Off-Limits

Chapter Seven: Everything He Wasn't Looking For

Two years, almost to the day, since a fifth-floor kitchen and a woman who hadn't fallen for a single one of his lines.

Jake stood at the front of a small backyard ceremony — Mason and Cassidy's backyard, fittingly, the same string lights strung through the same trees where he'd once watched his best friend fall for someone without meaning to — and told himself, for the tenth time in an hour, to stop checking his watch and just breathe.

"You look like you're about to throw up," Mason said, adjusting Jake's boutonniere with more fussing than strictly necessary, clearly enjoying every second of finally being the one steadying someone else through this. "Which, for the record, is exactly how I looked. Full circle."

"I'm not going to throw up."

"You're a little green."

"I've been waiting two years for this. I'm allowed to be nervous."

Mason's grin softened into something more sincere, the teasing dropping away for just a moment. "For what it's worth," he said, "I don't think I've ever seen either of you this happy. Not once, in three years of watching you do absolutely nothing right, and then two years of watching you finally do something right. She's it for you. I knew that the second you told me about her at that lunch, before either of us knew who she was."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Mason said. "Now stop talking to me and go get married, you absolute mess."

The music started. Jake turned toward the aisle, and every ounce of nervous energy in his chest dissolved the instant he saw her — Veronica, in white, her hair loose the way it had been that very first night, walking toward him on her father's arm with an expression that undid him completely, none of the guarded assessment from that fifth-floor kitchen left in it at all, just open, unhurried certainty.

He didn't remember much of the ceremony afterward, if he was honest — the specifics blurred into a general impression of warmth, of Cassidy crying in the front row, of Mason's hand steady on his shoulder right before he said I do, of Veronica's fingers trembling slightly in his as she said hers. What he remembered clearly was the kiss at the end, unhurried and certain, and the sound of the whole yard erupting, and the particular, dizzying relief of finally, actually getting there.

• • •

They didn't linger long at the reception — enough to dance, enough for Jake's toast to Mason's toast to devolve into the two of them nearly recreating their entire friendship in speech form until Cassidy physically pulled the microphone away, enough for Veronica's mother to cry into Jake's shoulder and tell him, three separate times, how glad she was he'd finally stopped being an i***t — before they slipped away to the small guesthouse at the back of the property that Cassidy had insisted on reserving for exactly this purpose.

The door had barely shut behind them before Veronica was laughing, kicking off her heels, spinning to face him with her wedding dress still on, cheeks flushed from champagne and the particular high of the entire day finally being real.

"We did it," she said. "We actually did it."

"We actually did it," Jake agreed, crossing the room to her, and the laughter in her eyes shifted into something warmer, quieter, as he reached for the tiny buttons running down the back of her dress. "Mrs. Reyes."

"Say it again."

"Mrs. Reyes." He pressed his mouth to the back of her neck as he worked the first few buttons loose, unhurried, savoring the particular privilege of having all the time in the world for once. "I've been waiting two years to call you that."

"You've been waiting two years for a lot of things," she said, tilting her head to give him better access, a small, satisfied shiver running through her as his lips traced the line of her shoulder. "I intend to make every one of them worth it tonight."

He got the dress the rest of the way undone and let it fall, and she stepped out of it in nothing but white lace and the faint impression of the day still on her skin, turning to face him fully, dark hair loose around her shoulders, and Jake found himself doing exactly what he'd done the very first time — just looking at her, drinking her in, still faintly disbelieving of his own luck after two years of this.

"You're staring," she said, the same words, the same smile, worn soft with familiarity now instead of sharp with challenge.

"I've earned it," he said, echoing himself, and pulled her against him, kissing her slow and deep, his hands finding the clasp of her bra with practiced ease and letting it fall away, her bare skin warm against his palms.

He walked her back toward the bed, shedding his own jacket and shirt along the way, and when he laid her down and kissed his way down her body — throat, collarbone, the soft curve of her breast, tongue circling her n****e until she gasped and arched into him — there was nothing new left to discover, and somehow that only made it better, two years of knowing exactly what she wanted layered under the particular electricity of tonight being different, tonight being permanent.

He peeled the last of the lace from her hips and settled between her thighs, and when he put his mouth on her she was already trembling, already right at the edge from nothing but anticipation, and he built her the way he always did — patient, deliberate, reading every shift of her hips and every catch of her breath — before finally giving her exactly what she needed, feeling her come apart around his mouth with a cry that she made no effort at all to muffle, her hand fisting in his hair, her whole body drawing tight and then loosening in a long, shuddering wave.

She didn't let him linger there long before pulling him back up her body, flipping their positions with a satisfied hum, and worked his belt free with hands that had gotten considerably more efficient over two years of practice. "My turn, husband," she murmured, and took him into her mouth with slow, devastating confidence, watching his face the entire time with the same possessive satisfaction she always brought to it, working him right to the edge before pulling back, lips glistening, utterly pleased with herself.

"Condom," he managed, and she was already ahead of him, reaching for the nightstand with a grin.

When he finally sank into her, she wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him deep with a low, satisfied groan, and they moved together unhurried at first — savoring it, savoring the whole day distilled down into this single, quiet room — before the pace built, her nails dragging down his back, his name breaking apart in her mouth, two years of certainty finally allowed to just exist without a single complication left standing between them. She came again with his name and a fistful of the sheets, clenching tight around him, and he followed soon after, groaning into her throat, both of them collapsing together into a tangle of white silk and bare skin, breathless, wrecked, and entirely, finally, each other's.

"Best wedding night in the history of weddings," Veronica murmured, much later, her head on his chest, tracing lazy circles over his heart.

Jake laughed, low and warm, thinking of Cassidy saying nearly the exact same thing a year earlier, of the four of them tangled together now in ways none of them could have predicted from that first rooftop party a lifetime ago. "Mason's going to say that's not true. He'll say he was better."

"Mason wasn't in this room," Veronica said. "Mason doesn't get a vote."

"Fair point."

She tilted her face up to look at him, dark eyes soft in the low light, the guarded assessment of that very first night nowhere left to be found. "No regrets?" she asked. "Not one, in two years?"

"Not one," Jake said, and meant it completely. "I spent years being the guy with a pool named after him at the office, chasing something I couldn't even name. Turns out I wasn't looking for a good night. I was looking for you the whole time. I just didn't know it until you walked into the kitchen and told me I wasn't as charming as I thought I was."

"You weren't," she said, smiling against his chest.

"I know," Jake said, pulling her closer, the string lights outside still glowing faintly through the curtains, the whole rest of their lives stretched out ahead of them, uncomplicated at last. "I'm just glad you stuck around long enough to find out I got better."

• • •

THE END