Page 2 of For Pleasure Or Worse

“It’s not the wedding talk, it’s the smile on my future wife’s face as she spends all our money on lobster crostini and an ice sculpture in the middle of June in Key West.”

June.We had six months to plan and execute the most extravagant wedding my mind could muster. The kind of wedding everyone expected from a Russo girl. I’d been planning it in secret in diaries, with scissors and glue from magazine cutouts, and on private Pinterest boards since I was old enough to binge-watchSay Yes to the Dress.

My family all had some very strong opinions about our relationship and the pace at which Mateo and I decided to get hitched. Not that anyone had outright said it, but if the phone call to my mother after our Christmas engagement gave any inclination, I’d say “how pregnant are you?” doesn’t equal an exuberant congratulations.

Not pregnant at all, by the way. Were it any other couple I might understand the hesitation, but Mateo and I weredifferent. Wedid thingsdifferently. Not just the lube and the sex toys and the getting naked on camera aspect of things, either. From the moment we met last fall my life felt like I had hopped in the passenger seat of a fire red muscle car and stepped on the gas pedal on a never-ending straightaway.

I was a bored, overworked, uninspiredbank tellerwhen I met Mateo. I’d been doing cam work on the side in secret for years and finally experiencing an ounce of the financial freedom that I needed to feel like I wasn’tentirelythe family disappointment.

My parents wanted me to go to Johns Hopkins—I settled for the other side of the country at Colorado State. They wanted me to study medicine—I majored in art studies. They wanted me to marry an age-appropriate businessman with a trust fund and connections—I climbed the thirty-five-year-old Delta Force veteran with a mouth like a sailor and family construction roots in the Bronx like I was a monkey and he was a fucking banana tree.

We were technically still on our first date, because we hadn’t spent a full day apart in over a year. Although against Mateo’s nagging, I had kept my apartment across town in Coconut Creek as a buffer of independence…and subliminally to keep my parents from having another reason to give me grief about the path I’d chosen to pursue in life. But when the first of January rolled around, I decided not to renew my lease and instead packed all of my belongings into the bed of Mateo’s truck and moved officially into his house where I’d been unofficially living anyway.

This wedding had to be perfect. It had to be everything my parents would expect from my sisters andmore. So that I could truly show them that I didn’t need to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or a multi-million-dollar real estate agent in Florida to afford the finer things in life. I didn’t even have to leave the comfort of my own bedroom.

The deep red ambiance lights around us shifted to a regal purple. “We only have six months to throw this thing. We need to focus.”

“Is that not a lot?” Mateo wiggled beneath me, his hips inclining slightly back.

“It’s laughable,” I sputtered. “I already have pressure on me with Mom and the girls. If the dress doesn’t fit like a glove and my lips aren’t swollen with filler it’s going to be an issue.”

“I’ll swell your lips naturally.”

I rolled my eyes and squeezed a generous amount of Astroglide onto my fingertips. “Spread ‘em, Captain.”

Mateo grunted, not impressed that I used his call sign against him in such a compromising position—and finally let me ease a slender finger in between.

"Well, I mean, how much is there really to do?"

Fuckingmen. The mental list of wedding planning items that hammered me in the back of my head all day, every day, materialized.

"The dress fitting is tomorrow. Mom, Camilla, Isabella and Mia are all clearing their schedules to meet me there. I’m sure that’s not a coincidence at all. They're probably dying to critique in true Russo fashion, which means I'll be lucky to walk out of there with a shred of my dignity left."

"Your sisters aren't that bad." Mateo's voice shot up an octave as the pad of my finger absentmindedly traced his tight ring of muscle.

"It's telling how you left my mom out of that."

"Mother-in-laws are supposed to be the Devil, and I’m well equipped to handle a crazy mother hen. I'm a first-born Italian son; we are doted on and coddled and spoiled in a way that no other man in the world would ever have the pleasure of understanding. Sistine Russo might be a tough egg to crack, but I’m gonna split her open."

"I’m going to vomit."

"Anyway, the dress."

"And catering for the venue. We have to try the food and the cakes and?—"

"And you're complaining?"

"Have you forgotten who has the bottle of lube and the cock strap on right now?"

"No, ma'am, I have not."

"The catering," I continued. "Then the florist. The invitations have to be sent soon, which means the accommodations have to be ironed out for the hotel because this is a destination wedding for your entire family. We need bridesmaids gowns and tuxedos for the groomsmen too."

"The boys can wear their dress blues."

"Ew."

"Ew? Four decorated veterans and my wife is saying no to showing us off?"

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