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Jade takes his but doesn’t drink. “You know this doesn’t make what you did right.”
“I know.”
His eyes lift to mine, as if that wasn’t the answer he expected. “And you’d still do it again.”
“In a heartbeat.”
His mouth tightens. “That’s what I hate about you.”
“Good. Keep hating me.” I take the glass from his hand and set it beside mine. “C’mere, stormbird. Let’s dance.”
I grab him by the hips, and when he doesn’t resist, a rush of adrenaline runs through my spine.
“I don’t dance,” he mutters while the music wraps around us and the rain slides beyond the open wall of glass.
“You do now.”
We sway together, slow at first, then closer, his hands finding my shoulders as my thumb traces lazy circles along his waist. His breath brushes my throat. I bury my face in his hair, breathing him in—rain, salt, and skin—and my grip tightens.
“Fuck,” I murmur. “You smell good.”
“You can’t just say things like that to me.”
“I can say whatever I want to my husband.” I slowly lick along the side of his neck to his ear, making him shudder. “You smell like rain and champagne, and I’m already fucking addicted to you.”
His mouth finds mine, and I open for him this time, letting him in. The little metal ball in my tongue drags over his, and he gasps into me, actually gasps, his hips stuttering out of rhythm.
Catching him by the ass with both hands, I haul him in, filling my palms with him and squeezing through the cloth until he’s flush against me. He’s hard. So am I. He lets out a broken sound when I grind up into him, and I swallow it whole.
“My fucking husband.”
“Don’t call me—” He rocks against me once, then again, chasing it. “Light. Light.”
“Say it again.” I bite along his jaw, down under it, and set my teeth on the mark I left there this morning. He arches, and I suck it darker as he pants above my head, one hand fisted in my hair, holding me to it. “Say what I am.”
“You’re an asshole.”
I laugh against his throat and roll my hips against him again, faster this time. He gasps and clutches at my shoulders but doesn’t step back, doesn’t fucking step back once.
“Try again.”
“My husband.” It comes out wrecked. “You’re my husband, you—”
“Good boy.” I let go of the mark and blow across it until he shivers so hard I feel it in my hands. “Mine. You know what I do to you. Tonight I’m taking my time. Say you know it.”
“I know that.” Panting, moaning, grinding down on me as the rain comes off the eaves behind us. “I know. I know—”
His eyes have gone unfocused, his mouth parted, and every time I move, he follows without thinking.
I get my hands on his jacket and strip it off him, then the shirt beneath it, peeling both from his arms and letting them fall. He lifts his arms when I need them lifted and toes off his shoes when I reach them, and by the time I’ve stripped the last of it off, he’s naked in the rainlight and still reaching for me.
Then I step back and look at what I’ve married.
He’s all lean, long legs, fair skin catching the rainlight through the glass, muscle where life put it, wiry across his shoulders and down his arms. Damp blond hair falls into those impossible green eyes that still can’t decide whether to glare at me or come closer. His mouth is swollen and shiny from mine. One hand rests against the glass beside him while the rain slips down the other side, silver between us.
“Say something,” he rasps.
I shake my head, still looking at him. “You’re fucking gorgeous.”
