Chapter 12

12

Six months later.

Folly Beach

Sprawled out on the blanket in a warm bed of sand, I pulled my wife to my chest.

"So how does it feel to have a husband?" Cheesy comments had become my favorite method of teasing her, and the levels to which I’d go were fairly limitless.

Her chin plopped on my chest, a small smile snaking along her lips. "It feels hard and warm and rather nice actually," she said as her hand wandered over my chest and then down my abs and over my shorts to palm my cock through the material. "How does it feel to be the luckiest man in the universe?"

I laughed—something I did a lot more often now Giselle had come into my life. "Still trying to hold on to the lower leg with the teasing. I told you there was nothing to worry about me ever losing my gullibility with you. But to answer your question, it feels like I won the wife lottery. Not every guy can put a ring on a French beach fairy and keep her. It’s a helluva lot harder than it looks."

Giggling cheerily, she snuggled closer, her arms draping around me. "But you did it, so good job, husband. It is quite fun being married to you, even if it’s only been for a day. After all, think how great our wedding turned out, mostly based on my suggestions."

My hand gripped a handful of her gorgeous ass and squeezed. "Yeah, yeah, Frenchy."

Although, she was right. Only sixty guests consisting of our families and close friends had attended the small, intimate ceremony. Reese and Gray, Reid, Reeve, Paul and Isa, who were still trying to work out where their crazy relationship was headed, Giselle’s friend Brynne, who’d lived with her family in Paris as an exchange student, came out from Vegas with her husband, a handful of Giselle’s local artist friends (including Nora, previously known as Old Bat Art Lady) and a few of our neighbors joined us for our ceremony on Folly Beach. Yes, we’d said our vows where we’d first met, and it was exactly how we wanted it to be. Our wedding cake was vanilla strawberry (my clever suggestion) and there was still some leftover in the freezer.

We were still recovering from the party, then we’d slowly pack and get ready to leave for our honeymoon in Cannes next week. Giselle had been the one to suggest we have a break between the wedding and the honeymoon, and she was right...of course. Racing through life never gave you more time. My wife was very wise about how we lived our life. So much wiser than her years. She was an old soul in a new body.

My fingers settled on the messy knot of her hair and caressed the silkiness. "A little sparrow told me that there’s something buried for you on this beach somewhere."

Giselle tossed a glare at her wrist. This was an ongoing joke between us that her sparrow tattoo liked to tell me secrets more than her. She sighed. "That ungrateful sparrow never tells me anything."

Nevertheless, she got to her feet and started walking around, peering down at the sand for clues, digging her toes in places.

"Do I get any sort of hints?" she called over her shoulder.

"You get one stick of a hint," I called back.

Giselle stopped at the place in the sand where a long stick was jutting out and grinned over at me. "But how am I supposed to—"

I tossed a child’s plastic pink shovel her way which she neatly caught, just as I’d known she would.

"I really have to earn this gift, no?"

Propping myself on one arm, I said nothing, just winked. I could hardly wait for the magic moment when she found it.

It only took a minute or so of gritty digging before Giselle paused. "A chest?"

Getting up, I went to sit beside her as she lifted it out. "Yeah, you like chests, don’t you?"

She gave me a light elbow nudge before returning her attention to the chest. "It is beautiful."

It had taken me a few days of stealth antique hunting before I found one that fit the bill. Old looking, but not so grimy you wouldn’t want to touch it. Like some impressively preserved piece you might find at the bottom of the ocean that had belonged to some old pirate captain. That was another thing I’d learned about Giselle in the past few months: one of her childhood dreams, adorably, was to own a pirate ship—but to be a good pirate, as she’d taken great pains to stress to me.

"Maybe it’s only an old chest with nothing inside it," I teased.

"Only a chest. We’ll see about—"

She opened the lid. "Ohhh," she breathed as she gathered up the green fabric in her hands and pulled it to her chest lovingly. Then she stood and let it flow down as a deep sigh spilled from of her trembling lips.

"Gage, you didn’t."

"I totally did." I grinned at my wife feeling quite impressed with myself.

In her hands was the insanely expensive crochet dress in a soft green we’d stumbled on in a local artisan shop downtown. The intricate twines of the crochet had been carefully handcrafted with extra-fine detailing. And though Giselle would never justify such a cost for a dress no matter how much she loved it, I had no problem whatsoever with the price. Surprising her with something perfect I’d found for her was my prerogative as her husband—as I’d told her many times.

"Don’t make me wait too long," I called to her. "Let’s see it on you."

Holding the dress to her body, eyes tearing up, she turned away and started to put it on over her bikini. This was another of her adorable traits. Even though we were husband and wife and I’d seen her cry at least four times now, she still hated being seen with tears in her eyes. Apparently insulting her whenever she cried had been another one of Henri’s many cruel habits.

I sighed. Yes, it would take probably a lifetime for Giselle’s scars regarding her ex to heal, but I was more than up to the task of helping her with that. Every time I woke up next to her, I thanked God for sending her to find me. That’s what I believed, so it became my truth. She had been sent from heaven or somewhere to find me…and save me. To be mine. Forever.

When she returned, my jaw literally dropped. Mind. Completely. Blown.

The crochet dress looked like it had been constructed with her body in mind. The placement of every finely woven hole was perfection incarnate my fingers itched to sink into.

She cocked her hip. "What do you think?"

"Crochet is definitely your thing."

"You think?" she asked, all arched-brow innocence.

In one swift motion, I hoisted her up, so her legs could wrap around my torso.

"I know," I said, a second before my lips crashed into hers.

The rest was preordained.

I walked us off the beach and back inside the house as fast as I could get us there.

The urge to feel and kiss every crochet-exposed hole, every delectable piece of bare skin, was my only driving need right now. My lips were drawn to the nub of her nipple spiking through her suit and the crochet, while my hands danced up and down her beautiful body, stroking to claim all the parts of it I was able.

Giselle’s hands went to work on my board shorts, undoing them but not taking them off…yet.

Disengaging herself with a taunting smile, she stepped back and slowly reached down to grab hold of the hem before pulling her new dress up over her head carefully. "I don’t want to snag this beautiful thing. I love it so much, but I love you more for giving it to me." I waited while she folded it and carefully placed it on the back of the chaise.

We weren’t going to make it upstairs to our bedroom before we started fucking. The couch had worked for us the first time, and it had definitely been used plenty of times since then, so it would do perfectly now.

Adrenaline spiked in my blood as she came forward to meet me, her hands at the back of her neck pulling the tie of her bikini top. A move she had perfected to an incredible degree of sexiness by the way. As it fell to reveal the perfect tits I worshipped as often as I got the opportunity, she had managed to get the tie at her back undone so the whole top dropped with a soft swish to the floor.

Jesus.

* * *

"Oh, oui."The words spilled from her lips as my tongue made love to her clit.

That was when I really got to work. Feasting on my wife’s pleasure, spurring her release forward, pushing her for more upon more. Every part of me hyperfocused on this one goal, this one act. To hear and feel her sweet body lose it under me.

So, I took my time, but just enough so her release would be continuous. I swirled my tongue and fingers in perfect tandem, to a subterranean beat. Our bodies grooved together. Her hips thrust against me as her head dug back into the cushions, all while moaning decadently in French.

Until the shaking of her body became sporadic. A reaction to what she couldn’t hold back any longer. The piercing pleasure I was sucking and ramming into her at top, deep-stroking speed. And then she came. Her body flailed up, and then collapsed back, the shakes taking over her, becoming her, and finally, finishing with her.

Then was I settling myself over her. Our lips found each other.

Yes, it was time.

Our lips were the first to meet, but when my cock kissed her wet slit, that was when the real shuddering began. It was nothing short of life-giving. The first notes of the beautiful tune that you knew was your favorite.

Before I could thrust in deeper, she was already grinding against me as another shake ripped through us, both of us clutching each other. Our bodies tinged with rapid-fire shots of pleasure and this feeling—this fuckingnirvana. Of being with the one you were meant to be with. Being with the only person that would ever matter.

Our bodies moving in tandem. Stroking and grasping hands. Notes of thrills and laughs and moans. All interspersed amidst that primal motion of in and out, flesh claiming flesh. That more and more. That cresting pleasure driving us forward to the end.

And so, I kept on taking her as she was giving herself to me. We swapped positions like breathing, swapped them so many times I lost track. It was all lost in the flow. Her legs up and around me. Her hands ripping through my hair and her skin bristling to the touch. Her softness bearing my roughness. Her flowery scent in my head. Her and her and her.

Until I was not only fused into her, I was her. We were. And like this, as us, we came.

The aftermath was a timeless spell of blissed-out bodies trembling with remembering. Fucking rapture.

She whispered the sweetest words to me. "Très cher Gage, je t’aime."

My dearest Gage, I love you.

The End