Another A/N: I think it would be swell if you readers commented the hell out of this story, just because you think it was so nice of me to put it up, don't you think? I never really got a lot of comments on this particular series because they went straight to publication instead of going up on Wattpad first, and so I missed out on that interaction, so please, if you like them, I'd love to talk to you guys about them, okay? Because you know I love to talk to you, and I love to know what you're thinking, please? Please? Like, comment on everything. I like comments more than votes, you guys know that, right? I mean, I like votes, too, but that's not why I'm here. I'm here for you...

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I enjoyed the hell out of the bath, washing my hair and tying it up off my shoulders, drinking most of the wine, letting the jets pummel me.

He did come in after a while, sitting on the floor next to the tub and leaning on the edge, trailing his fingers in the water.

"You look very fetching," he said with a soft smile.

"Really? Are you fetched?" I returned, taking a sip of wine.

"Yes, I'm very, very fetched," he laughed, leaning in to kiss me. I grabbed him by his collar with a soapy hand to make the kiss last longer, laughing when I almost pulled him in.

"Oops, sorry," I said. "Maybe I've had a little too much to drink."

"No such thing for you," he said with a smile, splashing me playfully.

"Well, I'd better get out before I turn into a prune," I said, pulling the plug and turning off the jets.

He held the towel for me, and helped me dry off. It was very sexy, and I figured it would turn into something more, but he bit his lips together and held back, just looking at me with soft eyes.

"You want me to put on one of the new things you got me for Christmas?" I asked.

"No, it's way too cold," he responded. "Besides, the way I'm feeling tonight, it doesn't matter at all what you're wearing, I'm going to attack you later anyway," he said with a teasing smile.

"Later?" I questioned. "Here we both are, one of us already undressed, the bedroom's right there..." I let the sentence dangle.

"I know," he sighed, taking me in his arms. I could feel how ready he was. He kissed me gently, smiling after. "I just thought that it would be nice to wait, you know? To show you that I'm capable of delayed gratification once in a while."

I smiled. "Well, okay, if that's what you want, I'm capable, too." I hung up the towel and walked into the bedroom to get dressed, knowing he was watching me go.

I grabbed his old, worn plaid flannel shirt that buttoned down the front and some long johns with knee socks. For some reason, things that buttoned up the front were incredibly sexy to him, along with the sight of me wearing anything that belonged to him.

"Hey, what are you going to wear to the party?" I asked, coming out of the bedroom. "Why hasn't there been any hoopla about that?"

"What's 'hoopla'?" he asked with a smile.

"You know, hullaballoo," I responded. "Never mind. What are you wearing?"

"I'm wearing a suit," he responded. "Just regular clothes." He shrugged. "It's not a big deal. It's never about what the guy's wearing, it's all about the girl, always. I'll look fine." He grinned. "I always do. I've been on one best-dressed list or another for the past three years, didn't you know that?"

I shook my head. "Really? Wow. I'm impressed."

We settled down on the sofa and watched TV for a while. I snuggled into him, loving his scent, the hardness of his body. There was an end of the year entertainment wrap-up show, and Teddy and I were given our own segment, under "romances to watch" or something. Apparently the term "doe-eyed beauty" had stuck, and I was someone who had zoomed in out of nowhere and snatched up the world's most eligible bachelor, right out from under the noses of some of the most notable beauties around.

"You vixen," Teddy commented, hugging me and kissing my temple.

"So, you single ladies," the reporter, a leggy blonde whose name escaped me, finished. "I hope you're paying attention. It seems Theo Shelley's off the market for now, and it looks like his choice isn't your standard issue runway model." She turned to her co-host.

"I think it's interesting, in a good way, that this new girl, Tinker Bell, is so different from girls he's dated in the past, in so many ways," she continued earnestly.

Her companion, a perky brunette with bangs, nodded vigorously. "Yeah, yeah. I mean, she's not in the entertainment business, for one thing, and she doesn't look like anyone he's been linked with before, does she?

"Kind of endearing, I think, and reassuring for us 'regular girls'," she went on, which was kind of ridiculous, as she was super thin and had obviously had work done on her face and boobs. "I mean, he's been with one gorgeous woman after the other, like pretty much the entire Victoria's Secret catalogue, if I'm being honest, but when he falls into something that, let's face it, for him is pretty long-term, it's with a normal looking person, not a Jennifer Jordan, who's known the world over for her cheekbones and body." She nodded again for emphasis. JenniJ, my favorite VS Angel. I sighed, and Teddy felt it.

"Exactly," the blonde exclaimed. "Let's hear it for the 'regular girls', hmm?" She raised her champagne glass and they toasted. "I mean, if Theo Shelley can fall for an ordinary, normal girl, there's hope for all us ladies, then, isn't there?"

I snuggled deeper into Teddy as they went to commercial. "Jesus, why don't they just call me fat and ugly and be done with it?"

He didn't answer, so I sat up and looked at him. He looked upset, apologetic and angry in equal measure. He turned his eyes, with those lovely lashes, to mine. "I'm so, so sorry to put you through this," he said in a voice full of regret. "You're being judged, on national television no less, on things that don't matter and aren't even true because you're shagging me." He let out a deep breath and pinched his thumb and forefinger into the inside corners of his eyes.

I put my hands on the pudgy part of his hips, the only place on his body that was even remotely soft, and shook him gently. He finally looked at me. "You don't have to apologize to me for anything," I reassured him. "I knew what I was getting into. And you're worth it, every bit of it," I continued, nodding for emphasis.

His hands found their way under my shirt, rubbing gently at the skin around my waist. "And those things they said about you? That you're 'ordinary' and 'normal'? Couldn't be further from the truth." He pulled me in to kiss my forehead.

"I'm not 'normal', Shelley?" I asked with a soft laugh, moving my hands to his rock-hard tummy. "Are you saying I'm weird?"

He pulled me close, drawing my legs up so he could really hold me. He gave me a look, smoky gray eyes making me feel like I was melting. "Don't put words in my mouth, young lady," he admonished gently. "Though you are so, so, weird." He kissed me, full lips covering mine over and over, both of us laughing in between each connection.

He finally shook his head and released me. We turned back toward the TV just as they returned from the commercial.

The next segment was about romances and marriages which had ended. It was really awful, how many couples had parted this year, some of them very acrimoniously.

"What do you think about marriage?" asked Teddy curiously.

"What do you mean, as an institution?" I responded. "Or for me personally?"

"Either," he said with a shrug.

"I don't know," I mused. "I mean, it's a really lovely idea, but I don't know if people are cut out for it. At the very least, if you do it, you are announcing to the world that you will never, ever, have sex with anyone but your spouse again for as long as you live." I turned to him.

"At the risk of sounding sexist, I don't think a lot of guys, at least the famous ones, have grasped that concept," I said with a smile. "I mean, I have no problem with fucking as many people as you want, but why get married, then? Marriage is a promise of monogamy, as far as I'm concerned. And that should be a baseline, not a goal. Look at the couple we just saw. He cheated on his wife with their fucking nanny, for Christ's sake. I mean, that's just disgusting. If you want multiple sex partners, don't fucking get married. Getting married is like announcing to the world, 'I will no longer fuck anyone but this person right here', that's how I look at it, you know?"

"Yes, I get it, I get it," he said, kissing my temple and laughing. "I guess you've put quite a bit of thought into this."

"I wouldn't say that," I said. "I just think it's...rude."

"Rude?" he gasped, laughing even harder. "As in bad manners?"

"Well, yeah," I said. "Marriage is a public covenant, a declaration in front of the world, and if you're religious, in front of fucking god. Why bother to make it if you don't mean it? You can live together for as long as you're happy, even raise a family together if that's what you want, without marriage. The words 'I love you' mean exactly that. The words 'I want to marry you' add the connotation or the implication of 'forever and only' to the phrase 'I love you'. Don't say it if you don't mean it. I mean, no one's making you." I was starting to get irate. We'd just seen three stories in a row of marriages that had broken up due to cheating spouses.

"Well, what if one person just stops loving the other?" Teddy asked. "That happens, doesn't it?"

"Of course, and no one can predict that, and it's too bad, but that's not what we've been watching for the last twenty minutes," I said. "That must be awful," I added softly. "I don't even know what I'd do if you just woke up one day and said that you didn't love me anymore." I brought my legs up again and wrapped my arms around them.

He rubbed my back. "Hey, what happened? We were talking, and suddenly you just went off somewhere." He leaned forward to look at me. "Seriously, what happened?"

I leaned on him. "I was just remembering the last four months, when I thought you'd stopped loving me, and how awful it was."

"Oh god, please stop." He kissed my head again.

"I will." I said. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up." I shook my head the way he usually did, and lifted my face to his. "Kiss me, please?"

"With pleasure," he said, smiling and laying another truly superior kiss on me, hand on my throat, tongue licking into my mouth.

"Anyway," I continued, when he finally pulled back, "to get back to the topic at hand, I think marriage is a lovely idea, like I said. I sometimes see an old couple, walking along, and I think, how wonderful their lives must've been, how many experiences they must've shared, you know? And I think that raising children must be exponentially easier with two people for sure. I don't know if I believe in marriage, because I know for sure that I don't believe in divorce.

"And I really don't like how women are still sometimes treated like luggage, you know, the whole father 'giving' the daughter to the husband thing, like handing over a bicycle?" I shook my head. "I like the idea of rings, but there should be two of them, his and hers; she's not a prize, like at a carnival, you know?" I looked at him. "You think I've overthought the whole thing? Ben used to say I could take the romance out of anything."

Teddy looked at me, eyes like jewels in the firelight. He kissed me, thoughtfully and long, turning me in his arms, holding me firmly. "No," he said. "You wouldn't be you if you didn't think about everything, that's just who you are." He kissed me again, harder, breathing faster. His hand felt for my breast over the outside of my shirt, and I turned into it, feeling my nipple harden under his thumb. He kissed my neck, exhaling warm air against it, and I could already feel myself getting wet, feeling weak.

He unbuttoned the top buttons of my shirt, and he slid his hand inside, stroking my skin.

"That bath has made your skin as soft as a baby's, god, so sexy," he breathed. He squeezed my breast, making me moan.

"So much for delayed gratification," he said softly, smiling at me.

"Hey, we sat here a good forty-five minutes, I'd say," I responded. "If that's not a delay, then what is?"

"Good point, Birdie, good point," he said, rising with me in his arms, carrying me off to the bedroom.