“That would only prove I lust after you. I know you believe that. I can’t keep my hands off you.”
“Are you sure? You left me in the car with my hard dick hanging out of my pants. I thought wedding-night sex was a guaranteed thing.”
She chuckled slightly, unable to help herself. It wasn’t like her to be too serious either, but figuring out why he struggled was important to her. She needed to know what she was doing wrong so she could help him believe that her love was as true and unending as his own. That she had enough love to give him. Enough to fill his life with it.
“Sex is guaranteed, Mr. Sticks. After you answer my question.”
He sighed and leaned heavily against her back. Her bodice loosened, and she realized he hadn’t just been playing with her buttons—he’d been unfastening them.
“Why did I pick now to remind you that we promised to communicate? I want to get laid.” He turned the doorknob and pushed the door open. “Will you let me carry you across the threshold now, wife?”
“After you answer my question.”
“What was your question again?”
“Why don’t you believe I love you?”
“I do,” he said.
“Do you think I love you as much as you love me?”
“That’s a loaded question I refuse to answer.”
“Why is it loaded?”
“Because if I say I love you more, then it becomes a competition, and if I say you love me more, then you get your feelings hurt, and if I say we love equally, you’ll want evidence of something that can never be proven, something you can feel, but can’t touch. Can’t see. You can’t hear it or smell it. How do you know it’s real if you can’t experience it with anything but your heart?”
“You don’t think love is real?”
“I trust that it’s real. I believe that it’s real. I know what I feel for you inside my heart, my soul, is real. But when I think and try to know, that’s when I start to wonder and doubt and… remember.”
She was pretty sure his sudden bout of remembering was really eating at him.
“You can tell what you remember,” she said. “You never talk about your past.”
“I don’t want or need to talk about my past. It’s over. I can’t change one second about it. Can’t we just be happy with what we have now? Does it really matter that I have a hard time believing you love me because no one has ever wanted to love me before? I mean, shit, Reb, you can’t possibly want to love me. I’m a fucking train wreck. I keep waiting for you to say, I’m over it. Thank God I finally came to my senses. I must have been drugged or something. Who would ever want to love that weirdo?”
Her heart twisted until she thought her chest might implode.
“Eric, I want to love you,” she said. “I do. I’m glad I love you. Can I help how I feel? No. I think I pretty much have to love you at this point—you are beyond wonderful to me, but I also want to love you. You deserve so much love in your life. I willingly give you all I have. I promise you that.”
But would it ever be enough? The thing that could fill his life with more love, all the love he could possibly ever need—a child of his own—she could never give him. So he needed a whole lot of loving to compensate. She just hoped she had enough.
“If I promise to believe you love me, can I carry you over the threshold, strip that dress off you, and fuck you like there’s no tomorrow?”
She sighed, knowing this would go nowhere as long as his thoughts were consumed with lust.
“I’m not sure what you’re waiting for,” she said with a smile, resolved to tackle the issue when he was ready. At the moment he was only ready for one thing, and she knew she could meet that need for sure. “Are you going to make me wait for it, husband? My pussy is dripping for you, you know.”
“Woman,” he growled, “why do you torment me?”
“Because I love you,” she said.
She squeaked in surprise when he scooped her into his arms and carried her over the threshold.
“Welcome home, Mrs. Sticks,” he said.
“Welcome home, Mr. Sticks,” she returned.
“Now for that bed.” He only managed a few steps before getting caught in her train and stumbling into the wall behind the open front door. “I’m sorry, but this dress has to go. Who invented these things? Fathers who wanted their daughters to remain virgins on their wedding night?”
Laughing, Rebekah clung to his neck. “Take my virginity now, husband,” she said. “Please!”
“I was going to carry you to bed before fucking you like there’s no tomorrow,” he said.
“If there was really no tomorrow, would you bother taking me to bed, or would you fuck me right here on the foyer floor with my skirt over my head?”
He paused for a second, glancing out of the corner of his eye as he contemplated her logic. “Good point.”
Eric set her on her feet and the door slammed closed. Startled, she turned around, and it took her a long moment to register what she was actually seeing.
“Eric!” she squeaked. “Where are your pants?”
He grinned down at his stiff cock, standing proud just beneath the hem of his white T-shirt. “I left them in the car. Didn’t think I’d need them.”
She snorted with laughter, wondering if any of their neighbors had driven by and witnessed bare-assed Eric in his tuxedo jacket and Converse tennis shoes standing on the front porch.
She crooked a beckoning finger at him, her cheeks aching from smiling so broadly. “Come here, you.”