I Found You (34 page)

It was all a bit of a blur from then on. I couldn’t repeat the vows we made thirty seconds after saying them - they went in my ears and out of my mouth, and away again. But my hand just clung to the fragile fingers I held in mine, and my eyes didn’t stray from the misty green of hers.

It was amazing to be standing here with her, while the Elvis guy sang,
Love me Tender
.

Her eyes never strayed from mine either. I think we were both just in awe of the fact we were actually doing this. It was all so sudden, meeting her, and getting to this stage. But I knew she was right for me. I had no doubts. I felt like I’d lived my life to reach this point.

The wedding ring I gave her was nothing special, just a band of gold, but she had her engagement ring, and it was only a mark of our commitment, not the commitment Itself.

When it came to her turn to give me a ring I took off the one she’d given me Christmas day, which said ‘forever mine’. She put it back on my finger as part of our vows––now I officially belonged to this woman I’d only found a few weeks ago, forever. Thank God I’d found her.

“I now pronounce you man and wife!” The woman leading the service said and then Elvis broke into another song,
Viva Las Vegas
.

“Go on and kiss the bride.”

I did, not a token kiss either. She was like butter in my hands, leaning into me and kissing me back.

Oh my God. I was high on Rachel.

Elvis finished singing.

We broke apart, smiling. Rach was blushing.

“Shall we take some pictures?” The woman leading the wedding asked.

We had one with Elvis, and then one with the minister and Elvis, and then one on our own in front of a stand full of roses.

“Now you need to sign, and we’ll sort out your certificate…”

It was insane, this running through a wedding like a production line, but it was done. We were married––man and wife. I had a wife.

The limo was waiting outside and it drove us back toward the hotel.

I was all charged up with adrenaline and we had nowhere to go. I’d booked a show for later, but we couldn’t just go back to our room, we needed to do something.

“Hey driver!” I knocked on the glass. “Take us to that hotel that’s got the gondolas.”

Rach threw me a smile.

When we got to The Venetian,, the driver got out and opened the door. I got out first and then took Rach’s hand to help her out too.

We both said thank you to the driver, and I gave him a tip. Then I gripped Rach’s hand. “You ready for a bit of romance, and then a wild night?”

“
Am I?
” She laughed. “Totally!”

“Come on then.”

We walked into the entrance to face a grandiose interior. It was like some eighteenth century palace with painted, gilded ceilings, and when we walked in further we saw the shops’ façades resembled a street in Venice. The gondolas were an extortionate price, but this was our wedding day, and I was splashing out.

“Hey, you couldn’t find some tin cans and a just-got-married sign to pin on the back of this thing could you,” I said, when we got in.

The guy standing on the gondola, smiled, and said in a fake Italian voice, “No, signor, but I can shout to the room that you are newly wed.”

He did, in between singing to us he kept calling to the whole lobby. “Make-a-way, make-a-way for the newly married couple! Are they not sweet? Isn’t it romantic? Do they not look good together?”

Rach spent half the ride laughing, pressed against my side, as my arm embraced her shoulders.

It was such a glorious feeling, having her so close. She was happy today, like she had been before we’d found out about the baby. We’d be happy with the baby too. I knew it. She was just too perfect for me for us not to be happy.

She turned, slipping from beneath my arm, and knelt on the cushions looking at me, her bottom pressing on her heels, as we sailed beneath a bridge. The guy,
the gondolier
, was singing.

“I couldn’t imagine a better honeymoon,” she breathed, before looking up. “Can I make a song request?”

“Anything for the bride, senora.”

“
Love me tender
…”

I laughed.

She looked at me. “I’ve forgotten the whole wedding already, it went so quickly. I want to remember.”

I smiled, and caught hold of her hand, pulling her back down beside me, and tucking her under my arm. I kissed the bridge of her nose, and then whispered to her ear. “Believe me, Rach, the honeymoon isn’t over yet.”

Jason was amazing. I loved him so much, I was buzzing.

After the gondola ride, we found an Italian restaurant in The Venetian, because the gondola had put us both in the mood for a
Lady and the Tramp
scene of spaghetti shared over the table.

Yet again, Jason bragged about our newly married status and got us special treatment.

The restaurant made a real fuss, the string quartet came and played by our table while we ate our starters and then for dessert they brought us a huge bowl of ice-cream, a scoop of every flavor, with sparklers fizzing and spraying out sparks of light. Exactly like the excitement in my brain.

I was in one of my really good moods, the moods when I had a wealth of ideas and inspiration. One of the moods, when I felt like I could do anything; conquer the whole world, if I wanted to. I felt the best I’d ever been.

We went to a show after, and I gripped Jason’s hand, watching the huge stage and all the set changes, in awe of the glitz and glam of Vegas.

Then after the show we headed to the casino in our hotel. We had to. We couldn’t come to Vegas and not gamble at least a little.

He gave me a budget of fifty dollars to play the slot machines. I picked one and sat at it. He stood behind him.

The noise about us was captivating with all the machines going at once, and the sound of people shouting if they won anything, and some laughing if they didn’t. The atmosphere was incredible.

We played for ages, and loads of times we thought our luck was coming in, but it didn’t; all we won was small amounts which we pushed back into the slots. But I could easily be addicted, I knew, I longed to hear the sound of coins pouring out.

Still, Jason wasn’t like me, he stuck to the budget and shrugged when the money ran out, smiling in a so-that’s-the-end-of-that-game way.

I took his hand again.

He was everything to me. I was going to be so careful from now on. I was going to start taking medication again, and try to make sure I never ran off the rails anymore.

“Do you fancy a game at the tables?”

I nodded. Of course I did. Who came to Vegas and never once played at the casino tables?

“I haven’t got much, Rach, but we can get away with a couple of bets. I thought the blackjack table would give us more time to play. If we play roulette we could be out of money in a second.”

I smiled at him and nodded. He had this honeymoon thing all planned out for a man who’d not even thought of it until yesterday.

Again he let me play while he stood behind me. I felt like someone important as his hand rested at my waist, his fingers caressing my skin through my dress. I looked up at him for every decision though.
Stick? Or call again?
We ended up with four cards, and a sum of eighteen.

I looked up at him.
Shall we take the risk and go one more?
I wanted to. The guy next to us had four cards too.

Should I push it?
I said through my eyes.

Jason smiled. “Honey, you don’t normally have any limits.”

No I didn’t. I was touched. I felt like crying suddenly. It was really out of happiness. He got me like no-one else had ever done.

“Another card,” I said turning to the woman. She dealt one more and we crashed and burned.

Jason laughed, a really deep laugh, from low in his chest, and he put his arms about my waist from behind, standing close up to me. I leaned back against him, and felt love bleed from heart into every limb, despite the fact that I was seriously annoyed and frustrated. I wanted to win. I didn’t have his laid back nature. Thank God I had him to keep me calm now, I knew he would.

But anyway, I had another game to play. He’d given me enough money for one more.

The woman dealt the cards and she turned over mine; an ace.

I grinned at Jason.

His head was next to mine. His cheek had lain against my hair until I’d turned.

He smiled. I knew he could feel my excitement. It was like we thought as one person, like we
were
one person.

When our next card was laid, I screamed and jumped off the stool. “The Jack! The Jack!” We had twenty-one! The perfect hand!

Jason lifted me off my feet when I kissed him excitedly. “I can’t believe we won on the blackjack table!” I said when I stopped kissing him.

He just grinned as he put me back on my feet. It was wonderful. It was like he reveled in my pleasure, not just our win.

“Can we take the winnings and play on the roulette table? I’ve always imagined if I came to Vegas, I’d play the roulette table…”

The smile still on his face, he nodded. “We’ll take our chips!” Jason called over my shoulder.

Chips in hand, I sat down at the roulette table. I still felt like I was living in a dream. “What are we doing?” I asked, over my shoulder. “Red or black?”

He leaned to my ear. “Red, in memory of the dress you wore the first night we got together…”

Oh God I’d forgotten that dress. I’d forgotten that night.

I’d been like this; buzzing, and up for anything.

“Kiss the chip.” I said holding it up to his lips, and then I played just that one.

Red came up. Of course you didn’t win much when you just bet a color.

I got braver. “Pick a number.”

“Thirteen.”

“That’s unlucky, Jason.”

“Not for us, it’s the year I found you.”

“Kiss them.” I lifted three chips.

He did, and I laid them on number thirteen.

We watched the wheel spin and the ball run around, bouncing off possibilities it didn’t take, and then the wheel slowed and the ball did too, and rolled steadily, still undecided, then it bounced, before it dropped, neatly and perfectly into, number, thirteen…

“Oh my God! I can’t believe it! Ahhhh!”

I turned around and grabbed him, screaming.

Again he picked me up, and then he spun me about, whooping so everyone in our area of the room looked over.

“We won on the roulette table!”

“I know, Rach, I was here, honey!”

“Jason, I want to take the money.” It was so unusual for me not to get caught up in excitement, and just go on, but I didn’t want anything to bring me down now. I knew losing next time would, and we’d never win twice. That would just be, too, random. “We’ll spend it on the slot machines again.” It was the only thing we hadn’t walked away winners from, and I’d enjoyed playing them.

We did, and wasted the lot. But I’d always remember that we’d won playing roulette and at the blackjack table, on our wedding day.

Once we’d finished on the machines we went into the bar and listened to the hotel’s jazz band playing, and danced, drank and kissed.

When Jason came back with a round of drinks, soda for me, and beer for him, he was smiling broadly. Then in about five minutes, when the band finished playing their song, they did a shout out to the newlyweds in the crowd, Mr. and Mrs. Jason Macinlay.

It only hit me then, that was who I was. I wasn’t Rachel Shears anymore. I’d got a new identity. I could completely change my life. I was Rachel Macinlay. I really had no history now. I wasn’t me anymore. I could be someone else.

After another half-hour he whispered into my ear. “Aren’t you ready for bed yet?” It was three am. “I’ve been waiting to get you there for hours, sweetheart.”

I laughed.

I was ready for my wedding night.

Chapter Twenty

I watched Rach undress. She was playing stripper, giving me a private show to the music from a video channel we’d put on the TV.

She was in the same mood she’d been in the night we got together, or perhaps even more exuberant than that. She was just full of life, happy and vibrant and glowing––and sexy as hell.

Her eyes gave me that come-on look, while her hips rocked and tempted me as she pulled her dress off over her head.

She wore the cream silk bra and thong I’d bought, and she looked gorgeous in them.

Her smile was wide and her eyes gave me a teasing look, as her hands went behind her back to undo her bra, still dancing to the music blaring out of the TV to drown out any sound that might pass through the thin hotel walls.

I loved this girl.

Her bra came loose and then she slid it off.

My stomach clenched and then turned over with a hunger that wasn’t for food, and something gripped hard and firm in my chest and tingled through my nerves––love and desire.

I lay back on the bed, resting on my elbows, watching, still dressed.

I was mesmerized, I couldn’t move. And maybe I was a little drunk.

But fuck, I was a lucky man.

She teased me, playing with the thong as she turned her back to me and danced up close. She let it slip a little and then lifted it back, and she ran her finger along its lacy edge.

I was itching to just drag her down on the bed, and I was rock hard, but I let her enjoy her game. She had me salivating.

“Rach.” I sat up when I couldn’t take anymore and reached toward her, but she moved away.

“Nope. Take off your shirt first.”

I did, smiling.

“Perhaps I should get you to dance for me.”

“No way, honey.”

She smiled. Then her fingers knocked me back onto the bed, and she climbed over me crawling up the bed, still wearing just the thong I’d bought her.

My hands reached to her buttocks as hers tugged and then flicked open my belt before she unbuttoned my fly.

I loved her rough handling me, like she’d done on the first night. I always felt completely claimed when she made love to me––wanted.

I was keeping some control though. I didn’t let her take off her thong but pulled it a little to one side, grinning at her as I took advantage of her distraction.