Remy(81)

When the doors roll open, I scoop her in my arms and she squeaks in surprise as I head to the double doors down the hall. “Remy!”

“This is what husbands do the first night. No?”

She links her fingers at the back of my collar and nods.

I duck my head low to whisper in her ear as we reach our door. “As your husband, I do whatever the hell I want,” I say, sliding the key into the slot while I add, “And right now, I’m going to do you.” I push open the door, take us inside, and kick it shut behind me, then I set her to her feet, facing the room.

I click on the lights, and Brooke lets out a soft, surprised gasp.

Rose petals of every color are littered across the carpet. A hundred vases are scattered throughout, bursting with red bouquets, white bouquets. I wanted a fucking rose garden for my wife, and this is what the guys could help me do.

As Brooke stares quietly around, every inch in the room is either green, yellow, white, red, pink, some roses in buds, some blooming, some with stems, some scattered on the furniture without them, I quietly come up from behind her and set my headphones on her head, and click Play on my iPod.

“Everything” by Lifehouse begins. A hand flies to her chest when she starts listening, her pink mouth opening slightly and her eyes instantly tearing.

My chest swells and my throat feels itchy, my eyes stinging like the day Racer was born, and in that one instant, only hours after Brooke accepted to marry me—they became my family and the center of my world. Now my wife stands in this room I filled with roses for her, and I have. NO. WORDS. No fucking words to tell her. The way I need her. The way I want her. The way I love her. How every day I wake up a happy man, and go to sleep a happy man, sure that I can’t love her any more than I already do. But every day, the impossible happens, and I love her more. Her smiles, her strength, her dedication to our son, to me, everything about her is perfect for me.

She starts sobbing softly as she keeps listening to the song, clutching her stomach as if it hurts to hear the lyrics.

You’re all I want, you’re all I need, you’re everything . . . everything . . .

My eyes burn as she cries softly, and I’m flooded with tenderness as I step before her. I lift my palm to catch the tears of one cheek, and press my lips to the other, kissing her tears dry. “No crying,” I murmur into her skin, and she squeezes her eyes shut as more tears fall, her arms trembling as she wraps them around me.

“No crying. I want to make you happy,” I murmur, pulling off the headphones and tossing them aside as I repeat it in her ear. I want to make you happy. She shudders quietly, sniffing, and I frame her face in my hands so my thumbs can dry the rest of her tears as I look into her eyes. The only eyes that really see me. The tender, hungry, and passionate gold eyes of the woman I love. I caress my thumbs on her cheeks. “Not just happy. I want to make you the happiest woman alive.”

“I am,” she says, sniffling, wearing her heart in her eyes as she looks at me. “It’s why I’m crying.”

With a soft groan, I pull her to me and go kiss her ear. “Every day you make me the luckiest man alive,” I whisper, sliding my fingers up her back and tracing the buttons of her wedding dress, impatiently popping them open, one by one. She nuzzles my neck and kisses my throat when suddenly, she pulls away from me and starts backing across the suite, a new playfulness in her gaze.

“You want me?”

One of my eyebrows shoots up. “You doubt it?”

I start following, my hunter kicking into gear, all my instincts rearing up and priming my body to chase and catch her. I’m not about to let her get very far. “Come here,” I growl, reaching out and pulling her close. She lets out a squeak a second before I kiss her, hard and deep as I run my hand down the buttons on her back, grab the fabric, and rip it. Buttons fly, landing over the rose petals on the floor. She moans when I slide my hand through the tear and touch soft, bare skin. “Hmmm.” I lick up her neck as I pull her arms out of the sleeves of her dress and yank the top down to her waist.

She pulls off my bow tie and slides my jacket over my shoulders. “I’m so ready for you, you can consider all day foreplay,” she says.

“I don’t think so,” I laugh, then I pin her hands at her sides and lace my fingers through hers, keeping her fingers from going anywhere as I kiss her mouth, slow and languorously. “Let’s start stripping you.”

Grabbing her by the hips, I prop her on the back of a couch and push her skirt up so I can reach one silver glittery shoe. I unbuckle all the little line of crystal buckles, then I toss one shoe aside and work on the next. Once it falls next to the first, I run my hand up her stockings and find the perfect spot to rip.