101 - The Answer

“The ring is gorgeous,” Petey admired, and he felt his chest puff out a little.  It deflated with the next word.  “Why?”

Standing there with the open ring box still in his hand, Jon silently swore.  He’d known this was going to happen.  Petey was far too logical to blindly accept a marriage proposal.  He didn’t particularly want to tell her what propelled this along more quickly than he’d been prepared for, but he wasn’t a liar.

“I love you.”  That was true.  He did love her, more than he would’ve believed possible in such a short time.

She laughed at him.  “You sure haven’t acted like it today.  You’ve been sullen and miserable.  I was pretty sure your proposal was actually a break up and that you were handing me off to your guitarist.”

“What!?” Angry brows slammed down over his eyes.  He damn well had not been handing her off to anybody.  “Richie?  Why the fuck would you think that?”

“Oh, I don’t know, because of that whole love song, serenading schtick you just spouted?”

Goddammit.  This is not going well.

He folded the box closed and crammed it back into his pocket so that he could step forward and put his arms around her waist.  Petey tried to avoid his embrace, but he held firm and lowered his mouth to her ear, speaking softly into it.

“Nothing has changed since this morning, or last night, or Friday night.  You kissed me, now you’re mine.  I love you, Imp.”

“Something changed,” she countered, still trying to escape.  “You couldn’t stand my hand on you, you didn’t want me saying I loved you, and you fucking proposed.”

“Dammit, Petey, hold still.”  He cinched his arms tightly around her until she was unable to move.  “I was afraid you were going to feel the ring box in my pocket.  It had me a little distracted.”

“That still doesn’t tell me why you’re proposing.  Now.”  She angled her head back and squinted at him accusingly.  “It also doesn’t tell me when you got that ring.”

Jon stifled a groan.  This was the part he didn’t want to do.  If only she’d been enamored with him enough to just say yes and be happy she was marrying Jon Bon Jovi.

If she’d done that, she wouldn’t be a woman you’d even consider committing to.

True enough.  So he gave his information freak the easiest bit first. 

“Jerry is a jeweler.  I asked him to bring some stuff over for me to look at this morning.”

The lights went on behind her blue eyes.  Odd that he was missing all the funky contacts.  It had been entertaining to see what she would come up with next.

“After you talked to your lawyer.  What paperwork is he supposed to be ready to finalize tomorrow, Jon?”

Yeah.  This was going to seriously work against him.  How could he spin Leo’s warnings in a positive way?  ‘Hey, Sugar, if those porn pictures get out, it won’t look so bad if we’re married.’  Somehow he didn’t think that was going to go over all that well, but what alternative did he have?

You didn’t do this for that reason alone.

“The paperwork is a fill-in-the blank prenup,” he finally admitted with a sigh.  “I was hoping you would say yes, and we could get everything filed and be married by the weekend.”

This time she caught him off guard when she shoved with all her might and sent him backpedaling a few steps.  “Jon Bon Jovi, you had better tell me everything and tell me now.  Because not only do you propose to me completely out of the blue, you expect to be married by the weekend?  What the hell is going on?” she demanded.

Christ.  Could this be going any worse? 

“Petey, I love you.  I wish our situation hadn’t rushed this, but things are such that it’s a benefit for us to be married.  Daniel’s a loose cannon right now.  If those pictures surface, they’ll have a whole lot less impact if we’re married.”

His little spitfire imp had been squared off, feet planted apart defiantly staring him down.  Now though…  She deflated just a little bit and her lips thinned.  If he wasn’t mistaken, disappointment dulled her vibrantly blue eyes.  “You want to marry me for crisis management?  But only after the prenup is signed so that your vast fortunes are protected when we get divorced in a day, week, or months’ time?  Classy, Jon.  Really classy.”

He grabbed her elbow, refusing to let her play it off that way.  Jon arched over her intimidatingly, his voice fierce.  “I told you that I loved you, but beyond that, I’m a man of my word.  I didn’t make this decision lightly, Petey.  This is a serious commitment and I will live up to it until the day I die.”

“Pardon me if your track record leads me to believe otherwise,” she snorted, jerking her elbow free and stalking off to her bedroom.

“Don’t walk away from me,” he barked, stalking right behind her.  She threw her coat onto the bed and quickly joined it, leaning against the wall with her arms and ankles both crossed.  He went to the side of the bed and loomed over her again, in an effort at intimidation.  “Dorothea and I would still be married if it were up to me.  She is the one who didn’t want it anymore.”

Petey’s jaw went slack and she observed him with incredulity.  “You’re an idiot.  Do you think that helped your case?  Telling me that, if it were your choice, you’d still be married to your ex-wife?”

“I’m sorry that I’m not a fucking genius like you are,” he drawled sarcastically.  “I was just trying to tell you it’s not all about the damn hearts and flowers.  I don’t enter into any contract that I don’t intend to live up to.  Period.  Marriage is a contract, and the prenup is as much for your benefit as it is mine.  I’d imagine you have some kind of Heinz trust fund tucked away somewhere.”

The bright light behind her eyes dulled, and she neither confirmed nor denied the existence of any such trust.  Instead she calmly and quietly told him, “I realize it’s not all about the hearts and flowers, but you’re going to have to excuse me if I want to be more than your next damn contract.  No, I’m not going to marry you, and I’d appreciate it if you would leave.”

Like hell he was leaving.  How many women would refuse a ring like that on sheer principle and give him a ration of shit over it too?  It only reinforced the fact that he wanted her.  Her.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said staunchly, leaning over her and planting a fist on either side of her hips.  His mouth hovered close, but not close enough for her to execute the desire to bite him that lurked in her eyes.  “You’re going to have to excuse me if I want you and my kids to be protected.  I’m just a nasty, evil fucker that way – wanting the people I love to be safe.”

She pushed at his shoulders, trying to create more distance between them, but he refused to allow that either.

“Stop it before I turn you over my fucking knee,” Jon growled, gratified when she stilled and her lips parted on an inaudible breath.  Her pupils weren’t far behind, dilating in reaction to his words.  “You’re mine, P.T. Diehl.  Mine.  I’m sorry you didn’t have enough sense to fall in love with somebody better than me, but I guess it’s something you’re going to have to learn to live with.  I want…”

The color was high in her cheeks, half a dozen shades darker than the pale pink comforter under her butt.  Her cotton candy pink were parted invitingly and he couldn’t stem the thought that he was the only man who had tasted that sadistically sweet tongue. 

“I want you.  All of you,” he breathed before swooping in to devour her mouth.  Whatever argument she’d been about to lodge was lost in the sigh of acceptance when she allowed him to lap up the taste that was uniquely Petey. 

He didn’t know how he’d gone from fighting to arousal, but he was as hard and stiff as a Louisville Slugger.  She stirred things in him.  Her self-confidence, her caring, her bravery, her intelligence, her beauty, her independence, sense of self…  The list went on and on to make a woman that fascinated him on so many levels. 

Yes, he was being urged into marriage a little faster than he would have liked.  He would have liked to have the chance to at least try and be a boyfriend who could do the occasional romantic surprise.  But that’s not what was in the cards for them, and with her flavor singeing his tongue, he didn’t mind.  All they’d done was rush the inevitable.  As Stephanie said, Petey spoke his language.

He stripped out of his coat without releasing her mouth.  It fell to the floor while he kicked off his shoes and climbed onto the bed, straddling her hips and pushing anxious hands under his own soft black t-shirt.  It looked so much better hugging her curves than it did hugging his.  Her nipples were pebbled beneath it, telling him that the heat from their argument had stoked other fires in her as well.

Their lips tore apart with a wet, sucking noise and he pulled the shirt over her head.  It had no more hit the floor than his hands were burrowing beneath her back to unhook the bra, revealing her cotton candy nipples to his view. 

“So pretty,” he murmured before dipping his head to suckle at one.  The nipple distended in his mouth and he groaned at the sandpapery roughness of it against his tongue.  When he released it with a ‘pop’, he drew back to look at his handiwork, the tip shone wetly in the light of her bedside lamp.  The breast behind it was rounded and heavy, swaying with the motion of the mattress. 

“Jon,” she gasped when he took the other nipple in his mouth.  Capturing his head between her hands, she pushed him away and gave him a stern look.  At least as stern as it could be with glassy eyes.  “This isn’t changing my mind.”

“I’m not trying to change your mind.  I’m reminding you of how good we are together and what you do to me.  No matter how good the terms, a contract has never given me a hard-on, Baby.” 

Not allowing her time to reply, he bumped the aforementioned hard-on into her tummy and resumed his cotton candied nipple feast, tongue curling tightly around its latest victim.  He lovingly stroked against it, the rasp of nipple against taste buds drawing his testicles tight.  Her short nails scrubbing through his hair and abrading his scalp did their part, too.

Releasing the stiff peak, he flattened his nose against her sternum and licked the length of her cleavage.  His broad tongue swept beneath the swell of her breast before sweeping down to circle the indentation of her navel.  When her stomach muscles contracted, he unfastened her pants and slid the zipper down.  The enticing smell of her arousal was already seeping into his nostrils. 

“God your pussy smells so sweet,” he mumbled against her lower abdomen as he kissed his way into the gap left by her open zipper.  “Are you wet for me, Sugar?”

“Mm.”  She wasn’t saying much of anything, but her hands were staying busy by running through his hair.  “I hate it that I’m always wet for you.”

He chuckled, pushing his hands into the waistband of her pants and pushing downward.  “I’m a Rock God.  It happens.”

A firm, reprimanding hand pulled his chin and attention up to her face.  “Look here, Rock God.  You’re just Jon to me.  Good, bad or indifferent, you’re only a man.”

He felt his eyes soften along with his heart.  “That’s a big part of why I love you.  You don't buy into the hype.”

Jon didn’t release her gaze, but his fingers slid into the dewiness of her sex.  The intensity of his erection multiplied at the pool of wetness she was hiding.  He slipped up and down the musky valley, first with one finger, then two.  The first finger slipped inside her and he brought his thumb to graze against her clit.

“Thinking of you bringing Richie back here after the New Year’s party and fucking him in your pink bed is what sent me over the edge that night,” he confessed, pressing a second finger into her core to swim in the stream of arousal. 

“I only wanted you,” she moaned, arching into his hand.  Her hips flexed against the pleasurable invasion of her body.  “Nobody else could do this to me.”

The load he was carrying almost shot against the back of his fly at her breathy admission.  He slid his fingers out and climbed from the bed, stripping his sweater, jeans and boots in record time.  The added ‘thunk’ of the ring box hitting the floor with his pants registered briefly in the back of his mind, and then he was ripping her boots off divesting her of her pants.

He parted her soft, milky thighs so that he could more readily get at the cream churning between them.  Swiping at the saturation in her folds with the tip of his shaft, he allowed her to lubricate his thickness before pushing into her with a grunt of appreciation.  In such a short time, he’d come to crave the way her heat sucked him in and clung with its damp desperation.  He didn’t want to leave it, but knew that withdrawing was the only way he could enjoy the pleasure of diving deep again.  Each dive brought to life the soft whimpers of Petey’s that made him crazy.

She was already clawing at his shoulders in anticipation of what they could do together.  Jon savored the pain, loving the untamed wildness that she couldn’t restrain when they came together.  His nostrils flared with each thrust and her arousal climbed.  The rosiness of her breasts caught his eye and he couldn’t resist drawing the upper swell of one in his mouth, sucking hard enough to make her cry out and dig her fingernails into his flesh.  If she wouldn’t wear his ring, she would at least wear his mark.  There would be no mistaking his brand.

The tempo drove him.  The slick, sweet friction of their bodies scraping against one another in the most intimate of joining pulled him into its maddening maelstrom.  She was so wet that he glided effortlessly, allowing him to ride her harder.  The way her breasts bounced with each impact made him moan and pound harder.  Faster.

“Jon!  Ohhhhh….  Yes.”  Her hips met each thrust with her own and the intensity of their coupling was multiplied.  “Oh, baby.  Almost.  Almost.”

She was fucking gorgeous splayed out beneath him, lips swollen and parted, color tingeing her skin, head thrown back with abandon. 

Leaning back slightly, he burrowed in a hand without slowing his pace, bringing his fingers to forage desperately in her folds in a quest for the exact spot that would detonate her.  It was stiff and hard, and he jammed his thumb against it, rubbing in tight, hard circles.  It was the extra something she’d been looking for, because it was only seconds until she was screaming his name.

As though she were demanding his release, he gave it to her with a drawn-out guttural moan.  The mental image of coating her insides with his hot stickiness gave an extra buck to his hips and he took satisfaction in shooting another stream into her womb. 

Collapsing against her, their heated skin stuck together, and Jon rained kisses along the side of her face all the way up to her temple.  He was overwhelmed by the intensity of the last days and the emotion soaring through him.  Jon knew that, whatever happened, everything would be fine as long as she was by his side.

His breaths were still harsh when he found her ear and rasped, “Marry me, Petey.  Fuck the pictures.  I love you.  I want you with me.”

Tender fingers soothed the scratches she’d left behind as her own mark, and he felt her uninjured cheekbone rub against his as she nodded.  Her breath whispered across his face with a sigh of either resignation or contentment.  “Okay.  That’s a proposal I’m willing to accept.”

He immediately levered up on his arms, looking down with near disbelief.  “Really?”

The tender fingers moved to his face with a smile just as tender, and her dimples distracted him from the ugly bruising.  “Yes, really.”

With a grunt of exertion, he leaned over the side of the bed until he his fingertips were extended far enough to snag his pants, and, digging in the pocket, he located the jeweler’s box.  The mattress shifted when he pulled it free and put his weight back on the bed.  Jon rolled over, situating himself so that he was on his left side, facing her. 

Once more, he snapped open the box and then extracted the sparkling ring with a smirk.  “Thank God.  Who else would I give a pink diamond to?” he teased as he slipped it onto her finger. 

A bemused smile softened her facial features as Petey admired the way it sat on her hand. “You almost had that romantic thing going for a second, Bongiovi, but lost it there at the end.  I think that means you're trainable.  Richie could probably help you out with that.”

“Ohhhh,” he growled on a laugh before lithely rolling onto his knees.  His leer was nothing short of wicked as he loomed over her.  “You're gonna pay for that, you little imp!”