Twelve Roses

"Oh dear god honey I don't think I can feel my legs." Mike moaned. His wife Sharon was lying on top of him equally exhausted but somehow managing to churn her hips. "Enough. I need to sleep."

"You'll get to sleep." She purred into his ear which at the moment was clenched between her teeth. "As soon as I'm through thanking you for those roses. How many where there again?"

"Twelve."

The first rose had been used to rouse Sharon from her sleep. She didn't check the clock but since her alarm hadn't gone off it had to have been sometime before eight in the morning. Otherwise instead of the soft silk of rose petals tickling her lips she would have been wrenched from her slumber. Instead the rose gently coaxed her out of her dreams into a pleasant reality where her husband was waiting to greet her with a kiss. While Sharon rode her husband she couldn't quite remember what she'd said or what he'd said she knew that it wasn't important. The important part was waking up to a kiss from the man she loved. "Twelve? You sure it was that many hon?"

"I think so." He was starting to drift slightly. His eyes were starting to hood over while he spoke.

Normally Sharon would have been furious with him for falling asleep in the middle of sex, but she couldn't really blame him. Not after the day he'd given her, not to mention three orgasms. The second rose was maybe fifteen minutes after the first, or maybe a little more. It was just long enough that without Mike kissing her she'd drifted halfway back to sleep. It was her sense of smell that woke her up this time, but not because of the rose. It was the smell of French Toast and coffee that pulled her back to the real world with a smile. She knew she'd said something vaguely cute about waking should always be that much fun but the details were lost. Sharon realized as she rested her head on her husbands chest that she was starting to fade too. "How did you do it?"

Jack reached up and ran his fingers slowly through Sharon's hair. "I just did. You know being in love with you lets me do amazing things sometimes."

There was no doubt about him being able to do amazing things. The third, fourth and fifth roses had all come at the same time. One from her twelve year old daughter, another from her sixteen year old son and finally one from her sister as she took the children until the next day. "No really. You must have been planning this for months." She playfully slapped his chest. "I thought you'd forgotten!"

"How could I forget? How could I forget the day that I made sure you'd be mine forever?" Jack's words came out a bit sluggish and his breathing was starting to pick up that deep steady rhythm of sleep. "That was the happiest day of my life." He was probably aiming for her lips with the kiss he smeared across her cheek and chin but Sharon smiled anyway.

Sharon hadn't stopped smiling since she'd woken up. That was the master plan of course. But he'd gone a bit overboard when he'd gave her the sixth and seventh roses. The former on a hanger with a sleek red dress she'd been fawning over for months. The latter resting across a pair of red high heals with straps half way up her calf that were as much a gift to him as to her. "How much did it cost? I mean how can we afford this?"

"Shush up about that babe. Do you think I would do something if we couldn't afford to spare the money?" He mumbled. "I love you and I know what I'm doing."

"Really. How much?" It had to be expensive. The dress was three hundred by itself and the shoes didn't look cheap either. If that had been where he'd stopped she wouldn't have been poking him to keep him awake long enough to get an answer. The eighth rose was delivered by the limo driver. He was also the one handed her the ninth rose as he dropped her off at a day spa and the tenth at a salon to get her hair and nails done.

"I never added it up. It's just money baby. All the money in the world wouldn't be enough." He tried to add something else cheesy but his mind was already too far gone for that kind of clever chicanery.

Jack had returned to hand her the eleventh rose and help her out of the limo and into Lucien's, the restaurant where he proposed to her. After proof of his impressive, but not perfect since he ordered the wrong appetizer, memory he kissed her and helped her back into the limo. "It had to have been a fortune."

"I've been saving up for it. Just shush." He mumbled.

Sharon nearly fainted when she returned to her home. It was lit by dozens of candles that gave the entire place that romantic flicker that only candle light can achieve. A trail of rose petals led her to a glass of wine and then up the stairs to an already drawn bath. Jack helped her out of her dress and into the pleasantly hot water and for the next half hour pampered her with bubbles, oil and occasional refills of her wine.

When that was over it was her turn to pamper him. It started with her body slipping out of the now only warm water and Jack slipping out of his clothing. She hadn't thought to dry off before pushing him down onto the bed. For an hour the two of them intertwined their bodies committing to memory every dimple on the other. There weren't words for what they had done, just emotions that defy definition. A smile crossed Sharon's lips. "How much."

"A little over three thousand." Jack replied clearly asleep.

"WHAT?!"