Page 22 of One Vow

Probably one of the girls I slept with on video since I’d been dating her before I met Felicity and Beth and I had been together at the boat. “She’s probably hurting, too.”

And when Beth hurt, she liked to spread it around. Although, she wasn’t the one who’d put sadness in Felicity’s eyes, who’d made her step back from me, who’d given away too much.

“Did you sleep with her?” Oh fuck. I never wanted to hear the sadness in her voice ever again. Especially since the truth was not going to set us free. Damn it. The last thing I wanted was to lose Felicity, as a matter of fact, I was going to do whatever it took to keep her, except lie to her. I wouldn’t do that.

Her lip quivered before I even nodded.

“Yeah.”

But instead of releasing the dam and letting the tears fall, she nodded. Then stood. Then started pacing. “So that’s why she’s shredding you online and on blogs and in newspapers and on TV now? She’s pissed off because you dumped her.”

That was a very basic way of putting it. A very dismissive of my crime kind of way. She clapped her hands together, then rubbed them against each other. “I can work with that.”

“It wasn’t like that, Lis. It isn’t.” If Beth was only pissed about being dumped, part of it maybe but I doubted it was the totality of her anger, I would have moved heaven and earth to make whatever I could up to her. But Beth wasn’t about the intense emotional feelings stirred by a relationship gone south. For her purposes, relationships were about function and need. Anything else was beneath her. She was all business all the time. “No. She took the break-up fine.”

I hadn’t given her much choice. By then I’d met Felicity and I couldn’t see Beth anymore. And she hadn’t given two shits. “And no matter what her personal feelings are towards me, I did something wrong. And whether I knew about Ryder and the internet or not, there are consequences because I knew what he was doing with the pledges. I also know how Ryder’s always been. And I knew about the cameras. And I still took girls to the boat.”

And for the sake of honesty, because I didn’t want to keep lying to her, I added, “A lot of girls.”

I laid back on the bed as the gravity of the words and my situation hit me. It was right to use the word jail because I deserved it. Women were hurt because of what I did. Had the girl I loved more than anything in the world cared what people thought, no way would she have been able to sit there and consider asking her dad to help me.

“Yeah. I heard.” She sighed from deep in her chest. “I’ve been trying to think of ways to excuse this. Things I could take to Dad. Like you didn’t force anyone to go to the boat with you. But, on the other hand, they had a reasonable expectation that one of their most intimate moments with a man wouldn’t end up on a porn site. And then I turn around and try to excuse it by saying you didn’t know. But you did know, kind of. And I try to think there’s no way they didn’t know about you guys and what you were doing.”

She chuckled, soft, almost a whisper of sound. “But I didn’t know. I just liked you. And I want to be the woman who defends other women. Who has their back when stuff like this…when a man does stupid shit.”

So, this was the beginning of the end. “Do you want me to leave?”

Another sigh. A head shake. A shrug. “That’s the thing. I don’t. And I hate that I don’t. That I should, but I don’t. Somehow, though, I believe you when you say you didn’t know this was happening. When you said you trusted Ryder because he’s been your friend since freshman year.”

She stopped pacing and moved to stand in front of me, tilted my chin up so I had to look into her eyes. “The same as I believed you when you said you love me.”

After a second, she moved her hand to my cheek. “Do you love me, Finn?”

She would know if I just said the words without meaning them, so I took a second and thought about it. We’d lived in her room for a week now. Slept in the same bed and not had sex because I didn’t want her to think…anything. But I never wanted to go back to sleeping without her in my arms. And I never wanted to wake up again without seeing her face on the pillow next to mine.

“I love you.”

She smiled as if she thought I might not say it. So, I kissed her with all the feeling and all the emotion that belonged with the words I’d just said.

“Then let me help you because I love you too, and I want to be with you, and I don’t want to have to get a body cavity check every time.”

There was a joke in there somewhere but more than I wanted to make her laugh, I wanted her to know I meant what I said. I loved Felicity Fields. And nothing in my life meant more to me than the fact she loved me back.

And that was why I didn’t sleep with her that night. Or the next one. Or the one after that. But on the fourth day, I went with her to the courthouse and signed my name on a line beside hers. Then followed her into the judge’s chambers where we stood in front of him. I held her hands in mine and looked deep into her eyes as we each promised now and forever to be together. To cherish and love each other through sickness and health, richer and poorer, for as long as we lived.

“Mrs. Finn Makenzie.” If she said it once, she said it a hundred times.

And every single time, it made me happier than the last. Honest to God, I didn’t know I could ever be so happy. “I like the sound of that.”

I didn’t come from a place where love and marriage were things we aspired to, but more things we ran from because the examples set by those who claimed love and happiness were the opposite of what it should’ve looked like. But this was…different than what I’d seen growing up. This was loving Felicity.

She kissed my throat and slid her hand under my shirt as I drove. “You know what I like the sound of?”

I didn’t answer because I couldn’t form a thought. I didn’t have enough blood left in my brain for thought to be possible.

“I like the sound you make right after you put your dick inside me.” Her hand slipped lower and she squeezed my cock through my pants. “And the one right before you come.”

Holy shit. I was trying to drive and keep a car on the road while my wife taunted and tempted me with all her sexuality. And I didn’t mind saying, I was weak. Especially when she squeezed my dick again. And again. And again.