Marrying Up Read online

  She hugs me, Sam hugs me, and they insist that we drop any memory of mistakes that were made today.

  "I'll check back in the morning to make sure the caterers and other vendors have left nothing behind, and I reminded my assistant that you all get to keep the centerpieces if you want, and…"

  Sam and Wren but cut me off simultaneously, waving me off to continue sneaking off with Smitty. They shout, "Go!" as I wave goodbye and Smitty helps me into the truck.

  I'm not sure what Smitty has planned but when we park down by the creek, away from the prying eyes of the wedding guests, but he's got blankets and pillows, a cooler, and a duffel bag in the bed of his truck.

  "I thought we could sleep under the stars, if you're up for it," he says. "I grabbed your overnight bag from your car so you can change into something more comfortable for sleeping in. And I brought wedding cake and grabbed some beers from the open bar."

  I'm not much in the mood for beer, though. And the wedding cake can wait until after I've said what I have to say.

  "I love you so much, Smitty."

  One swift move, and he lifts me into the bed of his truck, kissing me hungrily.

  "Marry me."

  It's a statement, not a question.

  "Are you sure? I'm kind of a handful," I say.

  Unexpectedly, he is not in the mood for banter. He puts about one inch of distance between us, just enough to lift the hem of my dress and slide his hand under my slip. "You're not a handful, Ally. This," he says, cupping my heat, "this is the only handful from what I can tell."

  I gasp and feel the heat rise in my belly and spread across my skin, even through my industrial-strength wedding undergarments. "Oh."

  He rubs me up and down. "Marry me, Ally."

  "You don't think it's kind of fast?" I say, a smirk teasing the corner of my mouth. I can't help but tease him. I am loving the keyed up Smitty. He's normally so laid back, but when he's done with banter, he's done.

  "Fuck that, lady," he rumbles. He pulls at my body-shaping garment under my dress and grunts. "Guess I can't rip these like I want to."

  I bite his bottom lip playfully then say, "Let me help you out." When two people love each other, it's not so uncomfortable shimmying out of one's reinforced underthings. I discard the godawful thing over the side of the pickup bed with a flourish. "There you go—oh!" I barely have the words out before Smitty has my lacy panties ripped off and stuffed into his pocket. I yelp in delight and surprise.

  "I need you now. And I need you to tell me the truth. Do you want to marry me?"

  The truth is, of course I want to marry this man. And I need to get the words out as soon as possible. His caresses are so gorgeous and have me feeling so dreamily foggy, though, that that I've nearly forgotten what words are.

  "Y…yes," I exhale. Taffeta rustles all around, my legs writhing to climb him, begging to get my whole body closer to him.

  He lays me down on the blankets in the bed of the truck and nests himself between my legs, pressing into me with his hips.

  "Good," he says, his voice uncharacteristically husky. "Because I was going to keep asking until you said yes."

  I wrap my legs around him and pull him close, reaching my hands down to help him unfasten and unzip his pants.

  "Not so fast, little lady," he whispers, planting a kiss on my lips and trailing a warm, wet path with his mouth down my neck and across my chest. "Help me get this dress off of you."

  With a little bit of shimmying and unzipping and awkward giggling, we work my dress off over my head, and he makes quick work of my bra.

  He sucks one nipple and then the other into his mouth while I watch his eyes nearly roll back into his head. "I've been staring at these things for a week. You wear too many layers over them, you know that?"

  "Five days," I say. "You've only been staring at my melons for five days."

  "Hush your smart mouth before I give you something that'll hush you up."

  "Oooh promise?" I say with a wicked laugh.

  He paints wild, open-mouthed kisses down my body, across my belly, and spreads open my legs.

  I relax back into the cushions and watch the stars. The feeling of his fingers spreading me open, his soft murmurs, and the sensation of his lips against my most sensitive skin, force my eyes closed.

  The way he massages his tongue against my heat is almost too much to take. I reach down and lace my fingers through his hair. His hat has been set aside, so without thinking I pick it up and put it on my head.

  He looks up at me and sees me, a wicked smile spreading across his face. "If you're gonna wear my hat then you better let me watch you pinch your nipples."

  "What has one to do with the other?" I ask.

  "Nothing," he says. "But you're gonna do it."

  I move my hands slowly over my skin and do exactly what he tells me to do. I like this side of him. If this is what being married to Smitty is going to be like, then I'm incredibly happy I signed up for it.

  He runs his tongue around my clit several times before flicking it with the tip. The fire inside me builds to an inferno, pulling me closer to incinerating with every second. The sound of him gently sucking my clit into his mouth is so erotic that my orgasm flashes through me like hellfire. I release against his face with a scream of feral happiness that echoes across the creek.

  "Oh my god, Smitty."

  "My girl," he says, keeping up his adoration of me with his mouth and his magic, rough fingers. "All mine."

  "All yours."

  I hear him opening a condom and when I open my eyes, we're face to face again, sharing a velvety kiss. His pants are history, his shirt is still on, and there's something incredibly hot about being naked underneath this lean, strong body with a layer of material between us.

  He teases my opening with the tip. "I'm ready," I whisper.

  Inch by inch he sinks into me, stroking in and pulling out, stroking in and pulling out, until he's fully seated. The movement of Smitty's thick cock sets off even more waves of pleasure. We rock and thrust together like this, slowly, lovingly, under the stars, until we've both been satisfied.

  "I've never slept outside before," I say later, wrapped up in his arms with him spooned up behind me under the blankets.

  "Get used to it if you're gonna marry a cowboy."

  "Am I marrying a cowboy, or are you marrying a wedding planner?"

  He laughs and squeezes me against him. "We should work that out sooner rather than later, city girl."

  I sigh. "What am I going to do with my country mouse?"

  "Tell you what," he says. "We can do both. We can live here at my house, and stay in the city whenever you want. And you keep your office downtown if you want to."

  "I think I like that idea. Then you can teach me how to work a ranch."

  "And I can hire enough people to work the ranch while I help you out with your business. If you want."

  I giggle and snuggle deeper against him, very close to drifting off. "Of course I need your help. You're the official high shelf assistant."

  We keep talking, planning everything out until we both drift off to sleep.

  Nothing makes me happier than planning, except being able to plan everything out with my Smitty.

  Epilogue

  One year later

  Ally

  Not a single thing about our wedding is perfect, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

  First, one of my bridesmaids goes into labor an hour before the ceremony. I told Wren when she found out she was pregnant, I could move the wedding date up, but she demanded that I didn't dare do that.

  "Besides, having a super pregnant bridesmaid is good luck," she had said to me when accompanying me to the wholesale flower market to decide on what I wanted in my bouquet.

  I didn't mention to her that my dream spot in the butterfly garden at City Park was booked out two years in advance, so I was secretly relieved at her insistence.

  I had a fabulous time planning my wedding with Wren, whose own w
edding had been a surprise to her.

  When she went with me and the other bridesmaids and my Grams to help choose dresses, it was Wren's opinion that clicked with me. I had always thought my Grams' endorsement would matter the most. I love my Grams, but the wedding stuff brought up all kinds of things she never got to do with my biological mother.

  I had Taffy flashbacks when Grams got upset because I wasn't going to wear her dress from fifty years ago. It's beautiful, but it just wasn't me. Too much lace and not enough glamour. I had always had my heart set on a form-fitting dress with some sparkle, some sequins, and feathers along the bottom.

  I fell in love with that exact dress the moment I tried it on, but when I came out of the dressing room, everyone was underwhelmed except for Wren. Maybe it's the objectivity of someone who hasn't known you all your life. Maybe she didn't think I was getting too big for my britches. Who knows, but when I saw the look on her face, I knew it was the one.

  She reacted as if the dress was already a given. "You'll need to skip the veil with this dress," she said, fluffing my hair. "You'll need old school Hollywood curls and an asymmetrical headpiece instead. And simple flowers, not roses. Tulips or calla lilies. Basic, because this dress is the opposite of basic."

  I knew then that Wren and I were going to be friends for life.

  Later, when we tasted cakes together, I asked her if she regretted not getting to plan her own wedding.

  "Not at all," she'd said through a mouthful of banana cake. "Too much pressure. I'm not much for spending money on myself. I mean, I'm coming around, don't get me wrong. Sam gets frustrated because I never think to treat myself. He has to be the one to schedule my pedicures. I just never think of it on my own, and pregnancy brain has made that even worse. I'm having a blast watching you treat yourself and that's all the wedding excitement I need."

  Not only does Wren go into labor an hour before the ceremony while we're having our makeup applied at the hotel across from City Park, but she also has to be carried off by her husband, with Wren shouting, "It's my first baby. This could take all day and it doesn't even hurt that bad!"

  As Sam carefully picks her up and carries her down the hall away from the remaining bridal party, I hear him mutter something about if it were up to Wren, she'd have the baby outside like some kind of hippie with a witch doctor brushing her down with herbs. "…And no child of mine is gonna come into the world without the presence of a person with an actual M.D. behind their name." Hearing him say that makes Wren laugh and it makes me happy.

  Shortly after Wren and Sam disappear, I learn that the judge set to do the ceremony has a last-minute emergency, so I have to scramble for someone among my professional contacts who is ordained to marry us.

  And then, minutes before the ceremony begins, it rains unexpectedly, which wouldn't be a problem if the wedding were to take place in the hotel. But I am supposed to walk on the arm of my Pops from the hotel, across the street, and have the ceremony in the butterfly garden at City Park. But as a wedding planner, I always have a backup plan, and I've already made sure my guests are equipped with umbrellas. A little sprinkle is not going to drive this ceremony indoors.

  "It's good luck," says my grandpa. "Besides, I made you this pretty umbrella, if you want to use it."

  I look at what he's holding and see a standard umbrella but white, bedazzled with feathers, silk flowers, and sequins.

  "Pops, did you do that yourself?" I ask.

  He looks sheepish and nods. It looks a hundred percent like my Grams' craft room threw up on it, and I love it to bits. I hug my Pops so tight that tears threaten to ruin my makeup.

  "But what's not good luck is the groom seeing you in your dress before the ceremony," says Grams, who's still slightly salty about the dress, and about the fact that I've already sneaked off twice today to kiss my gorgeous groom. "So I guess it all evens out."

  I smile at her in the mirror while the makeup artist fixes my rouge. "That sounds about right for Smitty and me."

  "And why do you have to call him Smitty? He has a perfectly nice name. Robert is a respectable name."

  I try to control my facial expressions because I don't want to crack my makeup. "Grams, his bio dad is Robert, and we don't talk about the guy. Robert is anything but a dad to him. If anybody ever served Smitty as a dad, it was Sam Evans. And I'm extremely excited to have him and Wren as family."

  Grams sighs and says, "I don't know why in the world you would keep a pregnant lady for a bridesmaid. I told you it would look odd in the photos, and now she's not even here. And neither is Smitty's best man because he's her husband!"

  I shrug. "Traditionally, the best man is just there to keep the groom from legging it. I'm not worried, honestly."

  Grams finally gives in and laughs. "You're right about that. That boy is smitten with our little girl." She hugs my shoulders and kisses me on the cheek. "We just want you to be happy, is all. If you're happy, then we're happy."

  "I am, Grams."

  Pops leaves to usher her to her seat before coming back across the street to walk me down the aisle. When I turn to examine my cheek in the mirror, I see a very faint imprint of Grams' lipstick there, and I decide to leave it.

  "Are you sure?" asks the makeup artist. I nod.

  The sprinkling of rain has stopped when Pops and I arrive at the park. Smitty looks like a movie star in his light summer suit and cowboy hat. Despite the urging of his friends and ranch hands that he should insist on wearing a chambray shirt, jeans, and a bolo tie like every other cowboy wedding on planet earth, Smitty wisely deferred to me on his ensemble. I permitted him to wear his hat and boots, but absolutely no jeans or bolo tie.

  "Baby, you could tell me to dress like Dracula and I would do whatever you say," he'd said on the day we decided on his formal wear.

  With Wren's exit behind us, the gentle rain having stopped, and the arrival of an available ordained minister from a very sweet motorcycle club in my contacts that had hired me for an event once, we are finally saying our vows.

  And then, the moths appear. I get the giggles because I don't know what I was thinking. Instead of being blessed with butterflies flying around as I expected, we are inundated with little white moths and dragonflies and bees. A ladybug flies into my mouth.

  "You never did learn to laugh with your mouth shut, did you?" Smitty laughs.

  I laugh harder as my shoulders shake. A bridesmaid hands me a tissue but I wave her off. "I think I swallowed it."

  "My big city wife, ladies and gentleman. The bugs love her."

  I catch my breath. "I ain't your wife yet, country boy."

  Everyone is in stitches and now I have to pee. The officiant gets the message and speeds us through the rest of the important stuff. Smitty, however, doesn't get the message and insists on taking his hat off with gusto and dips me over his knee to kiss me long and hard. Still laughing, I let him kiss me through it while everyone claps and shouts, but I finally have to tell him.

  He scoops me up just as he did on the day we first met in person and runs me over to the park restroom, which is not nearly as pristine as the bridal suite across the street at the hotel, but there's no way I'll make it that far.

  The remaining bridesmaids shoo him away and take over the duties of holding my dress over my head as I shimmy out of my undergarment and finally get some relief. I'm so happy to be married, and everyone is so relieved that I'm not even upset at all the little things that went wrong, we're all laughing our asses off, and none of us are even drunk.

  What's better than three drunk strangers bonding in a public restroom? Three sober best friends howling like she-wolves in the bathroom at a very fancy occasion.

  It is my favorite wedding to have planned yet.

  Epilogue

  Five years later

  Smitty

  I hope Ally likes the surprise I planned for her 40th birthday.

  I smile to myself while I pull our three kids along in the hay wagon down to Sam and Wren's place.

&nb
sp; The two work horses, Squirtle and Snorlax, always seem to get excited when I hitch them up to the kids' wagon. "You guys be good for Uncle Sam and Auntie Wren, you hear me?"

  Betty, June, and Elvis promise to be good, and I gently slap Snorlax and give him the signal to go. He already knows where he's going, I don't even have to accompany them down through the pasture toward the log house by the creek, but I jog along beside them just until they are over the ridge. I watch them go the rest of the way until I'm interrupted by a text notification. It's Ally, who is finishing up some work in the city tonight.

  I hate that she had to go to work on her 40th birthday but she promised to be done early. I've booked a table at her favorite restaurant and before that, a concert on the lawn at City Park, followed by a stay at the nicest hotel in the city. I've had it all planned out for almost a year.

  We're raising three kids on the ranch and she still has her office downtown to meet with clients and vendors. It's not easy for her to split her time between our home here in the country and her weekends in the city, but more and more people are booking weddings out here on the farm to get that rustic chic vibe that Ally does so well.

  I open the text and first all I see is something very pink and very wet.

  What the… I shield the screen from the sun and realize what I'm looking at.

  Whoa. That's her… and it's… and her finger is… "Boy howdy! That is my sexy wife in all her glory, right there. Holy shit!"

  I call her immediately and my mouth is watering like hell.

  "Babe, what are you doing to me?"

  Her voice rasps, "I'm not doing anything but thinking about you."

  "Baby please don't finish yourself off without me."

  "You'd better get here fast then."

  "What about dinner, and the show, and the hotel?"

  "Oh, I've already checked into the hotel. And I've taken advantage of the entire spa package and I'm feeling very, very relaxed."

  My breath is rattling. "I'm fine to skip that five-course chemical gastronomy or whatever, to be honest."