38. Scarlet
Chapter 38
Scarlet
I blink away the sleep as I wake. Matthias’s deep brown eyes are already on mine, his face lying on the bed so we’re facing each other. All the feelings that rose inside me yesterday, the acceptance, love, understanding, are mirrored back at me. The late-morning light is soft, like a halo around him, and the way he’s looking at me, like I’m his reason for breathing, has my heart twisting in my chest.
He gives me a sleepy smile, dark hair ruffled from my fingers. He reaches over, callused thumb grazing my temple as he pushes my hair behind my ear. “Good morning, wife.”
“Morning.” I turn into the pillow as my cheeks flush, and a slow smile curls my lips.
He leans in, stealing a kiss from the corner of my mouth. “Don’t hide from me. I want to see all of you. I’ve dreamed about this day countless times over the years. Each time, waking up felt like a punishment.” He kisses my jaw, pressing his forehead to my temple. “I was worried if I went to sleep, I’d wake up and none of this would be real.”
“Was handcuffing me a part of your dreams?” I lean into his chest, tucking my head against his shoulder.
“Sometimes.”
Everything about him at this moment screams that he loves me. That he really has been waiting all this time. From the way his fingers stroke my hair, to the way his voice is soft and low, even while teasing. It’s like he doesn’t want anything to break this moment, and it’s sending warmth flooding through my heart. So many things about us shouldn’t make sense, but I’m starting to realize there’s nothing I’d let tear us apart. Somehow, this man who everyone else fears is everything I need.
He runs his knuckle along my knee. “Are you sore?”
I wince when I shift around, pain in my lower back and between my thighs. “A little.”
“I’m sorry. I tried to be gentle. You just felt so fucking good.” There’s real concern in his eyes, and I stop him with a touch.
I face him, a smile taking over. “I never expected you to be such a sweet talker.”
He buries his face in my shoulder and kisses his way to my ear, sending shivers rolling through me. “It’s not sweet-talking if it’s true.”
I trail my fingers up his bare back, loving the way his muscles flex under my touch. This big, powerful man is all mine. I trace the lines of his pecs and down his abs until his stomach concaves at my touch, making room for me to go lower.
He captures my hand, stopping me. “I have something for you.”
“What?” All I need is right in front of me, but he pulls away before I can say anything, reaching over to his dresser.
He’s hiding something in his palm when he turns back, and a light flush creeps up his neck before coloring his cheeks. His eyes search mine, holding my gaze until it’s hard to take my next breath.
“I wanted to give this to you when we got married, but I was afraid you’d toss it immediately.” Matthias opens up a small black velvet box, revealing the perfect teardrop diamond on a simple gold band. I lift it up and hold it to the light. It’s got to be at least eight carats, if not more.
I bite my lip and fail to hide my smirk. “You’re right. I definitely would have trashed it. What a shame that would have been.” I hand it back to him and hold out my fingers so he can put it on me.
He kisses each of my knuckles before sliding the ring over my finger, where it sits perfectly. My smile grows. “It’s gorgeous.”
“Not as gorgeous as you.”
A laugh bursts from me, and he rolls me beneath him.
“You think I’m lying, Little Sparrow?” He nips my neck and whispers in my ear. “I don’t think you have any idea how devastatingly in love with you I am. I’ve tortured myself to always be your wind and never your cage. I may have kidnapped you, but if you’d truly asked to be let out, I would’ve let you. But you never asked, Scarlet, because the truth is you never wanted to leave.”
Realization fills my chest. In all this time, I never asked for him to let me go. I wanted to be here. My eyes sting as emotions I can finally acknowledge tumble to the forefront.
“I…I love?—”
Matthias kisses me, cutting me off. “Tell me you love me when you’re pregnant with my child and full with my cock.”
He kisses a line down my throat, and I arch into him, pressing my chest into his. Just as I’m about to beg for more, the doorbell rings.
Matthias groans like he’s being tortured, then says, “Ignore it.”
It rings again, and he grunts, getting up from the bed, and pulls on his boxers, all the while murmuring adorable death threats to whoever’s unlucky enough to bother us.
I watch his ass disappear from the room and collapse. How the hell is he so sexy?
It doesn’t sound like anyone’s being murdered out there, so I get up, throwing on his button-up shirt from last night.
“Fuck.” Matthias is in the doorway, holding two containers and scanning me from head to toe. “I’m going to replace all of your clothes so you can only wear my shirts.”
“Do that and I’m dyeing all of your clothes pink.” I do up another button but leave the top two open, enjoying the heat in his gaze.
“Get back into bed.” His growly command has my nipples hardening and my ass hitting the mattress.
He sets the containers down on the nightstand and crawls on top of me. “You’re lucky I’m worried about hurting that pretty little pussy of yours, or I’d fuck you senseless for your sass.”
My arms wrap around his neck, ready to tell him I don’t care if it hurts, when the sweet scent of syrup fills my nose, and my stomach rumbles loudly.
Matthias lifts off me, manipulating my body easily so I’m upright against the headboard.
“Sooo, we’re really not going to have sex?” I ask.
“Not while you’re still sore.” He opens the container and lifts a piece of french toast to my mouth, his other hand cupping underneath to catch any drips.
“Seriously? We’re eating this in bed?” My mouth drops open, and he uses the opportunity to slip the piece between my teeth. The warm, sweet liquid coats my tongue, drawing a moan from the back of my throat.
Matthias glares at me, brows pulled together.
I slip the fork from my lips. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous of my breakfast.”
“Of course not,” he huffs, but the tips of his ears turn pink as he feeds me another piece.
This time, I moan louder, and he collapses so his face rests on my stomach, placing light kisses there. “You’re doing that on purpose.”
“Maybe.”
He grabs a piece of fruit and brings it to my lips. “Keep eating. If you’re pregnant from last night, we want to keep you healthy.”
He says it so matter-of-factly it almost doesn’t register. My mind swirls around his words, my lungs unable to take in air. There’s an undeniable warmth building in my chest that shouldn’t be there. One that says I don’t hate that idea nearly as much as I should.
“I’m…on birth control,” I stammer.
“I hate to break it to you, but you’ve never taken birth control a day in your life. It was easy enough to switch them to sugar pills and recently to prenatal.”
“How?” I’m still not firing on all cylinders, asking the wrong questions. “What if I’d had sex with someone?”
He tilts his head, biting his lips against a smile. “Do you really think I’d let that happen? That I’d ever let anyone close to you?”
Rage burns in my stomach, and my heart beats in my ears. He’s the reason I’ve been ghosted countless times? That I was still a virgin at twenty-five!
“Ugh!” I push at his chest, but he just leans in, kissing my stomach again. “We’re not done talking about this.”
“You want a half dozen kids, we need to start now,” he murmurs into my stomach.
I can picture those little faces vividly. They have his eyes, the gold-rimmed centers catching the light as they blink up at me with thick lashes and dimpled smiles.
“Hmmm.” He kisses my stomach again. “You like that idea.”
“You still shouldn’t have done it without asking.”
“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this yet, but I’m done fucking asking. I did what you wanted for a decade, and now I’m taking what’s mine.”
“And that’s a half dozen kids? Do you even want that?”
“I want it with you.”
There he goes again, melting my insides with his sweet words. “Not fair.”
He tilts his head and raises a brow. “Who said anything about fair?”
“While we’re on the topic of fair, I have a favor to ask you.” There’s a pit forming in my stomach as I wait for his answer. He is so not going to like this.
He runs his thumb over the line forming between my brows until it smooths out. “Anything.”
“Let Oliver come back.” He’s worked with me for years, and I know he did what he did because he truly believed he was helping, and in any other situation, he’d be right. I can’t stand the idea of it turning around on him when he was just trying to protect me.
Matthias jerks, eyes wide in astonishment. “You mean in a body bag?”
“No…I mean as my personal guard, like he’s always been.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t trust him anymore after this. He tried to take you away from me.”
“Well, I trust him more. When I found out he’d been reporting everything I did directly to you, it really pissed me off. He was supposed to be my guard. He earned that trust back when he put what I wanted first, knowing you’d try to kill him.”
Matthias drops his head to my stomach. “Anything but that.”
“I’ll forgive one year of you ignoring me.”
His eyes slide up, and he looks at me through his lashes. “Two.”
“Deal.”
“Tell him if he fucks around again, he’s a dead man.”
I ruffle his hair. “You don’t have to worry about that now because the only thing I want is you.”
He lifts so our foreheads touch. “Now who’s the sweet talker.”