Deceiving Lies

23

Rachel

I TOOK DEEP BREATHS IN AND OUT as I studied myself in the mirror. I wasn’t nervous about the lifelong commitment I was about to make. I wasn’t worried that Kash was getting cold feet. I just felt like I was going to hurl.

The parents had already come in and given hugs before going to take their seats, and Candice and Maddie were behind me in light gray dresses, talking animatedly as they checked each other’s hair. We’d spent the morning relaxing at Maddie’s apartment and watching movies as Mason’s mom did our hair. Then we’d run over to the hotel where Kash and I were going to be staying the next three nights, and checked in before leaving our bags in the room, so he and I could go straight there after the reception without having to worry about anything.

The day had been nice, and easy, and just what I’d needed. But right now, I needed a bathroom. I needed a toilet, and I needed the girls to leave the room.

“Easy,” a deep voice commanded when I turned to find the bathroom. Eli’s hands gripped my wrists, and his thumbs pushed into the pulse point on each one. “Breathe in and out.”

I let the intensity that always seemed to roll off Eli pour over me, and surprisingly, the whole thumbs-on-the-inside-of-my-wrists was really helping.

“Good girl, keep breathing. Deep breaths,” he said, and suddenly he was at my ear. “You okay, sis?”

“I’m good, just got a little light-headed there for a minute.”

“You sure you weren’t about to take off out of here? You need to get away, just tell me. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

I laughed shakily as more of the nausea left me. “No, nothing like that, Eli. I’m ready for this . . . so ready. I really just felt sick for a second.”

“Are you okay now?”

“Yeah, much better. Thank you.”

He kissed my forehead and stepped back. “Let me see if I can go find a Sprite or something around here. But you should get dressed soon. It’s supposed to start in ten minutes. Unless, you know, you need to run.”

“Eli, no.” I pushed him back and smiled at him. “I would love the drink, but not an escape.”

“All right, I’m just making sure.” He winked and slipped out the door.

He was back in no time, and I sipped at the carbonated drink slowly to help with the last of my uneasy stomach. As I did that, I stepped out of the loose clothes I’d been wearing, and Candice and Maddie helped me get ready.

I loved the lingerie we’d found a few weeks ago, and I couldn’t wait to see Kash’s reaction to it. I just didn’t know if I was going to last in the white corset that was covered in lace if my nausea came back. We’d just gotten on my favorite part of the lingerie when there was a knock at the door.

“Is Rachel decent?”

“No!” we all shouted back at Eli.

“Okay, then someone catch this, I’m not going to look where I throw.”

“Wait! What are you throwing?” Maddie shrieked and turned toward the door just in time to catch the package sailing through the air.

“Crackers.”

“Why crackers?”

“Rachel said she didn’t feel good. Make her eat those,” he said, and then shut the door.

Maddie eyed me through the mirror, and I’m sure Candice would have been doing the same if her face wasn’t near my butt at the moment. “You don’t feel good?”

“I just got a little queasy earlier, I’m feeling better, but those will help.” Oh Lord how those would help. “It’s just nerves.”

She handed me the little package and I quickly opened it up and popped the first one in my mouth just as Candice jumped up.

“Okay, it looks perfect!”

I turned in the mirror and smiled at my underwear. “So cute,” I said through a mouthful of cracker.

It was a white thong with a thick band of see-through material, ruffled on each side of the band, and a mix of cotton and lace for the rest. But the best part was the satin bow that covered anything that shouldn’t be seen. Thong or not, I still wanted it covered.

The girls made me finish the crackers before they helped me put on my dress, and as soon as I saw the completed look, with my hair in a low bun off to the side just as Maddie had done it in the dress shop, an overwhelming feeling of peace settled over me.

My mom would have loved to see me like this, my dad would have been proud of the man I had chosen. And now, I couldn’t wait to get to that ceremony so I could finally become his wife.

“Naked or not, we’re coming in,” Mason said as the door flung open.

“Mason!” Candice and Maddie scolded him, but he just shrugged.

“You look beautiful, Rach,” Eli said and pulled me close to whisper in my ear. “And I really don’t like that guy.”

“He’s harmless, I promise.”

“Uh-huh.” He gave Mason a look as he stepped back, and Mason stepped in to get his hug.

“For real, the dude hates me!” Mason hissed at me, and I couldn’t help but laugh. “But you look gorgeous, Kash is gonna die when he sees you.”

“Thanks, Mase.”

I watched Eli and Mason leave with Maddie and Candice, and then turned to see Candice’s dad, George, tearing up.

“No, no! Don’t cry. Because if you cry, then I’m going to cry, and I so can’t cry right now, George!”

“I know, I’m not crying. It’s just dust or something.” He wiped at his eyes and held his arms out for me. “So proud of you, baby girl. Your mom and dad would’ve been too.”

I hugged him hard before releasing him. “I know they would have.”

He blinked a few times before turning away. “Damn dust.”

“Yeah . . . damn dust,” I said and fanned at my face so the tears gathering in my eyes wouldn’t spill over.

“Come on, let’s go do this before the dust ruins my makeup.”

My head jerked back and I looked at him before busting out laughing. “Oh yeah, your makeup would definitely be all over the place.”

Putting my arm in the crook of his, I let him lead me out of the room, and we waited until it was our turn to walk down the aisle. The second my eyes found Kash standing at the end of it, my body warmed and my heart took off. He was standing there in black slacks, a light gray button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, and a black suit vest. He looked amazing, but what I couldn’t take my eyes off was the huge smile that spread across his face as he watched us walk toward him.

The second my hand touched his, I took what felt like my first real breath since we’d left the dinner last night.

I was where I belonged. He was my home. And I was so ready to marry him.

Kash

PUSHING RACHEL UP AGAINST THE DOOR to our hotel suite, I captured her mouth with mine before making my way down her neck as I searched for the key in my pocket. Once I found it, I fumbled with sliding it in the lock twice before giving up and kissing her again. She laughed against my lips and grabbed the keycard out of my hand, and turned her body around so she could attempt to get us in the room.

I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her against my chest as I made a trail of openmouthed kisses across her shoulder and up the back of her neck. A soft giggle bubbled up from her chest but quickly cut off when I grabbed her hips and pressed my hard-on against her. She shivered in my arms and her head dropped back onto my shoulder just as the light turned green and the door unlocked. I quickly pushed us inside and let the door slam shut behind us as I hurried her to the bed, my hands going to the zipper on her dress as we walked. It’d been getting to the point where I would have taken my wife right there in the hall, not caring about anyone that may have seen us.

As soon as the zipper stopped its downward path, I stopped ours toward the bed and pulled away from Rachel so I could watch the dress fall from her body. The material pooled around her bare feet, and I took my time letting my eyes reverse the path the dress had just taken. I groaned when I saw her lingerie.

“Rachel Ryan, you’re trying to kill me before we can consummate this marriage.”

“I love that name.”

“Not as much as I do.”

Turning her around to unhook the top, I stopped breathing for heated moments as my hands gripped her hips and slid down her ass.

“This”—I nibbled on her earlobe and ran my fingers over the see-through, barely there material—“is the fucking sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

White lace and a ribbon. Who knew?

“Kash,” she said on a breath and pressed herself against me. “If you don’t take it off soon, I will.”

“So impatient,” I teased, but even as I did, my hands went to the dozens of hooks on the top. With each unclasped hook, I placed a kiss on her shoulder, the back of her neck, the sensitive spot behind her ear . . . and with each one, her knees shook a little more.

When I was finished, I tossed the material aside before pressing her back to my chest again. Grabbing her chin, I tilted her head back and up so I could capture her mouth with mine as I palmed her heavy breasts. She groaned into my mouth and arched her back as her hands covered mine. She slowly removed my hands and guided them down her waist to rest against her stomach, and released me to run her hands through my hair.

Letting the tips of my fingers trail over her stomach and across her hips, I brought them down to the barely there underwear and let my thumbs run inside the band. Taking a step away from her, my lips curved up in a smile at her disappointed groan, but I just pushed her closer to the bed and pressed a hand down at the top of her back. Realization hit her blue eyes, and she bit down on her bottom lip as she rested her forearms on the bed.

I ran my hands over her bare ass again before grabbing the filmy material and slowly sliding it off her hips, down her thighs, and to the ground. She stepped out of her underwear, and I kissed my way back up her legs, biting softly on the back of her thigh just before I stood.

She was so fucking beautiful—so perfect—and she was finally mine.

I’d just barely begun teasing her, and was sliding one finger inside her when she suddenly turned and sat on the bed, facing me. Her hands reached the top of my pants and made quick work of unbuttoning and unzipping them, before dragging them, and my boxers, down. She grabbed my length in her hands, running them up and down a few times before she brought that sweet as sin mouth to me.

I groaned, and my hand automatically flew to her head, but I forced it to stay relaxed instead of gripping her hair. I tried to watch her as she built me up faster than I ever have before, but my head kept dropping back, my eyes rolling to the back of my head as she teased me with her lips and tongue, and her hand continued to work me. She moaned around me, and I about lost it right then when I looked back down and saw her touching herself too. Holy shit.

Pushing her away from me felt like an impossible task, but I needed to. I’d planned this whole night out in my head, I was going to go slow with her, I was going to spend hours worshipping her body. But as the night had progressed, we’d both gotten needier, and there’d been no way to start slow once we were finally here. But I wasn’t about to do this.

A confused look crossed her face when I grabbed the hand she was using on herself and moved it away. “This is my job, sweetheart.”

“Okay, but I wasn’t done with you,” she argued and started to reach for me again, but I stopped her hands.

I quickly took off the suit-vest and shirt, and threw them across the room as I kicked off my shoes and stepped out of my pants. “Rachel,” I said and laid her down on the bed before crawling on top of her. “I know you weren’t, and Christ, that was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen you do,” I told her and pulled her toward the center of the bed. “But the first time we get off as a married couple, isn’t about to be in your mouth, and you’re sure as shit not about to do it yourself.”

She opened her mouth to respond, but I thrust inside of her, and all that came out was a throaty mix of pleasure and pain. I rocked against her faster and harder, and my head dropped to the crook of her neck, a low growl emanating from my chest when her nails dug into my back. I’d always loved the noises she made whenever we were together, but the sounds she was making now had me gripping the comforter and pushing into her harder as she began tightening around me. I clenched my teeth as I held off my own orgasm, but the second her body began trembling around me, I let go with a roar I’d tried to suppress by biting down on her shoulder.

We were both breathing hard as I slowed my movements inside her, and after I pulled out, I collapsed onto my back, pulling her onto my chest. Neither of us said anything as we lay there. I don’t know what it’d been, if it was the fact that Rachel was finally mine, if it was the erotic noises she’d been making, or if it was something more . . . but that had been the most intense sexual experience we’d ever had. And all I could do, now that it was over, was lie there and hold her close to me.

“I have something to give you,” she said, breaking the silence sometime later.

Tilting her head back, I kissed her lips softly and pulled back to look in her eyes. “What else could you give me? You’ve given me you, I don’t need anything else.”

She smiled and her blue eyes glossed with tears. The look on her face and in her eyes contradicted her next words. “You’re such a cheesy nerd.”

“Then why are you about to cry?” I sat up on the bed and pulled her with me. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she assured me and fanned at her eyes. “I’m just being ridiculous again. I’m happy . . . happy we’re here, happy we’re married, happy that . . . I’m just happy.”

I laughed softly, but unease still gripped at my chest when a lone tear slipped down her cheek. “Rachel . . .”

“No, really, I’m fine.” She laughed and wiped at her cheek. “God, I feel stupid. But I really do have something for you. Will you wait here?”

My eyebrows pulled together as I studied her face. “Depends on where you’re going.”

“I’m just going into the bathroom, I’ll be right back, I swear.” She grabbed my face in both her hands and kissed me soundly before pulling away from me and hopping off the bed.

I watched as she grabbed a large purse that had already been in the room and ran into the bathroom. It felt wrong to sit here and not go after her. I had no idea why she’d started to cry. Had I hurt her?

When a couple minutes had passed, and she hadn’t come back into the room, I slid off the bed and walked to where I’d left my clothes. Grabbing my boxer briefs, I pulled them on, and was about to head to the bathroom when the door opened and she walked out. She had on a pair of lacy black underwear, and a matching bra, but I couldn’t focus on her body for long.

She was worrying her bottom lip and had her hands behind her as she took slow steps toward me.

“Rachel?”

“I told you to wait there.”

I looked back at the bed, then back to her. “I was worried about you. We get married and have mind-blowing sex, and then you start to cry and lock yourself in the bathroom.”

With a deadpan expression, she shook her head. “You’re making it out like I was really upset. I told you I was fine, I was just being ridiculous.”

“Rach—”

“Now sit back down on the bed.” When I didn’t move, she widened her eyes at me. “Sit, or I’m not giving this to you.”

“Fine, I’m sitting.”

She took a deep breath in, and her eyes began watering again as the most beautiful smile crossed her face.

And I was so damn lost.

“This is my wedding present to you,” she said and handed me a thick, black envelope.

I took it from her hand, and kept my eyes on her face as long as I could before finally glancing down at the card. What the hell? There were stickers of Thing 1 and Thing 2 from The Cat in the Hat on the front of the envelope. I turned it around to open it, and read the words in silver lettering: “Will be here March 2015.”

What . . . is this supposed to be like Disney on Ice? Is there a Dr. Seuss on Ice now too? Did she get us tickets or something? That’s just . . . odd. Keep smiling. Keep smiling. I so wasn’t smiling. I was confused as hell. I flicked a glance at her, and the beautifully heartbreaking expression she still wore made me even more confused as I opened the envelope and pulled out the small stack of pictures, and pieces of paper.

The first was a piece of paper that said: “I hope you still want this . . .” I slid it to the bottom of the pile and my heart skipped a beat before taking off when I saw the picture of Rachel holding my cousin’s little baby, Shea.

My body felt hot and cold at the same time as I breathed deeply in and out while I sat there, staring at the picture. From the look of Shea’s outfit, this had been taken on the Fourth of July, before I’d gotten there. Rachel looked beautiful holding her. She always looked beautiful, but I loved seeing her with Shea. And right now, I was doing everything to force myself not to think of this becoming my reality. This could be about to go in a different direction, and I’m just jumping to the conclusion I’ve been wanting.

With a shaky hand, I put the picture on the bottom of the pile, quickly followed by the paper that said: “. . . because this is happening.”

The next picture was of Rachel’s upper body. She had a tight shirt on, and had flipped the bottom of the shirt up so her torso was showing. The same beautiful smile I was seeing on her face now would easily keep my attention on this picture if she hadn’t been holding up her index and middle finger directly in front of her stomach.

I’d stopped breathing. That hot and cold feeling was getting more intense as the silence filled the air with a terrifying excitement. I looked up to see Rachel freely crying, her hands covering her mouth as her bright blue eyes still showed her happiness as she stared at me. Waiting for my reaction. But I couldn’t figure out how to react, this had to be a dream. I’d wanted this; she hadn’t. She wouldn’t be this excited right now . . . right? Was this a trick, was I still not understanding what all this meant?

Somehow, even though I was sitting, I felt my legs weaken and knew I would have ended up on the floor just then if I’d been standing. My whole body felt weak, and at the same time, it felt like I was on top of the damn world.

My eyes left her face and hit her flat stomach. I tried to put the two together, whether I was still trying to understand what she was telling me, or if I was trying to confirm what I was sure I already knew . . . I really don’t know. I gently brought one hand up to her stomach, and a flash of Rachel moving my hands to her stomach just half an hour ago as I’d been undressing her hit me. A huff left me as I realized she had been telling me even then.

“Rachel—” I shook my head in disbelief and looked up at her, a smile pulling at my lips.

“You missed one,” she said and reached for the stack in my hand. Taking it from me, she removed the top picture and put it on the bottom before handing me back the pile. “There they”—she choked on a sob—“there they are.”

“Oh my God.” Any air that was left in my lungs left in a hard rush, and time stopped as I looked at the ultrasound picture. Two dark circles in the middle of a gray screen, and a little peanut shape in each circle. “This? These . . . they’re . . . oh my God.”

She laughed through her tears and pulled the pile from my hands to set it on the nightstand. Crawling on the bed to straddle my lap, she cupped my face in her hands and brought her forehead down to mine.

“This isn’t a joke? This is for real? You’re—we’re . . . we’re having twins? You’re pregnant?” She’d barely had time to nod before I crushed my mouth to hers and kissed her like I needed her in order to breathe. “I love you . . . fuck, Rachel. I love you so damn much.”

“I know, I know, I love you too,” she said when I released her mouth again.

“When did this happen? How long have you known? How far along are you? Are you—are you okay? I know you didn’t want this, but you seem so—”

She placed the tips of her fingers on my lips to stop my questions, and a knowing smile lit up her face again. I grabbed her wrist, kissed her fingers, and dropped her hand so I could run my knuckles over her stomach.

“I’m barely over nine weeks now, I just found out a week ago. With how everything happened after I came back, I wasn’t paying attention, so I hadn’t even noticed I’d missed a period. But I hadn’t gotten back on my birth control from being gone, and when I tried, my doctor wanted to see me first. I saw her last Friday, and she asked about how long I’d been off it, why I’d been off it, and if you and I had been together since then. When she asked when my last cycle was, I couldn’t remember one after the time when I’d been kidnapped, so she did a test to check before she put me on birth control again. It came back positive, and since I’d known it’d been a while from my last cycle, she did an ultrasound to measure the baby. And then there ended up being two . . .”

Tears started falling rapidly down Rachel’s cheeks, but never once did her smile leave her face.

“She figured I was around eight weeks, and I picked up the journal Trent had bought me on my way to meet Candice and Maddie. It took a while, but I finally figured out the dates of when everything was, and after checking I’m guessing it happened the night of the Fourth of July. My doctor had been right, I was a little over eight weeks that day.”

I shook my head and laughed softly as I glanced down at her flat stomach. “I still can’t believe this. And you’re okay? You seem happy.”

“Being kidnapped and not knowing if I would ever see you again changed the way I thought about a lot of things. Including having children. It still would have been ideal if we could’ve had some time of just being us before all this happened, but I’m not scared of being a mom anymore. I’m not scared of going through all of this without my mom. We have so many people that are there for us, and I know they’ll help.” She kissed my lips softly and smiled against them. “And having you still look at me like you wanted to rip my clothes off in front of everyone when I was holding Shea the other night helped.”

“Well, what can I say? You look good with a baby.”

Rachel laughed loudly. “We’ll see if you still feel that way when I’m the size of a whale.”

“I will,” I assured her.

“What about you? Are you okay? You still want this, now that it’s going to be a reality?”

“More than anything,” I told her as I pressed my lips to hers again.

Leaning back until I was lying on the bed, I rolled us over and hovered over her body. She dragged her hands through my hair and giggled when I bent low and kissed her stomach over and over.

“What does it feel like?”

“Nothing,” she said on a laugh as her fingertips continued to trail across my head.

“You haven’t really been sick, have you? I remember that day last week, but I can’t think of anything else.” I felt shitty for not noticing, if she had been. I should have picked up on this, shouldn’t I?

“Not really. There’s been times here and there, but from the horror stories I’ve heard, I don’t have it bad at all.”

I nodded and kissed her stomach again before reaching over to the nightstand. Grabbing the ultrasound picture, I laid it down on the bottom of her stomach and hopped off the bed, looking for my pants. After I found them, and took my phone out of the pocket, I walked back over to Rachel and opened up the camera app.

“What are you doing?”

“Letting everyone know about my present.”

That soft smile was back, before her eyes went wide in horror. “No! I’m in my bra and underwear!”

“Calm down, Sour Patch. I’m not about to let anyone see the rest of you. You’re mine, not theirs.”

All that you could see in the picture was her torso and the ultrasound picture. As soon as she gave me the okay, I set up a text to go to Mason, Candice, Maddie, Eli, and all our parents. Above the picture I typed out: MY WEDDING PRESENT, and underneath, I did a twist on Rachel’s words from the envelope: BABY RYAN 1 AND BABY RYAN 2 WILL BE HERE IN MARCH.

Once the message went through, I turned both our phones on silent and put them in my bag.

“What are you doing? You know they’re all going to call us.”

“Exactly,” I said as I climbed on top of her again and moved the ultrasound picture to a safe place. “But right now it’s our wedding night, and I’m not done celebrating with just you.”