II. Epilogue
PART TWO
Epilogue
I held her close. I almost lost my damn mind when I saw her step out of the honeymoon suite in that dress. She looked like a goddess. My goddess. Her hourglass shape, highlighted by the soft fit of the fabric made me lose my breath every time. Her hair fell around her shoulders in waves of gold. It was hard not to trace my fingertips over her skin. It always called to me. Beckoned to be worshipped. After all we had been through, the night had been perfect. A perfect grand opening. This moment. This dance at Marguerite’s. This was ours and ours alone.
The music began to fade before the next song played. I reached into the tux jacket. After all this time, the timing was finally perfect.
“Luka.” She exhaled as I knelt in front of her.
The candles flickered. The ice in the champagne bucket sloshed under the weight of the bottle. It was almost exactly like the first night we met.
Five years ago, I was enthralled with her beauty. She was funny. Witty. And her god damn innocence drew me to her even when I knew it was dangerous. There were so many reasons I had fallen in love with that girl.
She wasn’t here anymore. The woman standing in front of me was more beautiful and sexier than she’d ever looked. She was powerful. She was smart. She was compassionate. She had built an empire and slayed the demons of New Orleans to do it. She was my partner. Tonight, I was going to ask her to be my wife.
I took her hand, but Amara sank to the floor with me.
“What are you doing? You’re going to get the dress dirty.”
She laughed. “I don’t care about the dress. I want to look in your eyes. I want to be right here with you. On the same level.”
“You don’t want tradition with even this one thing?” I teased.
She shook her head. “We aren’t very traditional.”
I grinned. I cracked the lid on the box, waiting for her reaction. It was hard to buy jewelry for a mafia queen. She had everything she wanted. I scoured boutique jewelers. I had gems flown in from around the world. I’d worked on this piece of jewelry for months.
“Oh my God,” she gasped. All those months were worth it, for that moment. For the look of pure joy and excitement in her eyes. Like seeing fireworks for the first time. It was a five-carat emerald cut Tiffany ring.
I lifted it from the velvet cushion. “Amara, I thought about this moment five years ago. I thought about when I lived in France. All the nights we were apart. I’ve thought about it since the tropical depression and you forgave me. Since we drained that bottle of Pichon.” She pressed her forehead to mine, as if to tell me all of that was in our past. “I’ve thought about it every night since. This is all I want. You are all I want. Our future. Will you marry me?”
She nodded, trying to speak the words. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”
I slipped the ring over her knuckle. “Perfect fit.”
She held it up to the candlelight. “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a diamond this big before. She was in awe of it.
“That’s kind of the point. Everyone in New Orleans will see it.” I wrapped my arms around her.
She giggled, pressing her lips to mine. I tangled my hands in her hair, crushing her mouth. I’d never wanted her so badly. Our tongues lashed at each other, flicking and tasting the champagne. Amara crawled into my lap, wrapping her legs around my waist. We bumped into the table, as I lifted her in my arms.
“Back to the honeymoon suite,” I growled.
“God, yes,” she answered, breaking from the kiss for a quick second. Her hand wedged between our bodies. She rubbed my cock through the tux pants. I was hard as fuck. I had been all night. I groaned. My hand slipped under the dress.
“No fucking underwear, Amara.”
“I know.” She breathed into my neck. We hadn’t made it past the table. The candles began to crackle and fizz. My hands cupped her ass, digging into her soft skin. She moaned.
I tried to find the keys to my car. I was going to leave the rest of the champagne. I’d explain our hurried exit to Marguerite tomorrow. I’d pay extra for anything she needed. Right now, I had to get my fiancé back to the Crescent Towers before I fucked her on a tiny bistro table and Marguerite never let us cross through her door again.
* * *
“It’s so big,” she moaned.
I lowered Amara to the king bed in the bridal suite. I laughed as I unzipped my pants and stepped out of them. She was admiring the ring, but her eyes widened when she saw how much attention she was about to get from my cock.
“It is so big,” I agreed. “For you and because of you.” I had to give credit where it was due.
She whimpered, licking her lips. The ring seemed secondary all of a sudden.
I pushed the dress to her hips.
“I want to kiss you. Suck you. Taste you.”
Her legs opened, as if I had commanded them with my words. “Keep talking,” she whispered.
“My mouth is going to be a little busy for a while, baby.” I kissed the top of her knee, inching along her thigh. It was as soft as her silk dress. “You understand?”
She nodded, with a plea on her tongue. She was already wet. Turned on. There was one orgasm ready to be plucked just below the surface. With one trace of my tongue, I could make her come. Fuck, I wanted to make her come a hundred times tonight.
As soon as I had full access to her heat, my tongue was relentless. I’d never wanted to taste her the way I did now. I licked and kissed her. Her hips rolled with each kiss. She panted. Her hands pulled at my hair.
“Oh, Luka,” she called, grinding against the pressure of my tongue and mouth.
I rubbed her clit, watching her writhe at the friction.
“You taste so good. I could do this all night,” I growled, returning to my happy place. I wanted to feast some more.
I flicked my tongue over her entrance and her hips lifted in the air, sucking me deep inside. Vixen. She had always been my undoing. That was never going to change. There was something so powerful between us. We were more than soulmates. More than love lines on palms. We were meant to be twined together in every way. We’d spend the rest of our lives like this.
She exploded with pleasure in my mouth. I grinned. I eyed her. Her face was flush. She bit her lip.
“That was amazing,” she whispered.
I peeled the rest of the silk off her body. She’d spent thousands on a dress that was now a pile of fabric next to the bed. I’d buy her another one. I dipped to her breast, tugging her tit between my teeth. Her hands raked along my ribs.
“I want you,” she pleaded. “I need you.”
I rubbed the head of my cock at her entrance, still warm, wet and pulsing from her orgasm. If I had any plans on what the rest of the night would be like, they were forgotten. I slammed into her with uncontrollable passion. No restraint. No patience.
Amara gripped my back. Her walls, squeezing my dick. I offered slow powerful thrusts, but we’d been dying to be together all night. Ever since she opened the door, this was what I wanted. I wanted to be buried inside her. I wanted to look in her eyes and see that she loved me as much as I loved her. Now, I got to fuck my future wife.
Something about that drove me to take her harder and faster. She panted and begged for more. The fire that burned between us wasn’t going to slow down. It never did. I pumped in and out.
“Oh, Amara,” I moaned her name, just before flipping her on her stomach.
She squealed. I gnashed my teeth at her, playfully nipping at her round sweet ass. I scraped my teeth over her skin as she swayed back and forth.
“Mmm,” she whimpered. I kissed the small of her back and ran my tongue along her spine. My cock nudged against her entrance. She looked at me over her shoulder.
“Marry me, tomorrow,” I demanded.
“What?” she gasped. I pushed in enough to send her eyes to the ceiling.
“I said I want you to marry me tomorrow. Not the next day. Not next month.”
She gripped fistfuls of expensive sheets in her hands, trying to steady herself. I could already feel another orgasm building between her legs. I loved torturing her this way. Talking and fucking. It was one of the few times she wasn’t good at multi-tasking.
I eased her all the way to her stomach and sank in deeper.
“Oh, God,” she whimpered.
I grinned, running my fingers under her body, strumming against her clit. “That’s a yes?” It was a dirty taunt. I knew exactly the position I had her in.
“I—can’t—oh—oh?—”
I kissed her neck and the top of her shoulder. “That’s it,” I coaxed. The fire raged through her. I was so close to coming with her.
“Marry me,” I growled. I sank in until the frenzy was burning us both down.
Her hips bucked at the impact, grining into my hips. “Such a good girl.” I fisted my hands through her hair, pulling her head backward. “Say yes.”
I was so deep like this. Our souls were bound. She whimpered through clenched teeth.
“Ty moya,” I groaned. “You’re my wife tomorrow.”
I released her long strands of hair as she gasped for air.
It was a quick move, but I slid my cock from her and rolled her on her back. I drove inside her. “Tomorrow, Amara.”
Her arms looped around me. She nodded. “Yes. I’ll be your wife tomorrow.”
I caught her lips with mine as the climax claimed me with one ricochet after another. I roared toward the ceiling, pumping until the last drop was gone. I collapsed on her chest, kissing her fiercely.
“God, I fucking love you.”
“I fucking love you too.” She grinned.
“Come here.” I pulled her to me. I lifted her ring finger to my lips. I kissed her knuckle above the massive diamond. “Did you read what’s inside the band?”
“No.” She shook her head and immediately began to work the ring off her finger. She squinted at the inscription on the platinum band. “That’s tomorrow’s date.” Her mouth opened.
I waggled my eyebrows. She slapped me on the chest playfully.
“You are still an insufferable bastard,” she teased.
“And I still fucking love you.”
I pulled the sheet over our heads and she began to laugh. We were the last ones to fall asleep in the Crescent Towers that night.