Chapter Sixteen #2
The words that they spoke in their vows were written by other people, hundreds of years ago, but she did her best to convey everything that they meant to her.
To them. This was the one chance she had.
This kiss. He had promised her this kiss, and nothing more.
So when it was time, she leaned in, and kissed him with everything she had.
She only hoped that he felt it.
What was he? What manner of man, and what father would he be? What manner of husband?
Toxicity? Was that his story. Or was he just resisting vulnerability.
The very idea of it made him choke. She was kissing him, and there was very little else that he wanted in all the world but for Emerald to kiss him. What insanity was he indulging? He had her. She was his wife, and he was holding her at arm’s length.
She was right. She had been right all this time. He knew how to want, and he didn’t know how to have. And whatever the host of excuses he gave for that, it all came down to fear.
Because love was confusing and terrifying. Because it was both good and bad. Because it hurt, as much as it had ever healed. Because loss was brutal, and when you lost an imperfect person that you loved, you spent all the years after contending with the messy pain of it all.
But he had her. He had her.
So there was nothing left to resist.
He put his hand on her face and he kissed her, poured everything he had into that kiss.
Accepted everything she was giving him. It didn’t matter what she said.
It didn’t matter if he loved her more. It didn’t matter.
Because what was martyrdom, sacrifice, any of it, if it wasn’t met with declaration.
If it wasn’t met with absolute devotion.
His own had been contingent on her actions, and that was weak.
It was the act of a man desperately protecting himself. Maybe she would’ve chosen another man. Another fate. And so it was up to him to spend the rest of his life proving to her that this was the better path. That this was what they both wanted. He would not do that by shutting her out.
When they parted, she looked dazed, and he felt the same. Their perception was a study in endurance.
He didn’t want to be there. He wanted to be alone with her.
There were things that needed to be said.
But first, he needed to show her that he’d been wrong.
About their passion, about their desire.
It was so strong that it had the power to encapsulate his rage, his betrayal, and in that moment it had been sharp.
But it wasn’t toxic. That need between them never could be.
Because he loved her. And if he had to spend the rest of his life working to make her love him in return, then he would.
He would lay it all at her feet.
And finally, when they were able to go back to their suite of rooms, he didn’t wait for her to speak. He captured her face in his hands and he kissed her.
“Andrei,” she whispered.
“Let me show you,” he said.
He would worship her. Her body, her soul. Everything that she was.
He unzipped the back of her dress, and that beautiful creation fell free.
He couldn’t remember what that ruined wedding dress for her aborted wedding had looked like.
Because she had been a bride for him today, and that was all that mattered.
Lucian didn’t matter. The only way that he mattered was that he had been the catalyst for the two of them finally giving in.
For the two of them finally claiming what they actually wanted.
For that, he almost had to give thanks for him. Almost.
He would not give the man that much credit.
Underneath the wedding dress was the most beautiful lingerie set he’d ever seen.
White, pushing her glorious breasts up, revealing the shadow of her peach-colored nipples beneath.
She had white stockings with garters on, and he could see the dusky patch of curls between her thighs, just barely covered by a web of lace.
She was worthy of praise.
She was worthy of everything.
He had thought that fixing his gaze upon a mission would keep his pride intact.
His pride could be damned.
It was nothing. It meant nothing.
“My princess,” he said, kneeling before her, an expression of fealty, but so much more.
He gripped her hips and pressed his face to that patch of curls between her legs, swept her underwear to the side and began to taste her, lick her.
For she was as addictive as any sweet ever could be, and he would never get enough.
She gasped, gripping hold of the back of his head, using it to steady herself. He looked up and saw that her expression was filled with wonder, shock.
Was it love?
In the end, he would make her call out his name, and his alone.
Tonight that might have to be enough.
She came hard, her desire flooding his mouth, and then he kissed his way up her thigh, her hip, her stomach, and kissed her, letting her taste herself on his lips.
When he pulled away, she looked nearly drunk on her own desire.
He knew what had to happen next.
He walked her across the room, brought her to the vanity and bent her over, a repetition of what had happened that night in Alabria.
That night when he had decided to embrace his selfishness.
Affront. That’s what it had been. He had been undone by his love for her. Brought to the brink by it. And it was so much easier, so much more comfortable for him to say that he was like his father. Selfish through and through. Because admitting that he loved her, that unmanned him.
And so unmanned was what he would have to be. He wanted her to see this differently. He gripped her chin, forced her to look straight ahead. “Look at us,” he said, his voice tender. He held her throat, softly, letting her feel the care. The strength restrained.
Her breathing was rapid, her pulse fluttering at the base of her throat. He curved his head around and pressed his mouth over it. Kissed her.
And then he unhooked her bra, let her breasts spill free, into his hands, pinched her nipples between his fingers before moving his hands down her hips and tugging her panties down as best he could around the garter belt.
He bent her over, his hand not forceful, but firm. He wanted her to feel the way that he cared about her. The way that he held her.
He wanted her to feel the shift, the promise.
“Look at us,” he whispered.
He wrapped her hair around his hand and breathed in deeply, the scent of lilacs and summertime. Of Emerald.
He freed himself from his briefs, and pushed deep inside her. He held them both there, like that, an expression of awe and wonder on her face, one that was matched on his own. “I love you,” he growled.
He thrust forward, claiming her, over and over again, driving them both to the brink. “I love you,” he said.
“I love you.”
He said it with each thrust. Like a prayer, like a promise.
He said it from the very depths of himself.
Because it was true, whether she ever said it to him or not.
Because that was what it had always been.
And yes, he had loved her with the promise of never having her in return, and there was something about that that had comforted him.
Because he had been a boy, scared, of his own memories, of himself, but he wasn’t afraid anymore.
He had thought that this was being unmanned. That wasn’t true.
His father was not a man. Because he had never truly been able to love those around him more than he loved his own pride, his own comfort, himself.
But Andrei loved her. More than anything.
He lost his control then, on a shout, pouring himself into her as she lost her own control, gripping the edge of the vanity, trembling and shaking.
“Andrei,” she whispered, his name a sob, and when she looked back up at him in the mirror, their body still joined, there were tears on her face.
He withdrew from her, turning her to face him and cupping her. “Did I hurt you?”
“No. You love me?”
“Yes. I love you. And I am sorry that I didn’t tell you before. I was afraid. I was afraid of what it meant to be in love with you alone.”
“You’re not,” she said. “I promise you that you’re not.
I love you. I… I was going to tell you this tonight.
I wanted us to have a wedding night too.
I swear it. I was going to keep giving myself to you, throwing myself at you until you believed it.
But I knew that I needed to give you the words.
The reason that I went ahead with the wedding to Lucian was because I was scared.
Not of what he would do, but of my feelings for you.
What I accused you of, that was me. I was so comfortable pining for you.
” She swallowed hard. “I told my brother that the reason I couldn’t be with you because you weren’t royal.
He reminded me that he never would’ve cared.
I knew that.” She choked on a sob. “I knew that. It was never why. It was always because I feared that if I had you, I would love you in such a way that I would lose myself, and Andrei, I struggle… Even with the memory of my mother.”
She buried her face in his neck, crying in earnest now, and he simply held her.
“The reason that it has to be a mission is because if it’s not, then she’s just someone that I miss.
And I miss her so much. Every day. I remember when she died, and she’d been gone a week, that it was the longest I’d ever been away from her.
And every day… It’s the longest I’ve ever been away from her.
And time just keeps going on, but the pain doesn’t go away.
So it’s better to turn it into action. And then there was you.
” She looked up at him. “I loved you from the first moment I saw you. And it was a relief, because I knew that I couldn’t marry someone who wasn’t a king or prince.
Don’t you see, it protected me from everything.
Making my mother’s memory a crusade. It kept me from grieving her, and it kept me from being hurt by you.
But what I didn’t anticipate was that our feelings were just too strong for that.
It broke down my walls. It broke down all of my defenses. ”
“Emerald,” he whispered. “My princess. You broke down all of mine. I have never wanted anyone else. Not really. I’ve never loved another.
And you are right. There was something deeply comforting in that.
But I think we know how to love each other.
We have worked together, helped each other.
We have passion. We have friendship. Over every stage in our relationship, we have found these things, and now all that is left for us is to put them together.
As husband and wife. As parents. Lovers. Friends.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
Here they were, newly married, half naked, and filled with love for one another. “I can’t wait to tell Onyx.”
He laughed. “Maybe he will be my friend again.”
“He better be. You are, after all, going to be the father of his very first niece or nephew. And you are his brother-in-law now.”
“And we are family,” he whispered.
“Yes. Forever.”