I pulled off his shirt, letting my hands explore the hard muscles of his chest, abs and arms.
He stood, pulling me up with him, and unbuttoned my jeans, pulling them off me along with my underwear. I stripped off my shirt and bra and stood before him naked, trembling with need and excitement as I helped him pull his pants off and free his hard, thick cock.
I thought we'd go back to the soft grass, but he lifted me up and pushed me against the tree. I wrapped my legs around him and felt his cock pushing into me as his hands cupped my ass. His muscles flexed under my hands. The tree bark scraped my back. The pain, mixed with the pleasure of his body inside me, took me to the edge quickly and I dug my nails into him hard as I came while he fucked me.
He didn't slow as my pussy clenched him in waves of orgasmic bliss. Instead, he thrust into me harder, using my body weight as leverage to go deeper into me.
I pressed myself against his chest, my breasts rubbing against his skin, and I kissed him, deeply, passionately, with all the love and need I had building inside of me, and as he came into me, I came again, falling off that edge of sanity together as we spiraled into the magic of something only we could know.
We sank to the ground, still wrapped up in each other's bodies, as he held me and stroked my hair. "I can't wait to marry you, Catelyn. I won't wait. We won't give up trying to find out what happened to Jon, but he'd want us to be happy. I want to reschedule the wedding as soon as possible. Life is too unpredictably short to put our happiness on hold. I don't want anything getting in the way of you being my wife."
My heart broke for Jon, but I kissed my fiancé and smiled at the thought of being his wife.
***
The next day I dragged Bridgette out of bed and forced her to attend an art auction in Boston with me. "I need your help picking a wedding gift for Ash. Something really special," I told her.
"Didn't you already get him a watch?"
I rolled my eyes as I pulled into a parking spot. We were almost late because Bridgette hadn't been easy to coerce out of the house. Finally, best friend guilt had worked. "The watch is nice, but with so much tragedy in our lives, I wanted something extra special. I have all this money now that I don't know what to do with. When I refused to use Ash's bank account or spend his money, he created an account just for me and put so much in there I'm a little lost. The least I can do is get him something with it."
We walked into the modern building while other people in expensive suits and dresses checked in and took their numbered paddles to the main auction room. Bridgette looked through the program they handed her as I gave my name and picked up my number. "They have some amazing pieces being auctioned today," she said. "I didn't know some of these items were even available for private purchase."
"One of Ash's favorite works of art is being auctioned today. I have to get it for him."
We sat near the back and half-listened as the auctioneer went through his rapid introduction and began with the first piece, a little-known early Monet painting.
I knew the art I wanted wouldn't be up until the end, so I tuned out the nearly unintelligible words and turned to Bridgette. "We've set the wedding date for this weekend," I said.
Her eyes widened. "But that's so soon. What about Jon? What about his killer?"
"They haven't found the killer and we don't have all the answers, but life has to go on. We're still searching, trying to figure out what happened. Ash has his P.I. hunting for clues. We haven't given up, but we can't put our happiness on hold forever while we wait. We're going to have a small ceremony in a garden and then the reception will be later that day on the Davenport yacht."
A tear glistened in her eye but she wiped it away. "He was really amazing you know. Jon, he… there was a lot about him people didn't know, but he was kind of extraordinary."
I half-listened to the auctioneer introduce the next piece, a Van Gogh. Both Van Gogh and Monet weren't fully appreciated in their time. It wasn't until they died that their art was worth anything. I wondered how much we could really value anyone or anything until we'd lost it. Was Jon really that great and we just didn't see it? Or did he only seem that amazing because he was gone, and the bad parts faded under the weight of the grief over his loss?