Rebuilding Forever (8 page)

Finally, he got it. His fingers flexed, then pinched. His grip shifted to her hips and he lifted her, then pulled her down hard, raising his pelvis to drive himself deeper.

It wasn't enough, and they both knew it. Seth moved her off him and got behind her, moving her forward so she could grip the bar at the top of the headboard. He pushed into her again, then wrapped his own hands around the bar next to hers. He surrounded her, despite not being a very big man, and she finally felt her desperation ease. His arms stretched out along hers, his chest pressed against her back, and when he thrust his hips the movements were short and subtle but hit her exactly where she needed.

Cassie dropped her head back, turning so she could reach his mouth. It restricted their movements more, but she didn't care. She just needed this contact, this grounding, to forget the dream and what she knew, deep down, it represented.

When she came it was slow and small, but she could feel Seth so deep inside her, smell only him, and for a few minutes, she could believe it would be okay.

"Tell me I'm not fucking insane."

"You're not fucking insane." Julian didn't look away from the full-length mirror. He eyed the hem of his linen trousers draped over his bare feet, then rolled the cuff of one loose sleeve, posed, and unrolled it. When he unfastened, then refastened the button in the center of his chest, Seth yanked him away from the mirror.

"I'm the one getting married, asshole. It doesn't matter how you look."

Julian cocked an eyebrow at him. "If you're going to look like that, I need to draw everyone's attention by being fabulous."

Seth glared at him. He didn't need to check the mirror to know he looked like he'd been on a bender last night. He'd had his hands in his hair so much it likely looked like a shrubbery. He hadn't bothered doing up the buttons on his shirt yet, and his pacing had caused fine sand to dust the bottoms of his cuffs.

Julian stopped Seth's pacing and started working on his shirt. "What's eating you? It's not the sex thing still. We straightened that out."

Seth started to drive his hand through his hair again, but Julian yanked his arm down and buttoned the last two buttons.

"We did, yeah, but I don't think that was the problem. Not really. I mean, something caused me to have those dreams. If it's not you, it's got to be something else. Like my subconscious telling me I shouldn't be marrying her again."

Julian rolled his eyes. "For fuck's sake, Seth, you're doing the right thing. You know you are. You're half the man apart from her than you are with her. You're just terrified you're going to lose her again. You're not."

The flap of the tent that had been set up on the beach was pulled aside, and Brad and Robert pushed their way in, followed by Troy.

"Yoko's finally doin' you in for good, I see."

"Troy!" Seth clapped him on the back and Julian hugged him. Seth eyed Blue Silver's original drummer, who looked fit and tanned. "Spending a lot of time on the water?"

"As much as I can. Congratulations, mate." He squeezed the back of Seth's neck. "It's great to see you finally happy."

Julian snorted, and Troy looked at him. "He's not happy?"

"Only if you call being in total meltdown happy. He's--" For a second Seth thought he was going to tell them about the dream. But he only said, "He's pissing his pants in fear."

The others laughed, except Robert. "I just saw Cassie. She's glowing, and she told me to come in here and do anything I had to do to calm you down and make you understand it will be fine."

Seth knew what she meant by "anything," and shuddered. "Not the green goo."

"Especially the green goo." Robert was notorious for his health regimen. Hey, it worked for him, but... Seth figured it was working for him, too, just by making him want to avoid it.

"Am I going to fuck this up?"

"No," chorused his four friends, and Seth didn't know why, but he finally believed them.

"Thank God you're not doing the ugly dress thing."

Cassie whirled at the acerbic tone, and grinned. "Arliss. You made it."

Her old friend and former Silverette came into the bride's tent. "Wouldn't miss it. Gave me an excuse to get away from that bastard Thompson for a few days. Plus, you know--Caribbean!"

Cassie laughed. Arliss hadn't changed, not much, anyway. She looked calmer, less likely to jump into a rage, and Cassie knew that was Robert's ongoing influence. But she had retained the snark that defined her. "I'm glad you're here," she said.

Arliss smiled a little. "Thanks for inviting me." She glanced around the tent. "Where are the others?"

"Georgie went to get me a bottle of water because my throat is empathizing with the sand out there. I haven't seen Faith and Marci, yet." Because they wanted small and intimate without all the fuss of a typical ceremony, only Georgie and Julian were standing up for them. If she had to guess, Cassie figured the others were at the bar, waiting.

"Well, I guess I'd better get out there. It's close to time." Arliss paused at the tent flap and eyed Cassie's sarong. "Nice choice. Suits you, somehow." She herself wore a shortish, flirty skirt and lace-trimmed camisole. Cassie decided not to comment on the look, so very much not the Arliss she knew. But she seemed more comfortable in her own skin, and hence her clothes.

"Thanks," she said. "I'm glad you're here."

"Me, too." With a grin, she left.

And Cassie was once again abandoned to her freakin' thoughts.

She hadn't told Seth about the dream. Hadn't wanted to drag out their mutual anxiety--especially his--on their wedding day. But she was having a hard time thinking about anything else. Every time Georgie mentioned Julian's name, she flashed back to her hand on his dick, his mouth around Seth, and wondered if there truly was a triangle here that she should get out of.

"Okay, I've got passionfruit-flavored carbonated," Georgie started reciting before she was even inside the tent, "mango uncarbonated, pineapple protein--"

"Just give me a fucking bottle of plain water." Cassie snatched one out of Georgie's arms and twisted the cap off ferociously.

"Geez, help a friend." She saw Cassie's expression and stopped griping. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Cassie shook her hand with the cap loosely trapped inside her fingers, trying to release her nervous energy. She took another swig of water, but this one was hard to swallow. "I just--I think this is probably a mistake."

"Fuck that." Georgie plopped her sarong-wrapped behind on the table in the center of the tent, narrowly missing Cassie's small bouquet. "What the hell?"

"We're having problems and it seems like our subconsciouses are trying to stop us from doing this."

Georgie frowned. "This isn't like you."

"I've changed, as Seth keeps pointing out to me."

"We all change. But you're being downright neurotic." She spread her hands. "What relationship doesn't have problems? You can't drop out of every one that does."

"So says the woman who won't have one at all," Cassie accused.

Georgie waved that off. "That's over. Julian's moving to Harrisburg."

Cassie's mouth fell open. "What?"

"Well, temporarily. We need to decide where to make home base. I think he'd like to be closer to Amie. But that's irrelevant. What's going on with you and Seth?"

Seth was going to kill her if he found out she'd told Georgie about his dreams, but she did anyway. And her own, making sure to be out of her friend's reach when she did. But when she was done, Georgie burst out laughing.

"Really? All three of you?" She laughed harder. "I can't believe you didn't bring me into it."

"It wasn't about you."

"I don't mean in the dream. I mean in real life. Oh, God, Julian with his mouth!" She clutched her sides and bent forward. "I would so have loved to see that!"

"Knock it off." Cassie turned away from her "friend" and checked her hair in the mirror. Since she'd gone with a careless updo, it looked fine and would continue to look fine even if winds hit mach three. Her minimal makeup and tightly wrapped sarong were similarly fine. A glance at the watch on her wrist told her she had five minutes to make a decision.

Georgie calmed herself and slid off the table. "Cass, come on. You can't seriously be concerned about this."

"About Seth and Julian? No. But about Seth's continued desire to marry me? Enough to call this whole thing off." But her stomach burned and her windpipe started to close at the idea.

"Forget it. He's got normal anxiety because being without you was hard. Probably harder than getting clean. I'm sure he's afraid being with you will be even harder. But once you get through today, there won't be anything concrete for him to hang that anxiety on, and you'll be fine. Or as fine as any married couple is, anyway."

Cassie hardly felt soothed, but the string quartet outside had begun playing, and there was no more time to worry and wonder. Either she was doing this or she wasn't. She took the bouquet Georgie handed her and exited the tent, watching her friend start up the aisle between two rows of chairs on the high part of the beach. Cassie could only see her for a few steps before she was hidden past the tent, and relied on the change in music to signal her.

There it was. She took a deep breath, stepped out, and paused. Seth stood under the ivory canopy, his dark hair rippling in the wind, one hand gripping the other so hard that even at this distance she knew his fingers were white. Next to him stood Julian, solemn for once, staring at her as if daring her to turn and run.

Sudden calm descended over her, born of the conviction that everyone else was right, and she and Seth were wrong. They belonged together, and fuck the groupies and the inquiring press and temptation and distance and even Julian's fifteen-year-old blow job.

She was going to marry Seth Graham.

She's about to run.

Seth's heart stopped when Cassie did at the end of the white runner leading to the canopy, where a female minister waited patiently behind him. She looked gorgeous in her simply wrapped dress and bare feet, her hair looking like she'd tossed it up to take a shower. It was perfect, right down to the white flowers in her hands. White, for new beginnings.

It was the sappiest, most ridiculous thing he'd ever thought, Seth realized, but it didn't matter. He and Cassie had had a lot of new beginnings, and would continue to. That was the nature of their relationship.

A knot inside him that had formed after the first dream and tightened with every thought and fear since undid itself, and that freed him to concentrate on the reason he was here.

Cassie strolled down the aisle, her eyes intent on him, and he knew her fear was gone, too. Maybe temporarily, but who ever said they could live fear-free? At least they were together.

When she'd reached midpoint, the music stopped. Julian shifted beside him and raised a wireless microphone to his mouth. Off to the side, Robert started playing an acoustic guitar. The breeze, which had been carrying the recorded wedding march out to sea, died, and Julian's voice rose above the small crowd.

"Long ago you left my life..."

Cassie's eyes widened, and Seth knew she recognized the tune he'd been humming the night before. He held out his hand, and she started walking again.

"Left me broken, weak and empty..."

When she reached him he took her hand and placed it on the crook of his elbow. Their eyes locked, Cassie's fingers tightening as Julian sang the song Seth had written.

"I had to build myself again, before you would return."

Cassie's bouquet vibrated, and Seth couldn't tell if it was because she was shaking, or he was. Her eyes glistened, and moisture dotted his own lashes.

Everyone sat or stood motionless, not a sound marring the purity of Julian's singing or the mellowness of Robert's guitar.

"Here we are, with hope restored, our future open wide. Rebuilding forever, for the rest of our lives."

Georgie sniffed into the silence after the last notes faded. Echoes from their friends and family were accompanied by rustles and coughs. But Seth couldn't take his eyes off Cassie.

The minister cleared her throat and said, "Are we ready to begin?"

Cassie and Seth turned toward her, and faced their forever.

Natalie J. Damschroder became a writer the hard way--by avoiding it. Though she wrote her first book at age five (appropriately titled,
My Very First Book
) and received accolades for her academic writing (Ruth Davies Award for Excellence in Writing for a paper on deforestation her senior year in college), she hated doing it. Colonial food and the habits of the European Starling just weren't her thing.

Shortly after graduating from college, however, she found her niche--romantic fiction. After an internship with the National Geographic Society, customer service for a phone company just wasn't that exciting. So she began learning how to write the books she'd loved to read all her life. Four books and six years later, she finally sold. Now she struggles to balance her frenetic writing life (how else can she get all the stories in her head on paper?) with her family, the most supportive husband in the world and two beautiful, intelligent, stubborn, independent daughters (one of whom has already declared her desire to be a writer, too). She somehow also fits in a day job and various volunteer positions in and out of the writing industry.

Cassie Bryant didn't let a flat tire deter her twenty years ago. As soon as she hit eighteen and graduation, she took off after pop band Blue Silver, determined to make lead singer Seth Graham her future. It worked, until pressure, drugs, and a tanking final album tore apart not only their marriage, but the entire band.

Now Blue Silver is making a comeback, and Cassie's friends want her to use her connections to bring the band to their hometown so they can live their aborted dream. Against her better judgment, she agrees. But will the concert and after-party create the magical night they'd all always wanted? Or will her friends face the same disillusionment she did? Worse, when Seth wants to reconcile, she finds it difficult to resist...despite the same pressures and temptations that ruined them last time.