Screw cake. If it doesn’t taste like sunflowers and dew, I don’t want it.
“We’re skipping cake,” Archie announces. “You’ll have to have the reception without us.” His eyes meet mine, burning embers clashing with riled flames. “The honeymoon starts now.”
I lick my lips, all shyness forgotten as I bask in the drug that is Archibald Pine.
My husband.
Who wants to start our honeymoonnow.
His family around us grumbles, insisting that a reception without the couple isn’t a reception at all, but I can only think one thing.
Yes,please.
Chapter Ten
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Archie
I have never wanted cake less in my life.
I have never wanted Sarelia more.
In all the hours upon hours I’ve spent consumed with shameful thoughts of her—imaginings of her hair against my skin or her soft blush beneath my lips—I never came close to guessing the magnitude ofwantshe would inspire once she was actually within my reach. Countless evenings I’ve fallen asleep riddled with guilt and lust in frightening measures, wishing her near as my skinburnedwith the need to touch her. And yet, I had no clue at all what having her would be like.
But now she’s here, and mine, and my fantasies are transformed into scintillating actions I can take as far as Sarelia allows me. And Sarelia—sweet, beautiful,delectableSarelia—allows me to take them quite a way before she stops me, my generous wife.
I pant against her collarbone, my fingers flexing beneath her shirt against the skin of her freckled stomach. Skin that she’s letting me touch, letting me kiss, letting meexplore.
“Sarelia, my princess,” I gasp.
Her hands run through my messy hair, her own breathing ragged. “Archie,” she replies.
I hiss, then nip the dip between her collarbones in displeasure. “No, what you called me earlier,” I order.
Her fingers twist, catching my hair in a rough, painful grip.
I remove my hands from her shirt, lest I trip straight over her boundaries and into bliss.
“Archie,” she repeats, then follows it with a soft, enticing, “my knight.”
If I weren’t already on my knees, I would be.
“You were born to torture,” I praise. “Say it again.”
She sighs, pulling my face up so that she can peer at me with half-lidded hazel eyes while she undoes me completely. “My knight, who saves me from a loneliness I did not know I felt.” She smiles, a shy thing that endears me all the more following the hours ofnotshy she’s been blessing me with. Then, she speaks again, slow and halting and brave, saying things that slay me just as much as they embarrass her. “You have always saved me from my loneliness, Archie, but now… I know we barely know each other, even as we know so much, but you’re so…you, you know? Intelligent, kind, generous, thoughtful, unhinged. No matter where this goes or what happens, I’m grateful for right now. That you would even think of me in any capacity, let alone the capacity you claim to is… I can’t fathom it. I can’t fathom that I’m here, or that you’re here, or that we’ve been…” she trails off, face flaming crimson. “Well, any of it. I can’t fathom any of it, but I’m grateful, and I’m joyous. If this is a dream, I hope that I do not wake up anytime soon.”
My goodness, I love her.
“You say such pretty vows,” I mutter. “Would that they were burned into my skin, heated memories over what your hands have left. I could be covered in layers of your touch, your words, your beauty. I could be beautiful with you, I think, covered like that.”
She blushes, and I kiss it, because I am allowed. Because it is mine.
Becausesheis mine.
“I’m not sure how much more of this I can take,” she whispers, tilting her head back as I coast my lips across her jaw and down. “I know we’re married, but…”
I leave a mark on the delicate skin of her throat before exercising the scraps of willpower I have left to pull myself away from her. As I sink into the bedding beside her in the bedroom in my house that I’ve designated as hers, I take in a ragged breath. “We do only what you wish,” I remind her. “Only what you ask for. Only what you allow me to enjoy.” I roll my head, catching her eyes before I continue. “And you must know, what youdon’tlet me have? It’s just as enjoyable for me. The waiting. The anticipation. The agony of my thoughts beating against my self-control.” I grin—a feral, vicious thing. “I love it all, Sarelia. The giving and the withholding. I revel in what you allow me and what you do not. Never feel like you cannot tell me to stop, because thenos will always be as enticing as theyeses.”
