Noah held my hands tightly between us as we gazed into each other’s eyes. I was so lost in the green expanse of his gaze that I barely heard the officiant as he started our ceremony. We had spent many long nights planning the ceremony, piecing together different traditions and integrating some of our own favorite readings and quotes to make a wedding that was exactingly ours. We had carried that theme throughout the entirety of our wedding weekend. Friday night’s party at The Diamond Mine had initially struck Robin as strange, considering my very close, personal knowledge of both the owner and the back room, but it had felt completely natural to choose the club as our party venue. Not only had Damien’s account with the agency funded a large portion of the wedding through my commissions and bonuses, but it seemed right to include places and people that had proven significant to the building of our relationship. The weekend before our wedding our bridesmaids and groomsmen had faced off in a fierce baseball game umpired by Lee and had a lunch catered by Grey, whose hidden talent as a barbecue master had recently resulted in him and two of the other bikers in his gang teaming up to buy a food truck. A large, whimsically wrapped wedding gift had arrived at the house the week before and I could only imagine that it was a painting from Michael. Shane had sent a congratulatory letter and an offer for us to join him on the ranch for a weekend anytime and another envelope that had arrived the same day contained a thumb drive that held a song Sam had recorded during his latest performance, a cover of my favorite song.
I knew the real names of these men now, but I rarely thought of them with those names. To me, they would always be their aliases, integral elements of my journey to self-discovery and to the altar where I now stood with the man of my dreams, the only man who had ever been able to look into my soul and see who I really was and could be.
“Do you, Snow Whitman…”
I drew in a breath as I heard the officiant starting my vows. My heart was trembling in my chest and I felt tears slipping out to rest on my cheeks.
“I do,” I said when the moment came.
I didn’t know if I had managed to get my voice loud enough, but Noah smiled and I knew that he had heard me. I tried to focus as much on the rest of the ceremony as I could, wanting to remember every moment and how I felt. Suddenly the officiant was declaring us husband and wife and I felt a surge of pure joy through my heart.
“You may kiss the bride,” he said.
Noah reached forward and took my waist. He drew me close to him, gazing into my eyes as he slowly lowered his mouth to mine. The kiss was tender and sweet, but passionate in a deep, unexplainable way that went beyond just the public expression of our union to something within us that was now fully linked to one another.
The kiss hadn’t ended when our guests burst into applause and cheers and Noah and I laughed, causing our mouths to part, but our foreheads to touch. The officiant presented us and we turned to our guests briefly before running down off of the altar and up the aisle toward the waiting horse drawn carriage that would bring us through the sprawling, beautiful grounds and to the reception venue.
The next hour was a blur of pictures before it was finally time for us to enter the party that was already in full swing. When we stepped inside I gasped at the sight of the tables arranged throughout the space, each one arranged abundantly with decadent desserts. The center of the room held an elevated table featuring a towering cake decorated in sparkling sugar flowers and ribbons crafted out of fondant in pale, pearlized shades of lavender and blue.
I turned to Noah who smiled back at me.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
“You did this?” I asked breathlessly.
“I knew that you wanted a reception with only desserts. I’ve been planning the menu for months and baking for the last two weeks. It’s killed me to keep it a secret.”
I was mesmerized by the elaborate display of desserts and I started to walk around the edge of the room so that I could look at each table. I had seen three sweets-laden tables when my eyes widened at the sight of the table ahead of me. I gathered the gauzy layers of my skirt and rushed toward the table, turning to stare open-mouthed at Noah, who laughed back.
“Doughnuts!” I gasped.
My new husband nodded and came to my side, wrapping his arm around my waist to cuddle me up against him.
“I know that we have your doughnuts back in the breakroom now, but I figured that you could never get enough.”
“Never,” I said, tilting my head to look up at him.
Noah pressed a quick kiss to my smiling lips, looked at me for a moment, and then captured my mouth again. The pressure of his lips parted mine and our tongues lightly massaged each other. Both of his hands wrapped around my waist and he turned so that I pressed to the front of his body. My hand slipped away from my skirt and I felt it swirl around my legs then pool at my feet as I ran my hands up Noah’s chest and settled them at the back of his neck to hold myself into the kiss. This was everything and I couldn’t wait to share forever with Noah.
And a doughnut.
THE END
P.S - Next Page is Hunter’s Story!
Her Hunk
I'll risk everything to save her...
Hunter
She's sexy as hell, and everything I'm looking for.
She's prim and proper, and she intimidates the f*ck out of me.
I let her go once, but I won't make that same mistake twice.
Especially, now that she's in danger.
I'm falling for Eleanor, and I'll do everything to protect her...
Eleanor
Hunter was the perfect distraction.
A night with him was supposed to be filled with pleasure.
Hunter with his crystal green eyes, and his sex-pack abs.
I thought I would never see him again.
But then he saved my life.
Now, if we can get out of this alive.
I can tell him who I really am...
Chapter One
Eleanor
“Why now? Why fucking now?”
The gold and red carpet felt rough beneath my feet, making them sting as I ran down the narrow hallway. There was nothing like the corridors of the lower levels of a cruise ship to make me regret that extra serving of cheesecake. I had removed the heels that I had so carefully chosen for the night after I started running and they were dangling from my fingers now. No way in hell I was going to let them go. The terrifying-looking goomba behind me might be getting closer, but I wasn’t about to drop those shoes. That didn’t mean that I was going to twist my ankle on them and go out like one of those simpering blondes in a 50’s horror movie though, so I would just keep holding them from their straps and contemplate all of the ways that I could use them as a weapon if the need came along. As I ran, my heart pumped fear through my veins, causing the blood to rush in my ears and blur all sound around me. I tried to listen for the sound of the man chasing me, but I couldn’t hear it. Was it possible that I had actually gotten away from him?
I knew those three months I spent cruising would have some actual real-world benefit at some point. Using my extensive knowledge of the layout of most ships in this cruise line wasn’t exactly the benefit I was hoping for, but at that moment, I would take it.
There was no one else in the seemingly endless hallway, but I couldn't decide if that was helping me or if it was making my frantic run more terrifying. If there was someone else there, they might help me, or could act as a deterrent for the man chasing me, even if they didn’t realize that they were doing anything. I could just pause sort of near them and hope that their presence would spook the man and make him go away. Kind of like those tiny home security system signs that people stick in their front yards even if they don’t actually have an active system. Of course, considering the luck that I was having that night, I would run right into the protective arms of the man’s partner.