Page 92 of Wedding or Not

The man he is. Not the weird little nerd of our childhood but also partly that boy. A whole man—a warm and clever and funny and generous and kind and brave and selfless man.

A man with such a big heart.

I want that heart to be mine.

Forever.

I want this marriage to be real.

I’m about to blurt it out—because that’s what I always do when the anxious swirling of my emotions finally rises too high to contain.

But in that moment, I remember that hayride when I blurted out the truth after so much anxious emotional swirling.

It was horrible.

It might have been the truth, but it didn’t fix anything. It made everything worse.

Because the truth of my heart doesn’t matter unless it matches the truth of his.

And I still don’t know his.

He’s never spoken it.

“Wh-what do you want?” I manage to choke out instead of the truth that really wants saying.

He blinks at me in the dark, his expression unreadable. “Tell me what you want, Ella.”

I try, but now I can’t say it. The storm of feeling inside me pushes me to something else.

I grab for his head. Draw it toward me until our mouths are a breath apart. Then I kiss him—hard and needy. Hot and hungry.

A physical expression of the truth I simply can’t speak.

He’s surprised at first, but it only lasts a few seconds. Then he groans into my mouth and kisses me back so urgently he pushes me over onto my back and moves on top of me.

I love it. Love the passionate working of his mouth, the weight of his warm body, the neediness radiating off him.

Like he’s sucking in air or assuaging deep thirst. Like I’m the only thing in the world that he truly yearns for.

We kiss like that for a long time, rocking together as our urgency grows. Then he finally breaks away from my mouth to drop kisses all over my face, murmuring, “Ella, baby, Ella” between each press of his lips.

I moan and arch with the pleasure of it—emotional even more than physical—and he kisses his way down my body to tease my breasts through the thin fabric of my camisole. And then kisses my belly and lower to my little white panties.

He breathes deeply, like he’s smelling me, and nuzzles me there. I gasp and squirm. Then I cry out as he parts my folds through the damp fabric and then darts his tongue out in hard jabs at my clit.

An orgasm breaks hard and unexpected. I shake through the pulses of pleasure. Then he draws my underwear off as I pull my camisole over my head. I work on his T-shirt, and he drags off his boxers.

Then he’s between my legs, edging his erection in at my entrance. Pushing all the way inside me as my inner walls soften and cling to the penetration.

“Ella, baby,” he breathes out as he slides all the way home.

I’ve bent my legs on either side of his hips, and I’m clutching at his back in my eagerness. “Wes, please.”

“This is what you want, baby?”

“Yes! Yes, I want it.”

He groans and starts to thrust. “Me too. Baby, me too.”