In lieu of gifts, we'd announced that donations were welcome to either of the safehouses, The Sanctuary at Blackwater or Safehouse-Sherborn. I needed nothing more than to marry the man I'd loved for the past decade. The rest we would figure out together.
Willow poked her head in and told us it was time. She had all of the girls lined up and ready whenever we were, she said. My sister was a newlywed herself, having tied the knot with Roger barely two months ago. Only the identicals, as Caleb liked to call them, were left to fall to matrimony. I had a feeling Lucas might be next with a certain sister whose initials were VB. James and I didn't talk about them—like ever. Now, I would have loved to discuss exactly what was going on with my brother and his sister, being the nosey matchmaker that I am, but James—not so much.
"I'm ready," I said to my brother. "I want to marry my James now."
* * *
JAMES
The moment I'd waited for was finally here. My greatest fear and greatest joy all rolled up into one big clusterfuck of emotion. No best man standing by my side today either—but it was for the very best possible reason.
Caleb had a job so much more important than simply calming my fucking nerves.
He was walking the bride down the aisle...and giving her away on her wedding day—to me.
Brooke came first, then my sis, and then Willow. Everyone in their places doing what they were supposed to do. Shane and Brenna were the last to come down the aisle before the bride made her grand entrance.
The ocean breeze was warm and gentle, the island sunset timing out like clockwork, the guests giving silent witness to our pledge to each other when I spotted her on Caleb's arm. Looking so bright and beautiful I was blinded just a little.
A little fucking much.
My knees might have buckled just a fraction, too, but I stayed on my feet.
She was radiant, and smiling only for me, and so beautiful in her dress that I had to close my eyes for two seconds, sealing that image of her away in my mind forever.
So I'd never forget how my bride looked at me that first moment when we saw each other on our wedding day.
Four days later.
With nothing to do but make love to my gorgeous wife and lounge around on the beach with her I was pretty pleased with the destination wedding I'd snagged from the silent auction at The Autumn Ball last year. Fripp Island was flanked by several tiny, nearly deserted islands all around us, connected by canals that ran through the marshy waterways. The beach side was the Atlantic Ocean. The whole area was one big wildlife refuge really. We'd seen a family of deer wander through the area just this morning while eating our breakfast outside on the deck. Dolphins appeared everywhere you looked. Yesterday we kayaked to another tiny island, called Prichard’s Island, where Win was so fascinated with the pile of driftwood she'd collected I was afraid we might capsize the kayak on the trip back. A dolphin followed us the whole way almost as if it were making sure we'd make it back safely. It was so awesome.
While I appreciated the beauty of nature, it was Winter's beauty that I found so magnificent as she played in the sand with her collection of shells in nothing but a pink and black flowered bikini. Fuck HOT. Her tits were pushed up and out the sides from the top and her ass was hanging out from the bottoms, and she never looked better in my view—happy and healthy—just as she should be.
The last months had been spent finding our rhythm with how we wanted our life to go. It certainly wasn't quick or easy finding it either. I didn't want her to overextend herself trying to create two safehouse networks from the ground up, so the pace on those projects was slowed. It was going to take some time. For now she was focusing on Sherborn and the equine therapy program it featured. Brooke and Caleb were the principals for The Sanctuary at Blackwater on Blackstone Island, where Winter was more of an admin and less hands-on than she was at Sherborn. I wasn't allowing her to get in over her head with work again…because we were trying to have baby.
It wasn't something we'd talked about at first because neither of us felt really sure what the other one wanted to do. When you lose something you love in such a heartbreaking way, it's terrifying to put yourself or the one you love at risk for losing it a second time.
But my beautiful Winter is brave.
She is a fighter and doesn't back down from a challenge very often. So, when I asked her a month ago if she wanted to try again she didn't hesitate for even a tiny second. She just said, "Yes, James, that's what I want." And then she told me to get my ass naked as quickly as possible and to get started working on it with her.
Oh, I did. I still do. At every opportunity.
Probably the biggest surprise for me was her enthusiasm for the kink.
God.
She fucking LOVES being kinky with me. My major hesitation in the beginning in pursuing Winter turned out to be anything but a problem. My wife was a kinky fucker just as much as I was—maybe more sometimes.
She took me shelling on a beach the first day where we didn’t see another soul the entire time. We found hundreds of perfect conch shells, some as long as my foot. She'd dragged as many shells as she could carry back to our place along with the driftwood, which she was now arranging carefully in the sand.
"What are you making, beautiful?"
"See for yourself, handsome." She held out her hand to beckon me over.
I couldn't help but laugh at what she'd made with shells and driftwood in the sand. It was perfect. I reached for my phone to take a picture, because this masterpiece was going onto a framed canvas and then up on the fuckin’ wall in my office.
Mr. & Mrs. Blakney
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kinky fuckers in love
Blackstone Family Connections
The American Blackstones of Boston are related to the British Blackstones in the UK. For a fun look at just how they connect, please turn the page for a glimpse into Caleb and Brooke’s honeymoon, when he decided to take her back to her native England for the holidays…in A BLACKSTONE CHRISTMAS. You might see a character or two that you recognize from The Blackstone Affair. (wink)
A BLACKSTONE CHRISTMAS
CALEB
“My cousin, Hannah, runs this huge old manor house as a B&B in Somerset, and she just won’t take no for an answer about us staying the night. Are you going to be okay with that?”
I hoped my wife would tell me the truth about what she wanted to do. Brooke was the most undemanding person I had ever known in my life, so it was a crap shoot on whether I’d get this right or not.
“I will definitely be okay with it if you are, Caleb,” she answered serenely, stretching languidly among the sheets, where she looked far too sexy to even consider letting her leave the bed, let alone our hotel room.
A day ago we were honeymooning in Hawaii, today London, but it didn’t matter to me. I had my Brooke, and I’d go anywhere she wanted. This trip to London was for her, so it was going to play out exactly however she decided it would. Once she’d told me she hadn’t been back to the land of her birth since she’d left to live with her grandmother at fifteen, and how much she missed London, especially at Christmas, I knew where we’d be spending our first holidays together. Being able to give her even the simplest gift of a visit back home to England felt like I was winning.