“Let’s go slow though, okay?” I insisted as he backed me toward the stairs. His doctor had cleared him, sure, but that didn’t mean we needed to swing from the chandeliers.

“I like slow,” he murmured, gathering a handful of backside.

“We started out slow, you know . . .” I sighed as his lips found my sweet spot just below my ear. We were walking up the stairs now, shutting off lights as we went and kissing like teenagers.

“That’s not how I recall it,” he said, turning me at the top of the stairs, positioning me in front of him as he walked me down the hallway. His arms were wrapped around my waist and his lips tickled at my ear, making me giggle a bit. I was a little tipsy from beer, but not so tipsy that I was going to be railroaded.

“We did so start out slow—we were friends first. Friends for a while, actually,” I reminded him, stopping just outside our bedroom door. I leaned in the doorway, keeping him from going inside.

“I don’t recall us being friends first. I recall us being something else entirely at first.” He nipped at my earlobe. More specifically, at what was hanging from my earlobe. His wedding present to me.

That morning when I woke up, there was a jewelry box sitting on top of the pillow where Simon’s head usually was. I could hear him brushing his teeth in the bathroom as I looked around, wondering what he was up to. Since we already felt we’d been married on that beach, there was no “can’t see the bride before the wedding,” today and I wanted him next to me in our bed.

“What’s this?” I asked, scrunching back down into the pillows, tugging the comforter up around me.

“Sahfing for mah brud,” was the answer I got.

“I’ll wait until you spit, babe,” was the answer I gave.

He spit.

He joined me on the bed.

“Just a little something for my bride,” he repeated.

“But I thought we weren’t doing presents,” I protested. We’d discussed it before and agreed that we weren’t doing anything special.

“Oh hush up, will you, and open it,” he instructed, and I did as I was told.

Blue.

Flashing.

Fire.

Earrings. Drop earrings filled with diamonds and sapphires, exactly the color of his eyes. Teardrop sapphires hung from a delicate diamond-encrusted base.

“Simon, what did you do?” I breathed, my hand shaking.

“I figured this could be the something old, since they’re old; the something new, since they’re new to you; something blue, obviously; but technically not borrowed, since they’re now yours. You’re borrowing them permanently.”

“From who?” I whispered, already knowing the answer.

“My mom,” he replied, and my eyes filled with tears.

“I could not possibly love you more,” I told him, bringing him down to me for a sweet kiss.

“You like?”

“I love them.”

I promptly put them on, and wore them all day. Which brings me to now, where I had a Wallbanger nibbling on my ear as I stood in a doorway.

“The way I recall it, you hated me on sight that first time we met,” he said, switching from my ear to the back of my neck as he held my hair up high.

“I didn’t hate you, but I sure wasn’t your biggest fan,” I admitted, thinking back to him opening his door after I’d been banging at it relentlessly. “I was missing sleep.”

“You were missing more than sleep, babe,” he said, nuzzling my shoulder. His hands pulled at my dress, gathering the fabric and bunching it high around my hips. “Pretty sure you were missing this too.” And he placed one hand over my sex. Entirely. My body responded as it always did, with full abandon.

“I really was missing this,” I replied, sinking my hands into his thick, dark hair and twirling it under my fingertips. “But you brought it all back.”

“We brought it all back,” he reminded me, and pushed me into the bedroom.

“We. I like we,” I moaned, feeling the bed hit the back of my knees.

Simon and I had never gone this long without sex since we’d been together. And under his hands once more, my body came alive for him. I yanked at his pants as he tugged at my dress. I worried off his shoes as he wriggled me out of my bra. My breasts were full in his hands, heavy, and sensitive. And he took my garter down with his teeth, leaving a trail of openmouthed kisses in his wake.

When we were finally naked, tangled, and panting, I scrambled backward on the bed, moving toward the headboard.

“Where you going, sweet Caroline?” he asked, crawling across the bed to get to me.

“I wanted to hold on for this,” I quipped, arching an eyebrow and my back as I grabbed on to the iron headboard.

“That’s my girl.”

He covered me with his body, all long limbs and strong muscles, as I wrapped my legs around his waist.

“I love you, Simon. I love you so fucking much,” I said, sweeping back his hair and holding his face in my hands, his eyes staring down at me.

“I love you too, Mrs. Parker.” And then he pressed into me. Our bodies adjusted to each other, remembered each other, uniquely designed to fit perfectly, sinking in and synching up. He held perfectly still for a moment, feeling me wrapped around him in every way.

“Christ, I’ve missed you,” he groaned, his voice strained with the sweet tension of holding back, taking things slow, making sure he was okay.