I didn’t ask.
“I’ll handle the paperwork,” she said, waving us off like we weren’t newlyweds on the verge of combusting. “Now go celebrate your love, but don’t be strangers, chérie.”
“Never,” I promised.
The second thedoor shut behind us at the villa, I kicked off my heels and let out a half-sigh, half-laugh.
“I cannot believe Marco said?—”
“Mon amour.” Callum’s voice was husky and pleading. “You’re going to need to change, or I’m going to fuck you in that dress.”
I froze, glancing over my shoulder.
He was unbuttoning his linen shirt, the motions unhurried, rolled sleeves showing off the way his forearms flexed. His veins rose beneath sunkissed skin like heknewI was watching. And merde, why were his hands always so devastating when he wasn’t touching me yet? I pictured them wrapped around my throat, steady and unyielding, pinning me exactly where he wanted. Confident, patient hands that knew how to take and how to worship in the same breath.
My skin prickled. Heat bloomed low and fast. My pussy pulsed, leaving behind an ache the made me desperate for him.
I kicked my sandals off one by one, eyes never leaving his. Licked my lips. Reached up and tugged the veil free, letting it slide from my fingers and spill to the floor like a white flag for a battle I wasn’t even pretending to fight. The olive comb followed, clattering softly, forgotten.
He stilled. He was still half in his vows, half in his feral post-wedding brain. But all of him—my husband—every part of this emotionally complex, devastatingly intelligent, darkly devoted, wickedly self-possessed man was mine.
We just stared at each other—panting, wanting, already halfway undone. The air between us felt charged, electric, like the moment right before a storm breaks. Like foreplay without a single touch.
I grinned, pulse racing. “We’re supposed to meet everyone for dinner in twenty minutes.”
And the way his eyes dropped, slow and appreciative, told me exactly how little that mattered. He crossed the room quickly. “We won’t need twenty.”
His hands found my face first, rough and greedy, like he’d been starving for this all day. He kissed me hard, desperate, crowding me backward with every step until my spine hit the wall and I gasped into his mouth. That gasp turned into a moan when his teeth grazed my bottom lip, like he needed to bite something just to stay grounded.
His mouth found my jaw, my throat, the place beneath my ear where he knew exactly how to undo me. I tilted my head without thinking, fingers already gripping the collar of his shirt.
The dress whispered between us. His ring flashed when his hand slid up my side, like eventhatwas watching. His hands were in my hair, on my hips, lifting my thigh. He kissed me like we hadn’t just promised forever and he still had something to prove.
“I meant every word,” he breathed into my mouth.
“I know,” I whispered back, threading my fingers into his hair, gripping the curls as I rose on my tiptoes. “So did I.” His hands slowed and his lips softened. I pressed my forehead to his, eyes fluttering shut. “We have time later. All night.”
He nodded like he agreed. But the way his eyes dragged over me? That look saidliar.
I pushed his chest until he stepped back, then turned toward the bedroom with a soft, teasing grin. Just as I was reaching for the zipper on the side of my dress, he grabbed my waist, spun me around, and tossed me onto the bed like I weighed nothing. I landed with a bounce and a breathless laugh, hair fanned out, dress hiked halfway up my thighs.
“Is this the part where you ravish me, husband?”
He cocked a brow, already stalking toward the bed, sleeves rolled, shirt open, eyes fucking molten. “Oh,nowyou want to play innocent?” he growled. “You’ve been teasing me since the second we woke up this morning. You think I didn’t notice howsmug you looked when I couldn’t stop staring at your ass in that dress?”
“Was it my ass, or my tattoo? Be honest, mon cœur, because typically only you get to see that.”
He stopped at the edge of the bed, looking down at me like I was prey, like I was something he’d already claimed but still wanted to devour. “It was both. The tattoo, the ass, the fact that ye weren’t wearing a bra… the way the fabric clung to every inch of ye like it was custom-made to destroy my self-control. Ye wore it knowing what it’d do to me, didn’t ye?”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the tartan ribbon—our handfasting ribbon and dropped it onto the bed beside me like a promise.
I gasped, mocking outrage. “Excuse you, I am avision of bridal elegance.”
He yanked me toward the edge by the ankle. I gasped, then giggled as the dress bunched around my hips. “You’re about to be a vision of fucked out.”
“My husband,” I teased, voice breathy as I tried to sit up. “We could wait until tonight. I promise it’ll be worth it.”
His fingers gripped my thighs like a warning. “I waited long enough for you to come into my life, mo chridhe. I’m not waiting now. Especially not when you already got off earlier.” He brushed his mouth across the back of my neck. “And I swear to fuck, I need you if we’re going to make it through dinner without me bending you over the nearest table.”
