More Than Words: Kissed By A Muse #3 (13 page)

Ryan almost sagged against the counter in relief. The fact that she’d shown none of the bride-to-be excitement that he’d hoped for so far had been secretly bugging him right in the centre of his man ego. ‘You like it?’

Leigh ran across the kitchen and jumped up into his arms and he caught her like a desperate bridesmaid straining for a bouquet. ‘Like it?!’ She pressed kisses all over his face. ‘Ryan it’s unbelievable!’ She pulled back, cupping his jaw. ‘You are unbelievable. I can’t even…’ her lower lip wobbled and she lined their noses up, her grip tightening. ‘You can’t break my heart Ryan, okay? I know a lot of girls get broken hearts but I won’t be able to take it, not from you.’ She shook her head. ‘Don’t marry me today if you don’t mean it, because as much as I’ve been holding back with you today- this is going to mean everything to me.’

Ryan’s heart trembled like her pretty mouth and he held her close. ‘I’m going to love you to the end of time, Honey.’ He swore. ‘You will never, ever shed another tear over me that isn’t a happy one again, I swear it.’

Leigh smushed her face into his, and a sob shook her tiny frame. ‘That’s a big promise to make, baby.’

‘Have I broken one yet?’

Leigh sighed and ran her fingers through his hair. ‘We’re so not ready for this… you must know that too, Mr Cactus.’ She pulled back and pouted. ‘I just realised that I forgot to get someone to come around and water my plant while I was gone- it’ll be good and dead after these past two weeks of being locked up in the summer heat back home… so I guess I’m not ready to get a pet yet after all...’

Ryan turned and popped her backside on the counter next to the plates. ‘Well, I asked Bruce to come around and water our itty bitty Christmas tree tomorrow, just in case we decide to stay on for a day or so in Vegas.’

Leigh’s brows lifted in surprise and he winked. ‘And he agreed to do it? Why?’

‘I guess he really is the concierge from hell.’ Ryan remarked, smiling as he remembered the endless list of promises he’d had to make to Bruce in order to get more assistance from the poor guy than he’d given willingly. ‘I’ve also had to agree to pass along his card to everyone who offers me gigs I can’t take, call him when I need a sickie and-’ he blushed. ‘He said if I ever get famous, he’s my opening act and he doesn’t care if Bruno Mars or Sam Smith offers first.’

Leigh giggled. ‘Did he make you take a blood oath?’

‘Just a tiny one.’ Ryan smiled at her. ‘Anyway the point is; I remembered the plant. So maybe we can take care of a pet just fine, together.’ He glanced down at her tummy and chuckled. ‘And after the amount of times I came inside you last night, I’m thinking that maybe we’ll be starting off with something a little bigger than a pet….’

Leigh made a face, cupping her tummy. ‘I’m due next week, so I don’t think I’m you know… ripe for fertilization or anything right now…’ she cupped her face in her hands and made a girlie noise. ‘Oh over share… this is weird!’

‘I like it.’ Ryan said, prying her hand off her face and pressing her breakfast into it. ‘There’s heaps of stuff we have to learn about each other yet, and we’ve got heaps of time to do it.’ He leaned in and kissed her. ‘Forever, in fact.’

Leigh stared at him. ‘How do you even exist?’

Ryan laughed, stuffing bacon into his mouth to cover his goofy grin. ‘When you find out, let me know.’

Leigh

The sheer amount of traveling they did during the remainder of the day would have exhausted Leigh and bored her senseless under normal circumstances, but she was already exhausted and so the day passed by in a blur of airports and car parks and uncomfortable seats while she dozed on and off.

She could see Ryan sweat every single time he presented his identification to an official, but luckily for him, they encountered more female officials then male ones and so Leigh was the one who ended up sweatier and more out of sorts following each exchange. She watched him charm three uniformed women while chewing on her tongue and gripping his hand tightly, irked that he was doing it on purpose but mollified by the knowledge that he was doing all of it in order to wife her, not them.

Still, it bothered her how easy it was for him to flirt and how many heads he turned, just by walking the way he did, with that loping and relaxed ‘my dick is so big that it’s weighing me down’ gait of his. And it bugged her hearing him called ‘Ardos’ too, because it made her feel like everything they were doing was just one big game of pretend. Could a marriage license legally bind two people if the names it used weren’t the names the people used? Yes, she used Leigh instead of Honey so that was legal, but now that she’d heard Ryan call her by her real name, she wanted to go back to it- and if she moved to Niagara with him, she’d be able to do that without making people think she was completely batty.

But what about him? What’s he going to do? Change to Ardos? Change the papers to Ryan? What if he does either and gets his memories back, then finds out that he’s got another name all together and it all comes out and… oh god! This is too much!

Leigh was so out of sorts that by the time she was halfway across the continent, that she was ready to wake the slumbering god on her shoulder and beseech him to call the wedding plan off until they could do it right. But as she stared at him, his eyes fluttered open and held her in that powerful blue gaze.

‘I love you,’ he whispered, laying his hand over hers on the armrest between them. ‘I know this is happening fast Leigh but remember- today is about you and I making a commitment to one another and me honoring the promise I made you when I invited you into my home.’ His voice was low, so that none of the other passengers could hear them. ‘Your parents will be upset that you got married in Vegas and no one will take us seriously once they find out how we met and fell in love and how quickly we took the next steps to be together but…’ he slipped his fingers between hers. ‘We’re going to prove them all wrong. We’re going to end up with our names on a certificate one day- our real ones- and I’m going to throw you your parents dream wedding and make them see that the only choice they have, is to let you go to a man who loves you more than he loves himself.’

A tear rolled down Leigh’s cheek and she leaned into him, pressing her forehead to his. ‘Sometimes I feel like you’re reading my mind,’ she whispered.

‘Sometimes I feel like I’m reading words I’ve been destined to say.’ He pulled her face into his for a gentle kiss. ‘And guess what? I was just dreaming, and it wasn’t about her.’

Leigh opened her eyes. ‘You don’t have dreams without her?’

Ryan looked pained. ‘Not usually.’ But he smiled. ‘But this time I was in a field- like a big cane paddock or something and it was hot and warm, I could feel my skin burning. And there was this beautiful little girl, with blonde hair and your big green eyes running through the grasses and laughing and singing…’ he tucked one of her stray hairs behind her ear and smiled warmly. ‘I think that could be our daughter one day- and it made me feel so… protective and...’ his eyes fluttered shut and his face tightened. ‘God I want that.’

Leigh was touched by the moved expression on his face, and remembered the way he’d looked at her stomach earlier as he’d mentioned the possibility of her getting pregnant. ‘You really want to be a father, hey?’

Ryan opened his eyes and nodded. ‘Yeah. Don’t ask me why and once again, it goes against all of my rock star leanings but…’ he ran his finger across her lower lip. ‘I think maybe it was important to me before, you know? Maybe because I was adopted or whatever…’ he closed his eyes again and sighed. ‘Hell I don’t know and I don’t care… I just want to be a father and a husband and…’ his words trailed off as he fell asleep again and Leigh smiled tenderly, stroking his perfect nose and thinking of how strange it was- she’d never given much thought to becoming a mother at all. Probably because she was babied so much herself still, but she could see the future he wanted for them, and she wanted it too. After years of thinking that she’d happily play passenger in other people’s stories for the duration of her life, Leigh suddenly had her own, and it promised to be a wonderful story, if only she could stay in character long enough, to believe it was happening to her.

Thirteen

L
as Vegas was a complete shock to Ryan’s ‘newborn’ system after having known nothing but parks and waterfalls and sleepy little storybook houses since he’d woken up in his fresh start. And though he could see that Leigh was every bit as stupefied as him by the sheer size and sound and opulence of the city, as he led her into the grand entrance doors to Caesars Palace with their license to wed in one hand and hers in the other, she turned and gave him ‘that’ delighted grin and he felt the world spin in giddy circles.

Their life together was going to be magnificent because she was magnificent- and he could be magnificent for her.

They checked into the best suite he’d been able to book at such short notice and he hadn’t even gotten his wallet out of his pocket before he felt warm hands slide up under his shirt and stroke suggestive patterns up his back.

‘Are you feeling rested?’ she whispered, kissing his lower back and making tingles of electricity shoot through his nervous system.

‘Yeah…’ he turned and pulled her into his arms, raking her clingy red dress up over her ass so that he could caress her with lustful hands. ‘But aren’t you sore?’

‘I don’t care,’ she said, taking her glasses off and sliding them on to the table behind them. ‘After watching women eye-fuck you all day, I feel the need to remind you of who you belong to… Ardos...’ Her hands went to the buckle of his studded belt, her little fingers easing the clasp open and then reaching in inside to grasp him firmly.

Ryan’s now-alert erection began to stiffen in his hand. ‘You were jealous?’ he asked, surprised.

Leigh nodded, those doe eyes of hers slanting dangerously. ‘So jealous that I contemplated doing something very untoward on that plane so the stewardesses would stop offering to warm your nuts…’ her hand stretched down and cupped him, taking care of that particular craving, and stretched up to make their mouths meet. ‘Something that would definitely get me spanked…’

Ryan’s cock went from half-mast to rock-hard and she groaned, slipping her tongue between his lips to make him pant harder. ‘Yeah…?’ he asked roughly. ‘Like what?’

‘Watch and see…’ Leigh pushed him down so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed, taking her hand out of his jeans then using both of hers to work them down to his hips. He watched, fascinated as his sweet little book-worm fisted him and then tickled her tongue against the tip of his member, moaning before swirling her tongue around him like a lollipop. His fingers fisted in the luxurious gold bedspread beneath him as the heat of her mouth suckled hard around him, making him forget that he’d already found satisfaction countless times with her since the night before- making him feel like that two second teenage boy again. He cursed gently and rocked up and into her mouth and she responded by reaching between her legs and rubbing herself, moaning in pleasure and making him feel every vibration in her throat.

‘Fuck yes… you’re a wet dream…’ He pulled his jacket off his shoulders, almost forgetting how to when she began to bob up and down on his shaft. ‘And that would have been incredibly untoward in a public place. I should spank you just for thinking about it.’

Leigh suckled him off, slowly dragging her mouth up his cock until it popped free and bounced impatiently in front of her pretty little face. She stood, dragging her clingy dress up her body until she was in black satin underwear, Doc Martens and nothing else, making his mouth go dry. She rested one of her knees over his leg so that her cleavage was all he could see, and raked her fingers through his hair. ‘That makes me a bit nervous,’ she whispered, leaning down to nibble on his ear and pressing her chest into his lips. He began to ache, caressing her rump and stiffening further at the feel of her silky skin and her intimate flesh when he pulled the thong away and buried his fingers into the crevice of her backside. ‘You might have to tie me down so you can spank me… just in case I try to run.’

Ryan’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and he brought her down over his knee to caress her backside with abandon, so hot for her that he was sure that steam was wafting off him. Leigh gasped and wriggled as though trying to get away and he held her down against his throbbing shaft while dragging her panties down to her thigh with the other hand. ‘You’re not going anywhere…’ he whispered, curving one of his fingers between her thighs to penetrate her gently. She was wet already and he felt the tip of him bead against her flat tummy while she bucked into his touch, begging for more. ‘But before I give you what you need, I have a request…’

‘What?’ she whimpered to the floor over his knees.

Ryan leaned across her, stretching for her glasses and just managing to hook them with the tip of his finger. He held them under her face. ‘Put these back on. I need to do this librarian thing while I’m spent enough to actually make the fantasy last more than a heartbeat or so.’

Leigh took the glasses from him, freeing his hand, which he happily eased back inside her. She pulled closed on him like a drawstring and he gasped again. ‘And if I say no?’ she whispered, a hint of amusement in her voice.

Ryan grinned. ‘I hoped you would.’

He brought her hand down on her ass and on his lap, his naughty little bookworm gasped in delight, wriggling against him- and put the glasses back on.

‘Better?’ she purred, turning to look at him, and she was so beautiful that his heart leapt.

‘A little…’ he caressed her backside again, hoping to take the sting out of what he’d just done. ‘I have a question for you though...’

‘Yeah?’

Ryan slipped his finger inside her again and leaned in. ‘Did you ever touch yourself over the Justin scenes?’

Leigh’s face was already red from hanging over his lap, but the way her eyes darted away told him all he needed to know. Jealousy and the desire to own her and every dirty thought in that incredible mind of hers made him see red, and he spanked her again, twice, and then slid his fingers back inside her. ‘How many times?’ he asked her.

Leigh moaned and thrust her little hips against his lap. ‘Countless! He was really- oh!’

Ryan twisted her clit again gently between his fingers and she writhed. ‘Better than me?’ he demanded hotly.

‘No! Oh god Ryan NO!’

He spanked her again, and then moved back to her clit. ‘Really? Who was? Christian Grey? Gilbert Blythe?’

‘No one, I swear! Well there was this boat scene in this mermaid book with a guy named Tristan but that was before you I-’

Ryan spanked her again and then pulled her up onto his lap, thrusting up and into her and feeling high when she threw her head back and began to rock urgently on him. ‘Come for me,’ he whispered, snapping the catch on her bra and watching the sexy little number slide down and catch in her elbows. ‘Come for me so I know there’s not going to be any ‘after’ leading man in this pretty little head of yours.’

Leigh went off on his lap and Ryan quickly followed wondering how she’d gotten it into her head that he was the fantasy and not she.

Leigh

It was tempting to spend the remainder of the afternoon sleeping in Ryan’s arms in their exquisite hotel room, but Ryan was eager to get them to the chapel, seemingly afraid that the gods would throw some awful obstacle in their path if they chanced catching a show or something first. She’d noticed that Ryan was superstitious like that, always endeavoring to do things in a way that would keep some invisible force happy. He’d gotten her into his bed and he was thrilled with that, but he was afraid of breaking his word, lest it led to her breaking some word to him. He didn’t ignore homeless people- every time he bent and gave them change, even if it was late at night in some dark alley, even if the person stank of methylated spirits- Ryan would hand them a twenty and tell Leigh that it was all he could do not to bring them home, as Imogen had cared for him, because that could have very easily been him. It was the same with buskers- he always stopped to listen and clap and throw them change, regardless of how woeful they were, and as they walked through Caesars and came upon a section of slot machines, a despairing look lengthened his features, and he whispered to her that he didn’t understand how people could expect to be granted more money by throwing theirs away.

He was earnest and thoughtful, and Leigh couldn’t help but wonder if he’d been religious in his former life.

She got ready in the bathroom as the sun began to set, humming along to the music video station Ryan was playing, wondering how his voice would sound doing Aerosmith’s ‘I don’t want to miss a thing’ and grinning to know he’d nail it. She didn’t have a wedding trousseau or anything like that ready, but she had the white minidress she’d bought the night before and as she slipped it on in the foggy bathroom, she knew that it was exactly right to marry her sexy musician in.

It was short and pure white, constructed like a corset at the top, with a flirty skirt and a ruffled hem at the bottom. It pushed up her breasts and pulled in her waist perfectly, but the skirt flared slightly instead of clinging to her backside, making the garment more romantic and playful than trashy. The entire thing was made from white lace and lined with skin-colored chiffon, so the boning showed through and created the illusion of nudity beneath, but kept her covered. It was the prettiest thing she’d ever owned and she’d known that she had to have it the moment she saw it, but she considered herself lucky that she had the wedding as an excuse to wear it now- because she honestly couldn’t conceive of another occasion in which it would have been appropriate. It was too skimpy for any sort of ball, too white for a cocktail party and too dressy for a race day- it was a Vegas wedding dress, and as she rolled a pair of sheer stockings up her legs and stepped into her silver heels, she wondered if maybe Ryan was onto something as far as actions and reactions went. Had she bought the dress, hoping he’d see her in it, and see a musician’s wife? Or had she bought it because the fates had known that she’d end up in need of a wedding dress?

Leigh was suddenly impatient to get out of the bathroom and on with her life, but she was a woman with wet hair wanting to impress the love of her life, and so she plugged in the hairdryer and tapped her foot impatiently while she circulated it around her head. When it was dry enough, she plugged in her curling iron and decided to fake a fancy hairstyle, sweeping her hair to one side and pinning it over one shoulder, before twisting the hot iron through the ends quickly forming rushed but natural looking waves. She used a few more pins to isolate a few curls around the left side of her face, sweeping it across her forehead to the side as well, then set it with hairspray. When her hair was done, she rushed the make-up, popping in her contacts without hesitation and applying only the most natural foundation, blush and powder to her skin. She was so glad that Ryan had managed to toss in most of her necessities while packing her trunk, (though he’d left out every single book, which made her feel strange) but he’d only grabbed her smallest make-up purse so even if she’d wanted to glam herself up, she didn’t have the palettes to do so. She lined her upper lashes, smudged a pale greeny-gold shadow across her lid and then twirled her mascara wand up, trying to lift her lashes and pouting when she still only looked half as lash-endowed as her gorgeous fiancé after. Sighing, she applied a blush-colored lipstick, smeared gloss over it and then poked her favorite pearl earrings into her ears, for they were the only ones she had rattling around in the bottom of her handbag.

By the time she was done, she was so impatient to see Ryan- feeling desolate from having being separated from him by a closed door for an hour- that her heart was thumping in her throat. She flicked off the curling wand as an afterthought and stepped out into the living room, stuffing her lip gloss into her white hand bag- and froze when he rose from the couch looking like he’d fallen from heaven and landed in Armani.

‘Holy shit!’ There was nothing lady-like or blushing-bride about the way she greeted her fiancé, and with November Rain playing in the background, she supposed that was okay. In a white tailored dress shirt with black leather jeans, polished shoes and a loose black tie, he looked absolutely dashing- taller, leaner, fitter and darker than ever before, and her stockings weren’t supportive enough to keep her knees from weakening at the sight of him. ‘You look amazing!’

Ryan was staring at her- just staring. He didn’t move, he didn’t breathe he didn’t blink. His eyes swept down, then up, then down again, and as though he wanted to give her a heart attack from insecurity, he wiped his hair back from his brow and frowned deeply, looking disconcerted beyond measure. ‘That- that dress…’ he swallowed and looked up at her. ‘How the fuck am I supposed to make it through a fifteen minute wedding ceremony with you wearing that dress?’

Leigh chanced a step toward him. ‘How do you expect to make it past me and out the door in that suit?’

Ryan lifted his thumb to his lip and bit it gently, and that gesture made Leigh’s heart melt because she knew from experience that he only did that when he was feeling nervous. ‘I have to shave yet,’ he said quietly, his eyes sparkling. ‘But you like?’ Leigh nodded- big slow appreciative nods, and he lowered his thumb. ‘Phew.’ He adjusted the cuffs rolled gently beneath his elbows and blushed. ‘I kept the sleeves here so I wouldn’t get stuck again...’

Leigh giggled. ‘If you’re not ready to run out the door- you probably shouldn’t point out how easy it’s going to be for me to strip you.’ She cocked her head to the side, taking in the sexy shadow lining his jaw. ‘I sort of like the unkempt look though…’ she stepped closer. ‘Can I touch it?’