Beautiful Beginning by Christina Lauren
For our fic girls—each and every one of you—and the wild, real-life love stories you’ve shared. We started writing because we needed to, but we stayed because of you.
C & Lo
Chapter One
“I’m about to cut a bitch,” I hissed, pushing my share of the work away from me. Bennett failed to even look up, so I added, “And by that, I mean paper-cut a bitch.”
At least this got a tiny flicker of a smile. But I could tell, even after doing this for the past hour, he was still in Wedding Preparation Zone, and would keep robotically working until the entire, unending pile of cardstock in front of him was gone. Our normally immaculate dining room table was littered with Tiffany-blue wedding programs. Across from me, Bennett methodically folded each one in half before moving it to the Completed stack.
It was a simple process:
Fold, move.
Fold, move.
Fold, move.
Fold, move.
But I was losing my damn mind. Our flight left at six the following morning for San Diego, and our bags were all packed but for the four hundred wedding programs we had to fold. I groaned as I remembered we also had to tie five hundred blue ribbons around five hundred tiny satin bags full of candy.
“You know what would make this night so much better?” I asked.
His hazel eyes flickered to me before returning to the task at hand.
Fold, move.
“A gag?” he suggested.
“Amusing, but no,” I said, giving him the finger. “What would make this night better would be getting on a plane and flying to Vegas, getting married, and then fucking all night in a giant hotel bed.”
He didn’t bother to reply to this, not even a whiff of a smile. It was probably fair to say he’d heard this exact sentiment from me approximately seven thousand times in the past few months.
“Fine,” I replied to his silence. “But I’m serious. It’s not too late to drop all of this and fly to Vegas.”
He took a moment to scratch his jaw before reaching for another program to fold. “Of course it isn’t, Chlo.”
I’d been playing around—mostly—up to this point, but with his words genuine irritation swept through me. I slapped my hand on the dining room table, earning a quick blink from him before he resumed his folding. “Don’t patronize me, Ryan.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
I pointed a finger at him. “Like that.”
My fiancé gave me a dry look, and then winked.
Damn that man and his goddamn sexy wink. My anger dissipated somewhat and in its place came a flare of desire. He was ignoring me, being a patronizing ass. I was being a bitch.
It was the perfect setup for me to have many, many orgasms.
I looked him over and sucked the edge of my lower lip into my mouth. He was wearing a deep blue T-shirt that was so old and worn, the collar was frayed and—even though I couldn’t see it—I knew there was a tiny hole right above the hem that was just big enough for me to slide my finger through and touch the warm skin of his stomach. Last weekend he’d been wearing that T-shirt and I’d asked him to keep it on while he fucked me against the bathroom counter, just so I could wrap it up in my fists.
I rocked a little in my chair to relieve the ache between my legs. “Bed or floor. Your choice.” I watched him as he remained impassive, and added in a whisper, “Or I could just climb under the table and suck on you first?”
Smirking down at his work, Bennett said, “You can’t get out of wedding preparation with sex.”
I pulled back to study him. “What kind of man says that? You’re broken.”