Except…that was what cowards did. And I wasn’t raised to back down from a fight.
I clasped my fingers around hers. They were hot and damp. A quick look showed that she was breathing fast.
“I’ll lead, you’ve only to follow.” I meant it to be kind.
She rolled her eyes. Rolled them. At me.
“That’s the typical way a dance goes,” she drawled. “I swear, the patriarchy invented waltzing to show off a trophy.”
What an odd thing to say. I was talking about entering the room. It was a remark on the combat situation…not our first dance.
Still, her words stuck in the back of my mind.
I reached out, sliding my knuckles down her arm. Was there gooseflesh under the lace? She didn’t shiver. “Do you hate dancing, little bird?”
“Wouldn’t know,” she quipped as the singer shouted our names.
“Raise your glasses to the new Mr. and Mrs. McDonagh!”
A few guests clapped. Cackles whispered in the background as mockery. The room should be filled with craic. It was a bleeding wedding reception after all! But it was malice that seeped from the space, covered by polite smiles and careful glances.
They wouldn’t be that bold if I aimed my pistol in their direction.
“Sláinte!” Connor boomed.
A few of the lads joined in the toast.
“Let me show you how good it can feel,” I coaxed.
Gabreilla’s eyes flashed. Those whiskey irises were warm. Filled with whatever that intoxicating energy was that I’d tasted in the church.
I only meant to kiss her quickly. Check the formality off the to-do list and wrap up the ceremony. But then she’d looked at me.
The same way she looked at me right now.
No, if I had any plans to grant her the mercy of escaping my touch, those were long gone. I’d had a taste, and now I was hungry for more.
The music began with a deceptive calm. It was the same way bloodshed started. I’d been in enough conflicts to know the comparison. The first soft strains felt as though they could be ignored until the next notes forced the fight from our very nature.
It was a death march. Both of us powerless to escape the music’s summons. Gabriella had quipped about the lunacy of a waltz, but I was the poor sap who had to act like I knew what I was doing. I wasn’t some classically trained aristocrat who knew the proper steps. I led her to the floor, my inner voice yelling at me not to fuck this up.
Violins melded with the deeper tones of the celloist. The keening sound was lonesome. It called to a primal, ancient part of our being. Their notes floating beneath the raised ceiling like a promise no one believed. Chandeliers burned overhead, crystal dripping light onto marble floors that had been scrubbed until they gleamed like ice. Everything about this wedding was meant to look pure. Untouched. A lie wrapped in finery and extravagance.
The moment our feet hit the polished floor, I gave Gabriella’s hand a sharp tug and brought her body flush to mine.
I felt her before I truly looked at her.
Warmth pressed against my chest as my hand settled at her waist. The dress was thinner there, delicate fabric stretched over heat and life. A woman. Mywife. The word tasted strange, bitter and sharp on my tongue, even as my pulse betrayed me. I began to move our bodies in time to the beat, keeping her caged in my arms.
Eyes were everywhere.
I tracked them all. The men from her father’s organization lingered too close to the exits. My own soldiers stood relaxed but ready, hands loose near their suit jackets. I counted blades I couldn’t see. Guns hidden behind smiles. I waited for the moment when the music would fracture into screams.
It didn’t.
Instead, Gabriella danced.
Her body followed mine as if she’d rehearsed this with me a thousand times. Her palm rested against my shoulder, light but steady, fingers solid against the fabric of my suit. I wanted to tear the fucking thing off, feel her skin against mine.
