Page 107 of Doing It for Love

“Please don’t.”

“Lots of 98 Degrees to get you to the right temperature.”

“I take back my sock vow.”

“You can’t do that.”

“I just did.”

“We are not going to argue during our wedding ceremony.”

“Okay,” he says, “I vow to always argue naked.”

“And make up naked.”

“To always take you out on dates.”

“And I’ll never stop flirting with you.”

“I vow to kiss the center of your palm.”

“I vow to give you long hugs.”

“I vow to squeeze your hand twice.” And he does.

“And I vow to always squeeze back.”

After lots of “aww”s from our friends and family, Landon and I turn to the preacher.

“Do you have the rings?”

“Yes!” I shout, scaring Landon into Alec. But I didn’t forget this one. Theresa leans over and slides the clearance ring I got him that says, “You are mine,” because even though he said he didn’t need one, he does. And this will have to do until I can afford a nice gold band.

He pushes the ring onto my finger—I mean literally pushes, because the heat in here has made my fingers swell. And I take his hand, and as the twenty-dollar piece of jewelry slides over his knuckle, something bursts in my chest.

I remember how it felt when Landon first kissed me. I remember the second kiss, the third, and I remember the first time we made love and the first time we fought and the first time we spent a night together. I remember moving in, learning to deal with living with each other, and overcoming all the Hurdles that were put in our path.

I remember how it felt when he put the ring on my finger. It was beyond words.

But nothing could’ve ever prepared me for how it feels to put a ring onhisfinger.

Tears are falling now, and there’s no way to stop them. And through the blur I witness, for the first time ever, a tear crawling down Landon’s cheek into his smile line.

“Landon, do you take this woman—”

“Oh yeah,” he says on an exhale. My shoulders move with light laughter.

“Elizabeth, do you—”

“You bet I do.”

“By the power vested in me by the state of New York, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

Landon doesn’t even wait for the kiss line. He wraps a hand around my waist, one around the nape of my neck, and yanks me flush against him. He nips at my bottom lip, but then he’s gentle, more demanding, and then actually embarrassingly passionate with all our friends and family sitting not two feet away. And because I’m such a smooth and hot girl, I start laughing in the middle of it.

I lean back, tasting the saltiness of his tears, and I can’t imagine ever feeling better than I do right now. And the first words I say to my husband are “Did you see my ass in this thing?”

He grins, nodding against my forehead. “Did you see my ass in this thing?” He pulls at his tux and kisses me again. “We should be in magazines, picking pepper out of each other’s teeth and wiping away mascara.”

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