I shut our front door. Megan already took her heels off in my truck and I take a second to slip out of my boots.
“I can’t believe we’re here. Wedding day’s done, and we’re here, and—”
“Wedding day isn’t over until we say it is.”
She makes a face of pure enjoyment. “Oooh, that was smooth.”
“You like that?” I grin, eyeing her once more as she laughs.
We head upstairs to our room. She’s got her dress pulled up and I’m still carrying some of it behind her so she doesn’t trip.
“Bet you’re excited to get out of this.”
“I bet you’re excited to get me out of it,” she says, laughing over her shoulder.
“Not gonna argue.”
We reach our room and she turns to me after checking herself out in the mirror.
“You realize I have, like, a hundred pins to get out of my hair, right?” she says.
“I’m a patient man,” I murmur, already sliding one loose. It clatters to the floor. “Ninety-nine to go.”
Her laugh is soft, warm, and her fingers reach for more. I do too. We stand there—side by side in the mirror—carefully removing every last pin. It feels weirdly intimate, this slow undoing of the day. Her wedding dress. Her hair. Her makeup slightly smudged from hours of smiling and dancing. My tie crooked and hair a mess.
It takes longer than both of us want, but we finish the job. When we finally get all the pins out, she feels her hair, making a face as she touches different parts of it.
“Are you gonna kill me if I shower? I can’t stand how it feels with all the product,” she says.
“Course not. I should probably get one too, actually. I’ve been sweating since this morning.”
She laughs and looks at me with full-on mischief in her eyes, the kind that hits me square in the chest. “You could join me…”
My eyebrows lift. “Oh yeah?”
I lean in and kiss her once, slow and certain. “I’m so in.”
She grins, cheeks pink, and tugs gently at my hand. “Come on.”
We walk into the bathroom, and she turns on the shower before she reaches for the zipper of her dress, then pauses and turns to look at me.
“Can you…?” she whispers.
“Yeah,” I breathe.
My fingers ease the zipper down, inch by inch, the fabric coming loose under my hands. She exhales softly, the kind of breath that says she’s nervous but trusting me anyway.
She turns back around, her eyes meeting mine. “Your turn,” she murmurs, her hands trembling just a little as she unbuttons my shirt.
When it falls open, her fingers brush my skin lightly. I cup her face gently, kissing her again, slow and careful. My heart races more, and before I know it, our clothes are scattered and we step into the warm steam together. The rest of the night fades quietly into the space meant only for us.
Chapter 12
Megan
We got home late last night from the Outer Banks. It was perfect—quiet, slow, just the two of us. No schedules, no alarms, no deadlines, no reason to be anywhere but together. I already miss it. Part of me wishes we could have stretched those days out a little longer, stayed tucked away from everything.
Being alone with Mason like that…it still feels surreal. Sweet. Easy. New. Not scary the way I thought the first time would be. Every nervous thought I’d had disappeared the moment he touched me and whispered he loved me.
