The kiss is messy, desperate, all tongue and teeth and hunger. She tastes like fire and strawberries and something wild that I’ll never be able to tame and never want to.
Her hands scrabble at my belt, tugging at my pants with the kind of urgency that says waiting was never an option.
“Off,” she demands, voice breathless and wrecked already. “Now.”
I oblige. Clothes hit the floor with a thud, her eyes dropping to where I’m already hard for her. Her throat works around a swallow.
“You gonna say something smart now, bride?” I murmur, stroking a thumb over her swollen lower lip.
“No,” she says, voice shaking slightly, “just—” she pulls me down, lips to my ear, “—please.”
Thatpleaseunravels me.
I press her down into the bed, one hand beneath herthigh, hitching her higher as I push into her in one slow, thick stroke. Her breath catches, but so does mine.
“Goddamn,” I grit, the heat of her wrapping around me, perfect and pulsing and so wet it makes my vision swim.
She clutches at my back, nails digging in. “Sam?—”
“I know, darlin’,” I whisper, forehead pressed to hers. “I’ve got you.”
Then I start to move.
Deep, unhurried strokes that have her head tipping back, her body arching for more. I grab her hands, pinning them above her head with one of mine, the other gripping her hip tight to anchor myself. Her wrists tremble in my grasp.
“Let go for me,” I growl. “You want it filthy before the veil? I’ll give it to you.”
Her response is a ragged cry.
The rhythm builds harder, deeper, sweat-slick and reckless. The headboard taps the wall. Candles flicker. Her thighs quake around me, and I feel her coming apart under my hands, my mouth, my name falling from her lips like a prayer and a curse.
And when she shatters, pulling me down with her, it’s with a rawness that strips everything else away.
Bride. Groom. Vows.
All that matters is this. Her, beneath me, our vow before the world ever gets to witness it.
After, we’re tangled in the sheets, the scent of sex and candle wax lingering in the warm air. Her skin is flushed, hair a mess around her face, and her breath slowly steadies beneath the soft rhythm of my fingers brushing along her side.
She’s glowing.
Not in the cliché way people say about pregnant women, either. No, Charlotte glows because she’s fire and softness at the same time, because she just pulled me apart and put me back together again with one whisperedplease.
I kiss the center of her chest, where her heart still pounds under damp skin, and whisper, “Still thinking about calling off the wedding, Mrs. Stone?”
A lazy smile curves her lips. “Depends. You planning to keep pulling that shit with the lace, or was that a one-time pre-wedding violation?”
“Darlin’, I’ll buy you ten more sets if I get to rip ‘em off.”
She laughs, a little breathless, and I swear it’s the best damn sound in the world.
I shift, resting my head against the soft swell of her belly, letting my palm spread wide over the curve of her. The quiet between us settles, full of golden light and promise.
Then—
thump.
I freeze. So does she.
