Pretend Love Romance by Penny Wylder
Epilogue
Diana
Six Months Later
I walk toward the river at the exact time that Leo told me to. He’s been secretive all week but finally clued me in that he was planning something by giving me a time and a location.
I have to weave through the construction for the new cabins to get there. The structures are nearly framed out, and they’ll be ready for occupancy by spring. Leo’s family is fully funding his portion of Blue Mountain, and his parents are now regular guests.
It’s brisk in the late fall, but still gorgeous out. The sun set about an hour ago, so there’s a chill in the air. But as I walk up to the place he told me to meet him, I don’t think I’ll be cold at all.
My mouth nearly falls open. Not only has Leo set up a fire on the bank of the river, but there are candles melted to the stones in a big circle so the whole area is lit up. There’s a blanket and a picnic basket full of food, and then there’s Leo. He’s standing by the fire, grinning at me.
“Is this what’s been making you sneaky all week?”
“I wasn’t sneaky.”
I step through the circle of candles. “You most certainly were. It’s not like I can’t see you sneaking around.”
After we got back together, or, as Leo calls it, ‘The Day We Fixed It,’ I moved into the cabin with him. My work can be done from anywhere, and I didn’t have any particular attachment to my house. But his cabin was a little small for two people living there full time, so we are in the middle of expanding. Soon I will have an office that looks over the river, and I can’t wait.
“Fine,” he says. “I was sneaking. And yes, this was it.”
I step into his arms and he leans down to kiss me. “Not that I don’t love this, because it’s beautiful, but it’s a bit of a weird place to have dinner,” I tell him.
“I don’t think so. I think it’s the perfect place.”
“Why?”
Leo smiles. “Six months ago today, right here, I pulled you out of the river. And that’s a day that changed both of our lives.”
“True.” He’d managed to get me into the river a couple more times over the summer, but I stick to the calm waters now.
“So I figured, since this place changed our lives then, it can change our lives again.” He pulls away and sinks down on one knee, taking my stomach with him.
“Leo—”
“The last time I did this, we both thought it wasn’t real, and it turned out differently. This time, I don’t want you to have any doubts. This is real. I want you forever. Will you marry me?”
The ring in his hand is the same ring. I’d recognize it anywhere. I can’t believe it. “You kept the ring?”
“The ring is real too,” he says. “It was always real.”
“Oh my God.” I thought that he’d bought the ring at a dollar store, even though it was far more beautiful than any other cheap ring I’d seen.
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“Yes, of course I’ll marry you,” I say, holding out my hand for the ring. He slips it on, and my heart settles. Even though I only wore it for a few days, I’ve missed it. I love having it on my hand, like he’s with me even when he’s not.
I throw my arms around his neck and kiss him, sinking down onto the blankets and pulling him with me. He laughs. “What about dinner?”
“You didn’t think you could propose without me fucking my fiancé, did you?” I pull his face to mine and kiss him hard.
These last six months have been a glorious mess of love and sex as we merged our lives together. Our chemistry hasn’t disappeared. I bite his lip, nipping at him in the way I know makes him go crazy. Brings out his animal side, and he makes a low sound in his throat.
“I didn’t bring condoms with me.”
He’s looking down at me, and I return his stare. “I don’t care.”
Leo’s eyebrows raise. “You’re ready for that?”
I smirk. “Maybe the place we almost died will help us create new life.”
He yanks his shirt over his head and tosses it aside. “I like calling you my fiancée,” he says as he runs his hands down the front of my shirt, slowly undoing some of the buttons one by one. “But I’m going to like calling you my wife even more.”
I shudder. “I like that too.”
Leo hooks his fingers in my jeans and strips them from my legs. The lacy thong I wore just in case, doesn’t go so quickly. Lacy, delicate things are his favorite. Specifically, he likes ripping them off me before he fucks me senseless.
This time, he doesn’t rip them. He pushes my legs apart and licks them, teasing me through the lace. “Fuck, Leo.”
“You didn’t think I could propose to you without tasting my favorite thing, did you?” he asks, reflecting my words back at me.
Blood rushes to my face. Even after six months, he still has the ability to make me blush. Which I do, every time he tells me how much he likes the way I taste.
Spreading the lace tight over my clit, Leo sucks me through it, using his tongue to create friction with the fabric. Fuck that’s good.
The air is colder as the night grows deeper, and the heat of the fire warms me along with Leo’s tongue. The contrast in temperature just makes everything sharper, and I’m starting to shake.
Leo has spent hours between my legs, declaring that he wants to memorize every inch of my pussy, and he has. He knows exactly what to do to have me gasping, and he knows how to torture me, keeping me on edge for as long as he decides.
Finally drawing my thong to the side, Leo slides his tongue deep. I reach down and shove my fingers into his hair, holding him there. He licks inside me, and I moan. I love the feeling of this. Every time.
Tonight it feels even more intimate. This man is going to be my husband. Forever. The thought of it nearly makes me come right then, but I don’t want to. “I need you inside me,” I manage to say, and Leo pulls back, mouth shining with my wetness. Locking eyes, he licks me one more time before pulling my thong away from my skin with his teeth.
Once they're free, he inhales them, causing me to blush again. “You wore these for me?”
“Just in case you were planning something, I figured there was a chance for sex.”
Leo laughs, crawling up my body. “You say ‘a chance for sex’ as if you’re not having it regularly. If you’re not satisfied, I’m going to have to work harder.”
“I always want you hard.”
His mouth falls to my neck. “Fuck, I love you.”
“You’re about to love me more,” I whisper. “It’s a matching set.”
He sits up, straddling my hips, and rips open what’s left of my buttons. They go flying into the darkness and I couldn’t care less. The way he’s staring at the barely-there black lace. The cups are small and my breasts are spilling out of it—just the way he likes.
The light of the fire flickers over his chest, and I wish I could take a picture. I memorize the way shadows trace over his muscles and the way the fire makes his lust that much more intense.
Slowly, Leo unbuckles his belt. “My husband is so fucking hot,” I say. “And I don’t care that we’re not married yet.”
He shifts so he can get out of his jeans before coming back to me and sliding into me in one smooth motion. “I will take you to the courthouse tomorrow if you keep calling me that.”
“Husband.”
He groans, thrusting deeper, and I have to close my eyes. Leo has mastered my body, angling himself so he’s hitting that spot deep inside me that sets the world on fire. Now that he’s bare, it’s all brand new friction that yanks me to the edge.
“Husband.” The word spurs him on, moving faster and harder. He braces himself above me and fucks. Hard and deep, not stopping. Pleasure twists through my core, coming from deep inside and building. It spreads until I can feel it in my toes and I’m so close and so far, just existing in this storm of pleasure.
I’m beyond speech, frozen, arching upwards off the ground. My body is gathering pleasure like a lightning rod, and when Leo grinds his hips down onto my clit, we explode together.
Brightness fills my vision and I swear that it’s no longer night. An ocean of ecstasy falls down on me and it’s like I’m in the river again, but this river I never want to leave.
Our cries echo off the rocks and trees, Leo spilling himself deep inside me. Another first. We’ve never done that before. Not all the way.
Leo stares down at me, heaving in breath, and I manage to find my voice. “Husband.”
“You’re bad.”
I squeeze down on his cock, and his eyes nearly roll back in your head. “If you’re going to do that, we need to eat first. I need my strength.”
He brings the basket of food over to the blanket and starts to unpack it. Naked in the firelight, I can’t help but think how lucky I am that I almost drowned. Lucky that he was the one to pull me out.
“I love you,” I say.
Leo smiles at me as he returns with food. But I’m only hungry for him. “I love you too.”
We stay under the stars until the fire is dim, falling asleep in each other’s arms.
* * *
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Copyright © 2020 Penny Wylder
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or businesses, organizations, or locales, is completely coincidental.
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