Chapter Eight
It’s the day of the wedding, and I didn’t sleep well.
After the ball, Lucian disappeared. It was like nothing ever happened between us out in the garden.
He didn’t pursue anything else; he didn’t ask me any more questions.
I went back to my room, and I went to sleep.
I kept waking up, expecting for him to be there in the corner. But he wasn’t.
And then, worst of all, when I finally did go to sleep I kept waking up aching and sweating, thinking about the way that he took my body and made it his.
I don’t even have time to think about it; I don’t have time to worry about it. Because then early in the morning I’m dragged out of bed by Allison and her team, and I am wrapped in the beautiful, custom-made wedding gown that has been worked on morning and night for me.
The satin is heavy, glimmering, a glorious candlelight color that flatters me in a way that nothing else has.
Even I have to admit that I’m a beautiful bride, but I wonder how much of that has to do with the way that I feel in my body today.
It’s like I feel more in touch with myself than I ever have.
Like I’m aware of every part of myself. Every dip and hollow and curve. And why each one exists.
I’m furious with myself. Because as I told him last night, the idea that the touch of a man turns a woman from an innocent into anything else fills me with rage. Yet I also feel as if I learned something about myself last night.
If I had been asked my feelings on being…
on having… If I’d had to give a dissertation on my feelings regarding oral sex I would have said that it seemed vaguely distasteful to me.
He made it seem perfectly reasonable. More than that, it was one of the more incredible sights I’ve seen, that large, powerful man kneeling between my legs tasting me like I was the dessert.
But the result is that I feel like a stranger in my own body, and even my thoughts feel like they belong to a stranger, because the Lilith that I was a week ago would never have thought such a thing. And certainly wouldn’t have been thinking about when he might do it again.
Particularly not ahead of such a life-changing event.
How could an orgasm rewire my brain like this?
I should be thinking about the wedding. About the fact that I was officially committing myself to this, and to him, not about the way it felt to have his hands on my bare skin, for his tongue to explore my body in such an intimate way.
I gasp, and look away from the mirror. “I’m ready,” I say.
The trouble is, it’s not time for the wedding to start yet.
I find myself alone in a small room waiting.
Waiting and waiting. I crack open the door and look out, and for the first time I realize there are guards there.
He’s afraid that I’m going to run away. Still.
He doesn’t trust me. Apparently, my word wasn’t enough for him, and I find that excessively outrageous given the fact that he had his mouth between my legs.
“Are you making sure I don’t run away?” I ask the guards.
“And that no one comes to rescue you,” the guard returns, and I wonder if he used the word rescue by accident. It seems that kidnapped or stolen would be more appropriate, unless he fears the king as well, and thinks that I might need a rescue.
It’s amazing to me that I no longer think that.
Finally, it’s time for the wedding to start, and I am ushered from the tiny room and to the doors of the sanctuary.
I walk down the aisle by myself. There is no one to give me away.
But my mother and sister and her fiancé are sitting in the front row, looking happy and proud.
I avoid looking at Lucian. I avoid it until the very last moment.
And then, when I can do it no longer, he takes my hand and our eyes collide.
“Sparrow,” he whispers.
I can’t say anything. My throat is too tight. And as the priest presides over the wedding ceremony, Lucian continues to watch not only me but the audience. The priest. Everyone. I know that his last bride was carried away, and he seems like he’s anticipating it happening again.
I swallow hard, and I don’t take my eyes off of his. I make my vows with an unwavering voice, and I’m not sure where that comes from. I’m not sure how I manage it. And then, the priest says that it’s time for us to kiss. We’ve never done that.
He has touched my face, he has licked me between my legs, but he’s never kissed my mouth.
And then, he leans in, and captures my lips. I am overcome. His mouth is a conqueror. Claiming me, my body, my mind. He thrusts his tongue deep into my mouth, and I capitulate to him, allowing him entry. He wraps his arms around me, drawing me up against his large body, and I cling to him.
Lucian.
His lips are a revelation. Kissing him is an entirely new experience.
I don’t know how many more new experiences I can possibly take, and yet I know there are more before me.
I’ve married him. Kissing him should not be the biggest aspect of the moment.
Yet I find that it is. His hold on me is hard, uncompromising, and I don’t want to resist it. I want him to cling to me forever.
I want to cling to him.
But then, it’s over, and I find myself searching the audience for my sister, my mother. But I’m dizzy. He takes my hand and leads me down the aisle, his steps firm and decisive. And we are walking toward the tower.
“Lucian,” I whisper. “Isn’t there a reception?”
“We had that last night. That’s what the wedding party was.”
“It…it was?”
“I find myself impatient to spend time with my new bride.”
My heart moves up to my throat. “Oh?”
“Yes. There will be a party for everyone in attendance, but as I have managed to keep my bride this time… We will be consummating as quickly as possible.”
I gasp, and he doesn’t stop.
Even now, he doesn’t take the elevator. Even now, he takes me up the stairs, turning and turning, climbing ever upward, my heart in my throat, and my entire body giddy with adrenaline.
I don’t know why, but I make a small game of guessing which room he’ll take me to.
Mine or his. It’s better than guessing what’s going to happen.
Better than obsessing about what’s to come.
It’s midmorning. Not long ago I was put into this dress. I didn’t expect the wedding night to happen in the middle of the day. I thought there would be a whole wedding party, a whole prelude.
The prelude, I suppose, has been this entire week. What happened last night in the garden was foreplay.
It’ll be a relief, to have it over with. To know what it’s like. To see him naked. To know what it is to have a man…
I take a sharp breath and then I find myself at the threshold of his room. I’ve never been there before. It makes sense, of course, that he would choose to do it here. Not in the space that I’ve grown so accustomed to, but in his domain.
He looks at me, just there in front of the door, reaches out and takes hold of my chin with his thumb and forefinger. “Are you ready for me?”
I’m not sure what to make of the question.
I was expecting a claiming. And I certainly wasn’t expecting him to look at me with…
tenderness. Yes. That’s the expression on his face.
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to speak.
It’s like I can’t access my brain at all now.
It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.
“Sweet girl,” he murmurs.
I feel very strongly that I should not react to that. That his words shouldn’t send a shock of pleasure through me. But they do. Then he opens the door to his room and leads me inside slowly.
“Get on the bed,” he says. My world narrows, and I can’t take in the entire scope of his room. So I obey him. I walk to the bed and I sit at the foot of it, my eyes trained on him. “Very good,” he says.
He begins to take his clothes off. The black tie he’s wearing, the white shirt.
He sheds it along with his coat, and reveals his heavily muscled body.
There are scars all over his torso. Burns, terrible like the ones on his face, cuts, twisting through his well-defined muscles.
But he’s incredibly beautiful. Mesmerizing.
I know that every mark on his flesh tells the story, and I find myself hungry then to hear it.
Even though I know it speaks of pain. I want to know his pain.
He’s my husband.
My husband. The word echoes within me.
He moved his hands to his belt, and undoes it slowly.
He sheds the rest of his clothes with ease.
There is no hesitation. No discomfort. He isn’t embarrassed, and he has nothing to be embarrassed of.
His body is a study in masculine perfection.
I may have nothing to compare it to, but I am aware that I’m in the presence of a magnificent specimen.
It’s like years’ worth of desire has flooded me. Like all the things that I’ve repressed all this time, kept myself from thinking of because I’ve been so laser focused on the future that I can no longer have, crash in.
I can’t have university. I won’t get my degree. I won’t do medical research.
But I will be the Queen of Alabria. I will be King Lucian’s wife. And now he’s going to claim me. He’s going to show me what sex is like. He’s going to give me more pleasure, I’m certain, judging by the look on his face. But he’s also going to…
He is a very large man. Everywhere. I think back to what Allison said to me that first day we met. About how he’s certainly proportional.
She wasn’t wrong.
He’s also extremely aroused. From looking at me.
From anticipating touching me.