Judging by the intense and focused look in his eyes, I knew he intended to be my last too.
Slowly, he moved a little closer, like I was an anxious creature he might scare off.
My breaths were coming even faster, and my stomach felt like a deep circle filled with small, fluttering things that seemed to suck in all my air, as his body grew close enough to warm mine.
He reached out and eased his fingers into my hair, like he didn’t want to mess it up, but when he had a firm grip, he pulled me to him, and I gasped.
It was a possessive move, a claim I felt in the center of my chest.
As he stared at my lips, then lowered his head, his lips not even a breath from mine, I closed my eyes.
When his mouth touched mine…my hands instinctively reached out for his shoulders.
There was no denying it. I’d ached for this kiss since he’dalmostkissed me in the library and by the oak tree. There was also no denying the attraction that sparked between us after one look—the moment I stepped foot in his house in Boston and our eyes met.
This moment felt like an accumulation of all those moments. A crash in time that fused us together and would make a mark on our shared history years from then.
We were both hungry for it.
Almost starved.
My dad always said magic isn’t just a word. It exists in the small things most people overlook. Sometimes it’s in the things we take for granted, or in a moment that moves too quickly, and as cliché as it may have sounded…
My first kiss felt like magic.
Either I was extremely attracted to my husband, which I was, or he was extremely good with his mouth. I had a feeling it was both.
The kiss was soft, tingly almost, but there was a hard claim to it that made itself known underneath the gossamer layer. He tasted so good too. Like…an entirely new world filled with adventure and danger and most of all…romance.
This,I thought.This. This is how a first kiss should taste. How it should be.
Goosebumps puckered my skin, and I shivered as we pulled apart.
The moment we’d just shared seemed to dry the ink on the paperwork even more than the air. It said:This is mine forever. I claim it,without using the words.
Just like our wedding vows.
We hadn’t repeated them.
We’d gazed at each other and then nodded when the time was right.
The kiss would forever linger in my soul—like being hit with lightning for the first time, it was a memory that would never fade into the darkness.
Inthatmoment, it seemed to zap me with an overflow of anxious energy.
After we turned to face the intimate crowd, and we were met by light applause, Cian led me to a room in the castle and left me there to wait. It seemed like he had something to check on. It was hard for me to sit still, but the train of my wedding gown kept following me around, like it was reminding me of what the day meant.
The first day of the rest of my life with Cian.
At the thought, half of my heart twisted in fear. The other half lifted its wings and was about to courageously take flight.
The courage came from how settled I felt. Yeah, it all seemed to happen so fast. I’d gone from a forced marriage to Dermot Craig, to marrying a man I barely knew, but somehow, it felt like I’d known him forever.
How else could I describe the immediate connection between us?
That part of life felt simple—true.
The other part—had me uneasy.
