Someone whistles. Killian, probably. Iris hoots. Katya is clapping and whooping.
Connor pulls back just enough to breathe, his forehead against mine, his thumbs tracing my cheekbones. His breathing is ragged, and so is mine.
"My wife," he murmurs, and the way he says it, rough and possessive and wondering, makes something inside me catch fire.
"My husband," I say back.
The reception is a blur of warmth. Saoirse cries and holds me and tells me my mother would be so proud. Grace puts Lorcan in my arms and he stares at me with wide eyes and then grabs a fistful of my veil and shrieks with delight. Elizabeth, somehow still graceful at eight months pregnant, hugs me carefully and says, "I’m so happy for you," while Yelena attaches herself to Connor's leg and refuses to let go, which is the first time I see genuine confusion on his face. He looks down at this tiny girl gripping his trouser leg and then looks at me like I might have instructions.
"Pick her up," I say.
He does, carefully, holding her against his chest with one massive arm like she weighs nothing. Yelena stares at his face, fascinated, reaches out one chubby hand and pats his scarred cheek, and says, "Boo boo?"
The table goes quiet.
Connor blinks. Something passes over his face that I can't name, something raw and startled and painfully tender. "Yeah," he says after a moment. "Boo boo."
"Kiss it better," Yelena says firmly, and plants a wet, sloppy kiss on his scar.
Iris makes a choked sound. Saoirse presses her hand to her mouth. Elizabeth mouthssorryat Connor, but he shakes his head once, and when he looks at me over Yelena's dark curls, his good eye is bright in a way that has nothing to do with the candlelight.
Diomid watches the whole thing from his chair with his arm around Elizabeth, and the tension in his shoulder’s eases by a fraction. Not all the way. Probably never all the way. But enough.
The evening stretches warm and long. Food and champagne and toasts. Iris gives a speech that's half roast, half love letter, and by the end of it, she's crying and denying it aggressively. Liam says something brief and formal that somehow manages to be deeply moving. Killian raises a glass and says, "To the woman brave enough to marry my brother," and Connor throws a bread roll at him.
Through all of it, Connor stays close to me. His hand on the back of my chair. His thigh pressed against mine under the table. His fingers finding the inside of my wrist when no one is looking, tracing circles on my pulse point that make it increasingly difficult to concentrate on conversation.
Every time I look at him, he's already looking at me. And every time our eyes meet, the heat between us tightens another notch.
By ten o'clock, the party has thinned. Katya fell asleep on Killian's knee and he carried her upstairs twenty minutes ago. Elizabeth and Diomid left with a sleeping Yelena draped over Diomid's shoulder, Elizabeth pressing a kiss to my cheek and whispering, "Be happy." Grace and Liam are cleaning up, waving off my attempts to help. Aidan and Tanya disappeared quietly, the way they always seem to.
Iris catches my eye from across the room and raises her glass with a look that saysgo,and a grin that says she knows exactly what’s going to happen next.
I turn to Connor.
He's watching me. His jaw is tight. His hand is gripping the edge of the table, knuckles white, and I can see the restraint in every line of his body. He's been holding himself in check all night, all week, and the effort is visible now, in the tension of his shoulders, in the way his breathing has gone shallow, in the way he won't let his eyes drop below my face because if he does, we both know what happens next.
"Connor," I say softly.
"Yeah."
"Take me upstairs."
Something ignites in his eye. He stands, and the chair scrapes back, and he reaches for my hand, and I think he's going to lead me to the stairs.
He doesn't.
He bends down, slides one arm behind my back and the other under my knees, and lifts me off the ground like I weigh nothing. I gasp and grab his shoulder and he pulls me against his chest and starts walking, and I can feel his heart pounding through the fabric of his jacket, a frantic, driving rhythm that matches my own.
"I can walk," I say.
"I know." His voice is rough and almost strained. "I don't want you to."
He carries me through the foyer and up the stairs and down the hallway, past the guest room where I've been sleeping and toward the end of the corridor where his room is. He kicks the door open without putting me down, walks us through, and kicks it shut behind us.
The room is dark except for moonlight through the window, silver and pale, catching the edge of the bed and the planes of his face when he looks down at me.
He sets me on my feet, slowly, letting my body slide against his on the way down. Every point of contact burns. His hands stay on my waist, wide and warm, fingers pressing into the silk of the dress, and I can feel how much he wants me. It's right there, hard and unmistakable against my hip, and the knowledge of it sends a rush of liquid heat through my core.
