Devlin's Grace (21 page)

Joy brought laughter, but Gracie
shook her head. “I imagine they’d want us to be married.”

“I don’t believe in long
engagements,” Devlin said. “I thought we’d get the license and get married,
tomorrow if we can.”

Gracie tilted her head.
 
Like most little girls she’d dreamed of
weddings.
 
She daydreamed over bridal
gowns in the catalogs, cut out bride paper dolls, and received a bride Barbie
when she was seven.
 
As a teenager, she
planned her colors and changed them four times.
 
She’d long imagined coming down the front steps into the front room at
the farm to be married or holding a small ceremony at the country church her
parents attended.
 
Gazing into Devlin’s
deep, dark eyes, however, she realized none of those things mattered.
 
The wedding didn’t mean a thing – the
marriage was what did.

“I’d love it,” she said. “Let’s
get married tomorrow.
 
We’ll have time
for a short honeymoon before Christmas.”

 
They recited their vows at the Greene County Courthouse with her sister
Faith and his cousin Lauren as witness the next afternoon.
 
Gracie reflected as she recited the
traditional vows, they’d experienced most of them already – better and worse,
in sickness and in health.
 
Having family
on hand made the day for her.
 
Even on
such short notice, Faith jumped at the chance to participate and drove over,
stopping to pick up their parents.
 
Gracie’s mom brought a small homemade wedding cake and they all headed
to the apartment to share it along with some ice cream.
 
No one asked if she’d been living here
already and after the family left with promises of Christmas looming large,
Devlin packed the bike’s saddlebags and they left.

Devlin wouldn’t tell her where,
but they rolled into Branson and up to one of the larger hotels.
 
Their spacious room boasted a beautiful
fireplace, and Devlin built a fire in it with skill.

He shifted the furniture so they
could lay naked in a nest of blankets and pillows before it, something Gracie
had always dreamed about.
 
As they
cocooned together, she traced her fingers over his scars and he watched, a
bemused expression on his face.
 
“It’s
funny,” she said, secure in the knowledge she could say anything to Dev. “You’ve
been burned badly and you’ve got the scars to show for it, but you’re not
afraid of fire.
 
Most people would be.”

Devlin caressed her body from
shoulders to toes, his fingers light and soft.
“Maybe, maybe
not.
 
A tame fire like this is a
lot different than a roadside bomb explosion in the middle of the desert.
 
You know, babe, for a long time all I saw
were the scars.
 
You changed that, the
night you touched all of them without revulsion.
 
Until then I figured I was as ugly as
homemade sin.”

“And you thought you were as mean
as the devil.”

“No,” he corrected. “I figured I
was him, old Scratch in the flesh.
 
I did
a lot of awful things, babe, and the little girl’s just one of them.
 
I haven’t told you all of them and I won’t.”

“You can, Devlin, anytime,” she said
in an effort to reassure him.

He put a finger across her lips.
“Hush,” he said, “I won’t unless I need to sometime.
 
In the last few months, I finally figured out
I did what I had to – just like I did Thanksgiving night.
 
I did what was expected of me and what I
thought was my duty, right or wrong.
 
But
none of it makes me wicked.
 
I may freak
out sometimes when something triggers the bad memories or my PTSD, but I can
deal.
 
I’ll carry these scars for the
rest of my life, the outside ones and the ones inside.
 
But they don’t have to define me, Gracie.”

“What does?”

A long pause stretched out,
comfortable and easy.
 
No sound but the
crackle of the flames, tame fire he’d called it, could be heard.
 
“You,” Devlin said.
“You
and me, together.”

Devlin shifted position so Gracie
could curl up against his chest.
 
She
sighed, contented and listened to his heartbeat. “I never knew,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“I never knew I could be this
close to anyone, not until I met you. I wanted it, almost from the first night.
 
Something about you drew me, Dev.”

He chuckled. “I told you I
dreamed of you, made you up and thought about you all the time.
 
I never thought I’d meet you.
 
When I saw you at the class, I couldn’t
believe it.
 
You know why I really took
the watercolor class?”

“Uh-uh.”

“I’d been thinking about killing
myself.” Devlin uttered the simple sentence without emotion and with casual
truth. “Happens to a lot of Iraqi vets, I hear.
 
We give
up,
think there’s nothing left to live
for and too much baggage.
 
I took the
damn class to give me something to do, a last effort to be part of life.
 
If I hadn’t met you…”

Gracie covered his mouth with her
hand. “Don’t say it.
 
You did and so it
doesn’t matter now.”

“Listen,” he said, his eyes
intent on her face. “I want to tell you one more thing.
 
There was one song I wanted at my funeral,
one hymn I’ve always loved above any other.
 
Amazing Grace
.
 
So when you told me your name, it
clicked.
 
And I started to hope.”

The words of the song resonated
in Gracie’s heart, the familiar lyrics singing through her mind. “My parents
named me because of that song,” she said.

“Did they?” Devlin said with
wonder. “Well, it’s Grace who brought me safe this far and Grace who led me
home.”

Something deep within her soul
shattered with joy.
 
A boundless
happiness rose inside and Gracie bent close to him. “Then bring your Gracie
home,” she said.

Devlin’s eyes reflected firelight
and an inner peace, enough bliss and delight to last a lifetime.

“I’d love to,” he said and did.

His mouth came down onto hers
with possession and yet with giving. If she belonged to him, then he was hers
and hers alone.
 
As sweet and
intoxicating as a fine wine, Devlin enjoyed his bride, and Gracie’s mouth
responded with potent heat.
 
If he
offered wine, she distilled into whiskey.
 
Greedy, she kissed him back and they clung to one another.

Gracie trailed her fingers over his
body, first light and delicate like a feather’s passing and then with
possessive ownership, fierce and needy.
 
She kissed his scars, one by one.
 
Sweet chills rippled down her back and she
thought Devlin must feel something similar from the way he shivered.
 
She managed to touch and caress every inch of
him.
 

In response, he fondled her,
hands moving with caring and tempered with passion.
 
His fingers caressed her breasts and coaxed
her nipples to bloom, then eased down to touch her inner folds until she
whimpered with delight.

 
The two tasted, they bit, they licked, and
they kissed without restraint or rush.
 
His
tongue pleasured Gracie from her mouth to her cunt and she gloried in it.
 
As he did her, Gracie fondled his cock,
rubbed the shaft between her hands with friction meant to please.
 
Then she grasped it tight in one fist and
agitated it, bringing it harder.
 
He
toyed with her and she teased, tempted him until finally they connected.
 
His cock plunged into the willing, waiting
warmth of her pussy, and Gracie tightened so the inner walls rubbed him to
enhance the experience.

When they came, they rode the
wild rush of delight, the flood of sensation together and then curled two
bodies into one.
 
The last thing she
remembered on her wedding night was Devlin drawing a cover over her and then
she coiled against him, tucked into him where she belonged.

He’d brought her home.

The End

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Other Books by Lee Ann
Sontheimer
Murphy:

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