Page 49 of A Smart Girl's Guide to Second Chances
It was a sunny afternoon but I felt much warmer than I had a few minutes earlier. Matt gently twisted my engagement ringaround my finger and all I could think about were his hands everywhere else.
‘I like variety,’ Matt replied, his voice a bit slower and gravellier than it had been. ‘The three-tiered cake falls off the stand and smashes onto the floor?’
‘Chocolate body paint?’ I suggested, raising what I hoped looked like a suggestive eyebrow.
The sparkle in Matt’s eyes transformed into a glint. ‘My suit pants split open?’
‘That’s got to be anal,’ I replied instantly. We both burst out laughing again.
Why hadn’t all the wedding planning been this much fun? Could it have been if I hadn’t lived in my own head so much, if I hadn’t allowed little things that had gone wrong to become outsized in my mind? If I’d done what Matt had suggested and laughed off the curse as a bad joke?
‘God, I hope it all goes wrong,’ Matt said.
‘Me too.’
‘Should we sneak in next door?’ Matt suggested. We’d been told we couldn’t look at the venue itself because it was still a building site. But I could hear Lucy filming a TikTok in her office and surely the builders had finished for the day.
‘Definitely,’ I replied. This game, well the sexy version Matt had turned it into, had made me feel alive and reckless.
Giddy, I crept behind Matt through the kitchen and into the courtyard where, in a few weeks’ time, we’d become husband and wife. It was still very much a construction site – there were tools and dust everywhere. But as Lucy had so emphatically promised, it looked like the repairs were almost finished.
‘Rehearsal?’ Matt asked, already walking towards the spot we’d designated as the end of the aisle. I nodded and moved to the entrance of the courtyard.
What would happen in this spot, the question of which parent would walk me down the aisle, had already caused me a lot of angst. But it didn’t matter. They weren’t there right then. It was just us.
As I moved towards Matt, carefully stepping over a few stray wooden offcuts and then skirting a paint tin, I felt silly. But then we locked eyes and it all felt real, like we were actually about to get married. I couldn’t see the paint-splattered ladders or drop cloths. All I could see was him – the most handsome groom in the world. And under his gaze, wearing my ancient black cotton dress, I was the most beautiful bride that had ever existed.
I reached the end of the aisle where Belinda would be waiting to officially marry us.
‘This is the part when I’ll tell you that I can’t believe how lucky I am,’ he whispered and kissed the side of my already flushed cheek. ‘Or maybe that my wedding suit pants have split open.’
I laughed.
‘Let’s go home. It was a ridiculous idea to leave our bed,’ I said in what I hoped was a sultry voice.
Soon we were back in our bedroom.
‘Isn’t it weird to think that not that long ago lots of couples had sex for the first time on their wedding night?’ I asked, slowly undoing the buttons on Matt’s pale blue shirt. ‘Imagine if, right now, you were getting undressed, out of your wedding suit, and I didn’t know anything about your body.
‘I wouldn’t know that you loved to be kissed here,’ I said, then slowly kissed the soft spot of his neck, just under his jaw, inhaling his soft citrusy smell. I gently ran the tip of my fingerover his now-bare nipple. Matt closed his eyes and groaned. I smiled. ‘Or that you lose control when I touch you there.’
‘Imagine if you stood in front of me in your wedding dress,’ he said as he opened his eyes again. ‘But I didn’t know that you’d like me to pick you up and take you to the bed.’
He folded his strong arms around me. I pressed my hips into him and I heard him take a deep breath. As our bodies became entwined, my brain emptied of thoughts. I kissed his neck again and rode the high of his cologne or pheromones or whatever his embrace did to me. He carefully placed me down on the bedcovers and then lay next to me. My whole body tingled.
‘And then I’d pull off my wedding dress,’ I said. I half sat up and without breaking eye contact, pulled my summer dress over my head. ‘And you’d see me in my underwear for the first time.’
Matt’s eyes widened when he saw I was wearing my red lingerie set. I smiled, biting my bottom lip.
‘But I wouldn’t know that when you start to eat your lips like that, it means you think you can’t wait another minute,’ he said with a glint in his eye. ‘And I wouldn’t know that you’d enjoy it more if I teased you a bit longer.’ He ran his hand up the side of my body, and curled his fingers into my hair. I whimpered.
‘I want you,’ I said. My body was screaming for Matt. I could hear impatience in my voice. He moved his head forwards and his mouth met mine. My lips parted and it felt like the world was just us, our almost-naked bodies pressed up against each other.
‘Is this where you want me?’ he asked as he pulled his head back then gently kissed my shoulder. I shook my head.
‘What about this?’ He moved down to the inside of my thighs.
‘I want you,’ I said again, my vocabulary reduced to three words.
