The Runaway Bride

Chapter 14 -- This I promise you

I had my hair twisted up and held with a large plastic clip, and I felt Tyler got inside the kitchen and he focused on the back of my slender neck as he approached me.

I was adding flour, mixing with my hands to bring the dough together. 

 I sprinkled flour on the table and as I dumped the dough out onto it, I felt Tyler's hands snake around my waist and his lips kiss the back of my neck. 

"Good morning, love," he says, leaning to kiss me. I offered a cheek, which he kisses, then scowls.





"I haven't brushed my teeth yet," I told him.




"I don't care," he said to me.




"Well, I do." I said and strolled to the bathroom to remedy that situation.




"Feeling better?" he asks, kneading the dough.




"Much," I said, while he was nuzzling into my neck.




"I'm trying to work here, you know," I said, smiling.





"So am I," he kisses the side of my neck.








"What has gotten into you today?" I asked, stopping my task and closing my eyes briefly as I felt his hands sneak beneath the bottom edge of my shirt and caress the warm skin of my stomach.






He answers me by taking my earlobe into his mouth and sucking it briefly before gently biting it. His knuckles graze the underside of  my breasts beneath my shirt.






"Tyler…"




"Hmm?"





"I'm up to my elbows in bread dough."






"I'm not interested in your elbows." He lifts my chin up and back to kiss my lips.





I sighed into him, then tells him gently, "Later, love."





He kisses me once more. "I don't know what it is today, but I just can't get enough of you." He looks at my hand. "Where's your ring?"





"In my pocket. I didn't want it to get full of dough. It's perfectly safe and will be back on my hand as soon as they're clean, I promise."





"Good," he says. "Can I try?"




"What, kneading the dough?"





He nodded, and when I did a little tutorial how to knead a dough, he was just there staring blankly at me..





I wonder if he could even understand a word I just said





After a while, Tyler dropped his head down and I felt his lips teasing the spot where my neck met my shoulder. I closed my eyes at the sensation, but flicked them open again as he murmured against me,





"Why do girls always smell so good?"





I smirked. "We wash," I replied obviously.





"No, there's something else," he insisted, pulling back slightly. "Some innate...something."




"Hmm?" I twisted round to look at him. "And how many women have you been sniffing to make this comparative analysis?"






He rolled his eyes and lifted his hands up in surrender. "I give up. See if I ever try complimenting you again."






"You didn't compliment me!" I protested. "You asked how women, women in plural and general, smell good. Frankly, you make it sound like you've been nosing up to every women you come across."







"Every women I come across?" He repeated in disbelief. "Seriously? I can barely handle you, and you think there's others?"






I let out a little exclamation of indignation and thumped his leg with my fist. "Excuse me?" I asked shrilly. "I wasn't aware I was being 'handled'."







I felt, rather than heard his little laugh as he said lowly, "That's not what you said last night."





"Oh my God, get a room!" Iñigo's voice cut across our moment and both Tyler and I raised our heads to look across at him in astonishment as they, Nina and him, came down stairs







"Hold it right there!, you're telling us to get a room?" I choked out. "Mr and Mrs PDA 2012 over there?"





"We've never been that bad," my younger brother, Iñigo,protested and I clutched at Tyler's arm, blown away by just how incorrect that statement was.





"Last night I kissed Tyler I only went around to get a condom and the next thing I knew you guys were doing some magic on the other side of the door" I pointed out





"Oh, just go and have some bonding time together already," Iñigo interjected as Nina pursed her lips






"If we do," I said hotly, "we'll do it because we want to, not because you've told us to."





Because we were having possibly the stupidest argument the world had ever seen there was a bit of a pause after this. Tyler broke it by asking quietly,




"Do you want to?"





I considered this and then replied, as haughtily as I could under the circumstances, "Yes."






"Right then." Tyler set aside, stood and pulled me up in the same motion. I let out a little shriek as, in the next second, he set his shoulder to my stomach and lifted me up so I was slung, fireman-style, over his shoulder.





"'Scuse us, guys," he said, sketching a quick salute to Iñigo and Nina with the hand not holding me steady. "We're off to have sex because we want to."






I waved goodbye to my brother and his girlfriend over Tyler's shoulder as we left, and I think I was probably happier in that moment than I'd ever been before.