3 - Kacie
It was late when Brody got back to my house. He’d gone to the city for the day to talk to Viper and Andy, and though I told him he didn’t have to come back for the night since it was going to be so late, he insisted, and I didn’t argue.
Mom, Fred, and I were sitting on the couch when we heard the front door open. I hopped up and tried not to jog up front.
“Hey,” I welcomed, throwing my arms around his neck. His big arms wrapped around me, squeezing so hard it made my chest ache, but I didn’t dare tell him for fear that he’d quit hugging me like that every time.
“Hey, babe. How was your day?” He loosened the hug but didn’t let go.
“Good. How was yours? How did everything go?”
I squirmed out of his arms and we walked hand in hand to the living room.
“Hi, Brody!” Mom called out when we got to the kitchen, Fred offering a silent wave.
“Hey,” Brody responded, sounding exhausted.
“You okay?” I gently rubbed the side of his face as he sat down at the island. “Can I get you something?”
“No, thanks. I’m good, just tired. It was a long day.” He smiled. “But everything went well. Viper said he’d be in the wedding, then proceeded to book every illegal activity in Minnesota for a bachelor party.”
“Oh boy.” I laughed nervously, setting a glass of ice water in front of him.
“Thanks, and don’t worry. I told him to chill out. I will definitely have a say in what we do.” He paused and took a long drink of the water he said he didn’t need. “Then I went to Andy’s. We ended up talking longer than I’d planned on, and he asked me to go have a burger and a beer with him, so I did.”
“I’m glad you had such a good day.”
“All right, you crazy kids.” Mom walked over to us with Fred following right behind. “Us old folks are heading to bed. Turn the lights off when you’re done?”
“Got it, Mom.” I yawned, suddenly feeling just as tired as Brody looked.
She leaned over and kissed my forehead before she and Fred disappeared down the hall.
Brody rested his chin on his fist and smiled lazily at me, his beautiful green eyes sparkling. “You look tired too.”
“I wasn’t until you got home.” I yawned again. “Suddenly I’m ready for bed.”
Brody cocked an eyebrow at me as the corner of his mouth pulled up in a sexy smirk. “Ready for bed, or ready for Brody?”
“Well, I meant bed, but I could possibly be persuaded into something else.” I giggled.
“No, if you’re really tired, we’ll just go to bed.”
“I’m tired. I’m stressed. I’m just… blah.”
“Wanna talk about it?” He reached over and squeezed my hand.
I shrugged halfheartedly.
“Come on.” Pulling me to a stand, he held on to my hand and led me to the living room, where we both sat on the couch. He lifted my feet into his lap and started massaging them as he looked at me. “What’s going on? Talk to me.”
“I think Alexa’s comments yesterday are bothering me more than I initially thought.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know. I just feel like a slacker because we haven’t picked the wedding date and location and a dress and everything else, all within forty-eight hours of being engaged.” I sighed.
“Ah.” He nodded. “Those comments. Yeah, I kinda got the same thing from Andy today.”
“You did?”
Who knew guys talked about wedding planning too?
“Yeah, he actually said he got a few e-mails this morning from different places offering to host our reception.”
“Holy shit, seriously? I don’t get it. Why do so many people care where we get married?”
Brody shrugged and shook his head as he continued the best foot massage ever given by any human ever. “Publicity, probably. Then they can forever say they held Brody and Kacie’s wedding there.”
I tilted my head to the side and narrowed my eyes at him skeptically. “Gimmie a break. They don’t care about the Kacie part. They just want to be able to say Brody Murphy got married there. Who you’re marrying is irrelevant.”
“Not to me,” he said sweetly, trying to make me feel better.
“Oh, I know and it’s okay. I couldn’t care less what the public or whoever thinks of our wedding. It’s for us, you and me, and that’s all that matters.”
“I’m glad you feel that way.” He bent his leg under him and turned to face me. “I had a thought while I was driving home.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not eloping.”
“No, no. I know that. But you’re right… about not letting them have our wedding, the paparazzi and leeches who thought it was okay to post a picture of the girls in the newspaper. I don’t want them having any part in our day, so I was thinking, what if we had the ceremony and the reception in my parents’ barn?”
My mouth fell open as he held his hand up. “Don’t freak. Just hear me out. I know it’s a crappy rundown barn, but I was thinking how cool it might look if we hung thousands of little white lights or even candles everywhere, though we don’t want to burn it down, but you get what I’m saying,” he rambled, barely taking a breath. “I can hire a company to come in and clean it up. We’ll rent some tables and chairs and whatever other crap you need for a wedding. Anything you want, Kacie. The sky’s the limit. I just want you to be—”
I put my hand over his mouth to stop the adorable, incoherent sentences that were tumbling out of his mouth.
When he stopped talking against my hand, I lowered it and scooted forward, cupping his face in my hands. I looked him straight in the eye. “Brody, I think that’s the best idea I have ever heard.”
“Really?” His eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“Yes, really. I don’t want our celebration at some stuffy banquet hall where two thousand other people have gotten married. I want ours to be special, and I can’t think of a more special place than your parents’ barn.”
A devilish grin spread across his face. “We do have history in that barn, don’t we?”
“Correction.” I moved closer to him and gently brushed my nose against his. “We almost had history in that barn. The girls came in and interrupted us, remember?”
I gently kissed the corner of his mouth and flicked his lips with my tongue. “How could I forget? I still don’t think my balls have recovered.”
“Oh, please.” I ran my teeth gently along his jawline and kissed just under his ear. “We’ve had sex like five hundred times since then.”
His hand clutched my thigh and squeezed gently as he started breathing heavier. “If you keep kissing me like this and then go to sleep, I’m gonna have navy blue balls all over again.”
“I’m not tired anymore.”
“You aren’t?” Pleasant surprise filled his voice.
“Nope.” I moved my tongue to the other side of his neck while my fingers ran up his thigh, under his shorts. “You said the magic word.”
“What did I say? Wait. I said barn.” His hearty laugh vibrated under my lips.
“You said barn,” I reiterated. “And you know what that does to me.”
“I do, but I didn’t know it could take you from 0 to 100 that fast. I’ll have to remember that for the next fifty years. Screw that, I’m getting it tattooed on me somewhere.”
“Stop talking,” I ordered, pulling away just enough to look him in the eye, “and kiss me.”
The words were barely out of my mouth before Brody’s strong hands encompassed my face, gently pulling my lips to his. The second we connected, all the tiny stresses of the last couple days washed away. He held a secret power that I didn’t know existed until we got together. Contact with Brody actually altered the way I felt physically. If I was sick, he would hold my hand and I’d feel better. If I was angry, he would hug me and make it all disappear. And in moments like this, when I was hot for him, his smallest touch set me on fire.
After four swipes of his tongue, I was straddling him on my couch, grinding my hips into him as hard as I could.
“Whoa.” He laughed. “Slow down there, killer, or we’re both gonna need Neosporin tomorrow.”
“It’d be worth it.” I continued kissing him.
“For you, it’s worth a little chafing, but I’d rather be skin to skin, and I’m thinking the couch in the family room isn’t the ideal location. Wanna move this down the hall?”
He was right.
Mom had a full house of guests, and I didn’t think any of them wanted to see the innkeeper’s daughter dry humping her fiancé on the common area sofa, even if that fiancé was a smokin’ hot hockey superstar. Okay, maybe they would want to see it, then, but I wanted to keep our life together as private as possible. I could just imagine Brody getting a call from Andy in the morning freaking out that some weirdo had videoed us on the couch and our sex tape was all over the Internet. Kim Kardashian could keep that disgusting throne; I had no interest in it.
“Yes, let’s go,” I whispered, sliding off of him.
I grabbed his hand and pulled him along behind me, down the hall.
“Wait. Do you want to go to your room or mine?” He stopped suddenly, tugging my hand back. “We don’t want the girls to hear us.”
“Having sex? No. But it’s about time they know we sleep together at night. We’re engaged to be married and they think of you as their daddy. Mommies and daddies sleep together at night. No more sneaking back to your room in the wee hours of the morning.” I winked. “Now come on before you kill my mood.”
We tiptoed down the hall, past my mom and Fred snoring in their room. I peeked in at Lucy and Piper as we passed. Sound asleep.
“They good?” Brody whispered.
“Sound asleep.” A seductive smile slid across my lips as I closed my bedroom door.