we should get a map at the gas station? I really think I did."
Lily ground the truck through the hapless dust of blue and purple tint, running the SUV nearly into hell as she shifted it into park on the pathless desert plain. Jeff just laughed at her, finished his cigarette and tossed it out of the passenger's side window before opening the door.
"Women and maps. Women and plans…"
She hopped out of the truck and met him at the other side, trying to figure out what in the hell side of Vegas they were lost on. The lights were out of sight, but they were still within range of the lesser radio stations. Jeff reached out for where he heard her breathing and held her cheek.
"If life were all about plans you wouldn't be married to me right now."
He was right, but she still rolled her eyes.
"Married to a guy who makes me crazy."
"That's what it's all about."
She liked the way his mind worked, but before she could kiss him, he turned back inside of the car door and reached for the Navajo blanket they had bought off a man at the gas station.
"Now come along and find a good spot for me to take your virgin seed on, darling."
Lily tucked her arm in his, laughed and led the way to the further open plain before the mountains, where grass met rocks and rocks met potential snakes and potential snakes met the fun of it all.
"I hear the best sex you can have is on your wedding night."
"Well its morning now, honey," Lily teased him as she settled on a good place in the open grasses.
"Morning, night, makes no difference to me. Just let me have you already."
He threw the blanket down in what must have been a half-ass manner by her laughter, and then immediately pulled her against his pounding chest. Sands let his hands roam up her beaten old t-shirt, seeking out the warmth her skin was radiating with, and when he touched it for the first time in the longest two hours of his life, he fell to his knees with her in utter weakness.
Lily dropped the case of beer and then fell on the softness of the thick blanket, watching as he hovered over her body, tugging at whatever cotton and denim, buttons, zippers and hooks he could locate blindly. And when she was left in nothing but red and black lace frivolities, and he in nothing more than his tightened boxers and boots, he sighed heavily and shocked her with his spoken need. (Well, sort of)
"I need a beer first. I'm running on empty, baby."
She just shook her head and leaned on her elbows as he hunted on hands and knees for the box.
"Grab me one too. If you ever find them…"
Sands finally grasped the edge of the case in the dusty gravel and pulled it open.
"Don't mock your blind husband."
"Or what?"
He said nothing. Instead he only smirked wickedly as he crawled back to her with two beers. Sands found her lingerie clad skin again, and with the beer he'd brought for her, he found even more delight in rolling it down where he felt her knees, cooling the opposing temperature of her boiling flesh. Lily gasped out with laughter, not expecting the immediate and freezing sensation as the bottle of beer curled down her leg, thigh, up the hem of her panties, across her stomach and right to her breasts, where he left it settled for her to take.
"Just drink up, so I can do all kinds of illegal things to you before the coyotes find us."
Lily's lips puckered over the rim of the bottle, sucking down the bitter alcohol like it was candy. In fact, she finished hers before him, to which he just scoffed and threw her back down to the blanket with rabid force.
"Let's see those illegal things then, Agent."
"Well I can't very well radicalize our marriage bed with these in the way," he found a tiny hole through the lace of her thong and tugged until it completely tore in half and flew out into the desert overhead.
"Good job," she quipped sarcastically. "Now I have to ride back to town commando."
"Oh don't even pretend like you don't enjoy a nice cross breeze or two down there."
He had her, but she could hardly keep from hiding the fact with giggling sighs.
"That's beside the point."
Sands chuckled and leaned down to plant the wildest French kiss on the lobe of her ear, while his fingers danced through the soft curls of her humid center.
"God you must be my wife, to make a claim like that."
Lily's hand moved down to cover his and press it closer to her soaked, aching folds as he blew on the wetness he had left behind on her ear. She moaned and wound his fingers with hers until she could feel them entering through her with a gentle, swooning ease.
"Oh, so that's where they're supposed to go? Man, all this time I had it wrong…"
"Stop teasing me or I'll show you…ah," she gasped out as his index and middle finger curled lightly within in, "…or I'll show you where else you can stick them."
"Where's that baby?" He whispered lovingly and yet crudely against her neck as he jammed his fingers further inside, rougher, the way he knew she liked it when she was drinking beer from a bottle.
Red wine Lily liked everything rich and slow, tequila Lily, whenever he could remember seeing her, liked things quick and dirty, while whiskey Lily would always admit to enjoying sex best when she was in costume or when the Red Sox lost or when life was too depressing to do anything but screw the pain away.
He knew them all. But he had to admit, Lily with a cold beer in her hand and her heart on her sleeve, was his favorite. This was when she was most sarcastic, most prone to test his furthest limits and her own, and when she liked for everything to be raw and rough and unexpected. Budweiser, among others, could make her say and do things that most women would be timid to admit they might enjoy. And ironically, it was when she was most childlike too.
Sublime choice of substance abuse for a wedding to Lily Hanson, he chuckled in his head as his scissoring, commanding fingers delved in and out of her slick chasm, her hips rolling down onto him in consummation of it all, my little South New England hops, girl.
"More Jeff, I want it harder…"
Harder the lady says, harder she gets. He forced a third finger, somehow so tightly that it drove his stiff cock mad with jealousy, down into her lower cavern, where the unseen vibrancy emanated from her insides right to the whimper in her voice.
"Harder, please. Faster…go faster!"
All he could let himself do was hover over her, pumping through and through her body with the sticky heat of his hand, and shaking his head with a manic grin. The sound of her climaxing had never been healthier, sweeter, and more superior to now; now, with a ring on her finger and a promise lain out. Her moaning filled his every functioning sense remaining and left him desperate for the tightness, the wetness he felt soaking his fingers, to drench and own his angry manhood.
As she fell down from the sky and hit the ground with his fingers cradling her final rushing waves of ecstasy and arching hips, Sands aimlessly let his free hand wander under the cotton of his boxers and hunt out the pleading beast of himself, strangling it tightly to hold control.
"God, you are so damn…" Lily breathed and he rubbed his cock smoother for another extended moment, "…so, so damn good at that."
He smiled when she laughed at her own comment and sat up to wrap her arms around his neck.
"No," he corrected as he released his hand from his boxers and replaced it on her thigh beside him, while his fingers dripping from her cream were sucked at one by one, "You are so damn good at that. I'm merely an ear-witness to the magic."
Lily rubbed his sweating chest and stroked until she could feel the soft hairs sprouting from the waistband of his boxers.
"It's my turn to watch you lose your mind then, lover boy."
Her hand moved inside of the cotton and firmly took hold of his cock, more than pleased with the way he twitched with excitement at her touch. It was nice to see him this way, at ease with everything, even with what she could do to him for a change. My husband, she thought to herself as she stroked him from out of the boxers and pushed him to lie back on the blanket instead, Sheldon Jeffery Sands. Sex God and cheap romancer extraordinaire. And Lord, help me, I love him to death and you can't make me deny it. No more.
She settled comfortably between his legs and eased his boxers away to reveal all of him, what she now rightfully owned. Sands' heady, anxious cock bounced high from the fabric and he gritted his teeth when Lily stroked him, from tip to root, pinching tight.
"Fuck. That feels good baby."
"How about this…?"
Her face tumbled down quick to lick away the bitter drip of what he'd already begun to release to her. Sands' hands gripped the blanket when he couldn't find her, and he grunted peaceably at the way her tongue fit so perfectly into the niche of his cock's head, swirling and tasting everything he wanted to give her.
"That's better…" he laughed darkly as he felt her free hand stroke his clammy stomach.
Lily giggled before she finally slipped her lips over the silk head of him, taking the upstanding length as deep as could satisfy her hunger for him. She let her lower teeth grind against the underside of his shaft, while her tongue soothed the aftermath of it. He tossed his head from side to side, clenched his jaw, grunted, nearly whimpered for her, and it all made her movements faster, more determined and lustful.
"That's it, God…Lil, that's it sugar…"
His voice was resounding, sexy and punishable.
"Take it, swallow me fucking whole!"
She refused to do that, and with a laugh and one last deep plunge of her mouth upon him, she released the startled, achy flesh and slid to straddle his body instead. He was breathless, upset and sweating under her.
"Come on, are you kidding me….?"
"Relax. I've got something else for you to have."
Her hand reached down where their middles met with soft curls and warm moisture, and she brushed the tip of his frustrated cock against her opening.
"Oh, well I love your something else."
"I thought you might," with a giggle and without much difficulty except for the occasional moan or groan, she pressed him slowly within her, pushing his six healthy, ready inches as deep as she could get them.
She mewed like an innocent kitten lost in the desert and it made his mind rush with the unbearable heat and need to flush himself of what had been built up for too long already. Her body fit around his like a glove, a really taut, really wet, utterly flawless glove. No woman, no cunt had been sweeter or more dangerous or more obviously designed for him to fill.
He was sure of it.
"Yeah, baby," he sighed and reached out to grasp her hips as she rode him easily. "You're it."
Lily laughed down at him in ecstasy and dug her nails into his chest, trying to hold on to everything and nothing.
"I'm what, Jeffery?"
"You're…" his mouth gaped as her hips moved to bend and contract around his cock, "…sweet Jesus, heaven and fucking earth…" the slide of her wet form against his, the way her fingers cinched his skin like a fierce desert animal, and the sensation of his length stroking all of her inner most walls and muscles made the ground shake under the blanket.
He swore it.
Lily threw her head back, her mess of tangled brown curls dancing against the burn and droplets of sweat on the nape of her neck and shoulders. His coaching voice from underneath of her, although she couldn't bear to see the urgent, gaping look on his face, was all she needed to hear.
"Lily, Holy God…fuck me, yes…come on honey, harder…more, more Lily!"
She did everything he requested of and more, sliding, screwing, grinding and crying out into the middle of nowhere at all. Her thighs grew weak with the movement, his hands on her hips tightened and that's when she felt the crest of the wave, the tumbling of her feet over her head off a cliff, and she began falling fast.
No words would come of her lips, only desert howls and short yelps for his hard flesh rocking against the most sensitive of spots, rubbing at the invisible walls of pulsing blood and desire deep within her. And as her heat rose fifty degrees instantly, so did his. Sands' groaned and half sat up to attempt control over himself a little longer, but it didn't seem to matter. She was too good at bringing him to the edge. There was no stopping it.
He held her close to him, her soft breasts melting into his chest like butter and her hips doing the same around his waist as she let go of what little she had left. Her arms were loosely clinging to his neck as he pounded into her from a different angle and took the black veil of his view away with it. He could see colors suddenly, like fizzling light in a blank field. His shaft tingled where it was hidden within her and ever so lovingly, gave way to what was then hiding within it.
Sands' bit his lower lip as the release consumed Lily and her head fell to his shoulder. He ran his hands up and down her spine, gripping at certain fleshy areas on her hips and waist, trying to gain any bit of focus he could, but there was none.
Fine, fuck it; he bargained silently, I'll fall this time without a fight.
And so he did, right back down to the dusty blanket with Lily's body stretched out across his, shielding him from the brutish reality that he'd become something and someone else so suddenly, and at such ease. He hadn't been the ardent, tumultuous lover type in eight years; and ironically so, perhaps.
He stroked through her hair where it fell from the top of her head to his right cheek and shoulder. Under his chin she rested, cuddled her face and kissed him over and over, trying to regain a clear view of the ground under them and the purple sky above.
"Jeff?"
His chest rose with deep breathing and Lily's body did with it.
"Hm?" He asked as he threw half the blanket over to cover them together.
"Sing to me."
"Sing what?"
She pressed her face down into his chest and left imprints, ownership, with her lips.
"I don't know, just pick something. Something good."
He laughed under her, calling into question all the times she'd ever given that same answer.
"Something good she says, ladies and gentleman. What should we give her?"
After deliberating for a short while, he finally tugged a faint hum out of thin air. Lily knew what it was without a second thought and she drifted closer to sleep with every 'hmm hmm hm hm…' that came from between his lips. He softly kissed the top of her head and rubbed her shoulder when he began to sing in a whisper.
'Lay lady lay…lay across my big brass bed…'
She loved this song, probably too much. But then again, he knew that too.
'Stay lady stay; stay with your man a while…till the break of day, let me see you make him smile…'
Lily turned her face just enough to see with her last bit of energy, that he already was.
"I will," she quietly mumbled before closing her eyes.
NOTHING BUT MINE
