My mind was nowhere near land purchases and house renovation. It was still back in utter bliss, wedged up against a tree being pounded by the man I loved.
Once the words finally reached the coherent part of my brain, I stopped dead in my tracks. We still had time before the Thanksgiving dinner. “I’m sorry. Excuse me if I don’t follow after you just fucked me up against a tree not more than ten minutes ago. Say what?”
Wes licked his lips as if he still tasted me on them. He probably did. After he’d taken me with his mouth, he fucked me into oblivion against the tree, and I had the trunk rash to prove it. When I shifted my shoulders, I could feel my jacket and sweater grating along the sensitive spots. Maybe I’d get lucky and there wouldn’t be any physical marks, just the soreness to remind me of our tree romp.
“I’m going to talk to Max about purchasing this section of land next to his. He’s got hundreds of acres, and he said this one was once a farm as well as the one even farther down. Said they were both vacant.”
I tried to comprehend all that he was suggesting. “We haven’t even seen the house. We barely scratched the surface of the property. How do you really know you want it?”
Wes turned around and looked at the massive copse of trees we’d just left along the second section of open land leading to Maxwell’s ranch. He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter what it looks like. We can build something that we want if we don’t like what’s on it. The point is, we’d have a family home. Away from the glitz and glamour of southern California.”
I held up my hands. “Wait a minute. Are you saying you want to leave Malibu?” I was monumentally confused—and it wasn't just from the afterglow from mind-blowing sex. “You love the beach. I love the beach.” I pointed at my chest, my heart already tightening at the thought of our Malibu place not being ours anymore.
“True. But we have money. Lots of it. More than we’re ever going to need. And with your career on the path it’s on, you’ll want a place that you can escape to when California becomes too much. Plus, you said yourself that Madison is going to move out here when she’s done with school.”
“Actually, she mentioned she’s going to move out here after her undergrad. Max is going to set her up to go to school here for her master's and doctorate so she can start work at Cunningham Oil in the meantime. Matt’s and his family are going to come out, too.”
Wes’s face lit up. Seemed the more he thought about the idea, the more animated he got. “It’s perfect. They can live on that other side. Matt said he and his family are into farming. They can farm both our land and theirs. Of course, we’ll partner in that, and we’ll have a home away from home. One we can visit monthly. Then you won’t miss out on Isabel and Jackson’s childhood and be away from your brother and sister for too long. It’s a win-win.”
All that he was offering was more than I could have ever hoped for. The depths to which I loved this man were limitless. “You’d do that for me?” I asked, my voice clogged with love and happiness.
He shook his head. “No. I’d do that for us. You don’t want to be without your sister, and I don’t want to be without my family. We’ll have a home in both places. Plan to fly out at least once a month. We’ll make it a regular thing so that every month we spend a few days at our Texas home. And when we’re not filming, we’ll come out for weeks at a time. Really, whenever we want. I’m sure we could set up Cyndi with the job of checking on things and airing it out now and again.”
He didn’t see it coming, but he did catch me when I jumped up, wrapped my legs around his waist, and kissed him with all my might. “I love you.” I kissed his cheeks. “I love you.” I kissed his forehead. “I love you.” I kissed his chin. “I love you.” I kissed his eyes. “I love you so much and cannot wait to marry you!” I screamed out before laying my lips over his.
Wes, to his credit, appreciated my brand of crazy and laughed through it all, until he couldn’t, because his lips were too busy kissing mine.
* * *
“Yes! I’m not kidding. No, Mom, I’m not. We want to have a small beach ceremony on our property in Malibu and then have the reception at your place.” Wes laughed and ran a hand through his hair. His smile was painted on the moment he called his mother to not only announce that we were getting married, but that we’d be doing it so quickly.
“I know it’s only six weeks away. I’ll hire a planner to knock it out. No, Mom, you don’t… Mom, we didn’t call to tell you this so that you’d take on the burden.”
Speak for yourself. There was no way I wanted to plan a wedding. If it were up to me, we’d say our I do’s on the beach and fuck like rabbits in our own bed immediately following. I didn’t need a cake and the whole rigmarole. Just Wes. That’s all I needed.