Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
ELLIS
6 MONTHS LATER
“I told you the shoes were a bad idea.”
Josephine’s giggle is muffled in my shoulder, and her arms tighten around my neck playfully. “Maybe I wanted to recreate our first date.”
People we pass on the road are staring at us. We’re making a scene, but—much like the first time we did this—I can’t stop smiling. It’s saying a lot that even with all the big moments we’ve shared since arriving in France, this was the biggest.
There’s a small church in the village, managed by a cranky old priest. He pursed his lips at the “date of divorce” on my section of the marriage license, but made no other objection to the last minute affair. Likely because my mother was sitting behind us in the pews, glowering at him.
I wouldn’t cross her either. The woman wanted Jo to be her daughter-in-law from the beginning, and her opinion on the matter hasn’t swayed. When I called her up two days ago and told her we were getting married before going home, the scream that came through the phone nearly blew the speaker .
In an ironic turn of events, it was Weston’s rule against student-faculty relationships that got us here. I would have married her months ago, happily, but it seemed important to make sure Zoe had adjusted to Jo being my girlfriend before adding a ring to the mix.
The adjustment period wasn’t really necessary. To Zoe at least, our day-to-day life hasn’t changed all that much. Jo still spends her time with Zoe, managing to strike a perfect balance between teacher, nanny, stepmother and friend. I work in the library. Our evenings are enjoyed together as a family.
Then, she’s mine.
It was always true, but now we’ve made it official.
When Jo decided to go back and finish her degree so she can teach, I went through the Weston HR handbook again, looking for a loophole that might save us from sneaking around for months on end. I found one. Spouses of faculty and staff are exempt, provided their marriage pre-dates enrollment.
Tomorrow is the last day to register for the fall semester.
While I doubt President Sutton will see it this way, Josephine is confident that her mother won’t risk a scandal just to make my life uncomfortable, and I trust my wife.
My wife . It’s barely been fifteen minutes since I put the ring on her finger, and I can’t get over it. My wife. Even six months ago, the idea of getting married again would have made me nauseous. Now… God , I’m so happy.
“What are you thinking about?” Jo asks, nipping at my ear.
My hands tighten on the backs of her legs. I can hardly wait to get her alone and fuck my wife for the first time. The little tease walked out of the bathroom in pure white lingerie minutes before we had to leave for the church, and I’m not sure how I didn’t collapse with the amount of blood rushing to my cock. “What I’m going to do to you when we get home.”
Maude, rather conspicuously, whisked Zoe off for an afternoon of bonding, making sure to tell us—twice—that they’d be back at five thirty and not earlier.
Jo laughed. I winced.
My bride sighs happily, laying her cheek on my shoulder. “I should probably call my parents later to break the news.”
“Are you nervous?” Her relationship with them seems to be going through a period of adjustment. Jo is different from when they were all together last, and I don’t believe the Suttons know what to do with the strong, independent woman who has taken the place of the girl who was once so eager to please them.
“Maybe a little,” she admits as we turn the corner onto the chateau’s drive. “My mom definitely suspects we’re together, but it probably won’t go over well when she finds out it’s serious.”
I chuckle. “Serious? Is that what you call marriage, mon amour ?”
“The most serious?”
“Damn straight,” I say in my best American drawl. Whatever I lost of my accent has returned in the time we’ve lived here. Josephine’s French has gotten very good, and Zoe seems to have developed a strange hybrid language. I’m grateful we’ll have the summer to get her back on English before school starts.
Josephine bursts into giggles. “Don’t do that again. It sounds wrong .”
“Are you sure you don’t want to— ah —play football?” It comes out like a question, and my wife’s laugher fills the warm spring air. Have I ever felt this light? This wholly and completely overjoyed? Even the happiness of my daughter’s birth was colored by the brand new weight of responsibility and fear that comes with fatherhood.
Now I have this woman, my wife , and if the struggles at the beginning of our relationship have taught me anything, it’s that there is nothing I won’t do for her, or her for me. This is forever.
We’re approaching the chateau, and I know exactly where we’re going. I open the door and she squeaks in surprise when I set her down, then turn to lift her right back into my arms, carrying her across the threshold and directly toward the library.
The room is still full of books marked for donation or sale, but the most valuable of them are gone, and so are Monsieur Perdue’s notes. My role is done. Our flight home leaves this time next week. Now, my only responsibility is to pleasure the love of my life until she can’t stand.
“So, I’ve been thinking.”
“Oh?” My lips curl into a dangerous smile when I stop beside my work table and finally allow her back on her own two feet. We aren’t separated for long. Seconds later, familiar hands are smoothing over the lapels of my suit. “Pray tell, what were you thinking about Mrs. Delvaux?”
“ Sutton -Delvaux. I’m hyphenating.”
I don’t care what her last name is, as long as my ring is on her finger. “My apologies.” I chuckle, unable to stop looking at her for even a second. Astonishing is an understatement.
Her hair is loose and tumbling around her shoulders in loose waves. She made the dress she’s wearing, and even with the smear of jam from Zoe’s hand when we left this morning, it’s perfect.
“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world, mon amour .” I lower my lips to hers and kiss her reverently. “Tell me what you were thinking?” I ask when we break apart, because I’m so aroused it’s making my gut ache, and in about sixty seconds, I’ll be so lost in her I won’t remember to ask.
God, she’s my wife.
Her fingers move to my tie, loosening the knot, bright eyes sparkling in the spring sunlight drifting through the high windows. “We should move here.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Here?” I gesture to the magnificent building around us. “You are aware I’m a librarian, yes, mon amour ? And you are planning to teach high school physics? Neither of our professions is historically well compensated.”
Josephine’s laughter rings through the quiet room. “Damn, really?” she teases, her smile wide and effortless. “The chateau was very misleading.”
“I’ll make it up to you.” My hands roam over her sides, hunting for the zipper of the dress. The garment comes easily away from her body, falling to the floor around her—admittedly sexy but very painful—shoes. My mouth goes dry. Despite the innocent color, the lingerie is even more wicked than I remember, and now there is an addition. A narrow, lace garter is pulled high up on her thigh.
I do the only sensible thing; drop to my knees.
“Ellis,” she breathes, twisting her hands through my hair as I lean forward, burying my face in her mound, breathing in the familiar scent of her body getting ready to take mine. “I meant move to France. After I’m done with school. We’re happy here, Zoe is happy here.”
As I consider this, I kiss my way down to the band on her thigh. It doesn’t take me long. “Okay, let’s move here.”
“Just like that?” She giggles, squirming as I brush my lips over the delicate skin of her inner thigh.
“Yes.”
I’m finished with this conversation.
My teeth graze her skin as I bite the garter, dragging it down with a level of self-control that ought to get me nominated for sainthood. My little wife is less patient, and she presses into my touch, her breathing ragged.
“You look like a goddess,” I murmur, my hands moving to the straps of her shoes, loosening them and helping her step barefoot onto the floor before me. “God, mon amour . Look at you. Are you wet for me?”
Josephine moans, hands finding the table behind her as I lift her thigh over my shoulder, offering me a perfect view of her cunt covered only by a narrow strip of white lace. Palming my erection, I lift my eyes to meet her heavily lidded gaze.
“Answer me. Have you made a mess of your new panties?” As if I can’t see the damp spot from where she’s soaked through them.
She bites her lip, holding back a mischievously smile and shakes her head. “No, Daddy.”
At this rate, I’m going to have an imprint of a zipper on my cock, but as much as I’d like to take it out and get some relief, I know full well that if there was only lace separating me from being inside her, there would be no holding myself back.
Today, I want to play with my food before I eat it.
Humming thoughtfully, I inch closer to leave a chaste kiss on her inner thigh. “What happens if I’ve found you lied to me, mon amour ? What should your punishment be?”
She shifts against me, trying to get closer. “You can do whatever you want to me.”
I pretend to consider this. “That seems acceptable. I’m sure I can think of something. Now, let’s check, yes?” Hooking her panties to the side with one hand, I part her flesh with two fingers and spread them in a V, exposing her to my shameless inspection.
Soaked.
Her hands find my hair again. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”
“I don’t think you’re sorry at all, you little tease.” Giving her ass a quick squeeze, I roll to my feet. Josephine’s lips part and she tilts her head back, obviously expecting me to kiss her. Instead, I bow forward and growl in her ear. “Go over there.” I jerk my chin toward the nearest row of books. “Turn around and bend over. Hold on to the shelf.”
She hurries to comply, and the moment I see her like this, bent over and offering herself to me, her beautiful form silhouetted by dozens of books… Merde. I can’t take the goddamn pressure. My cock is going to fall off if I don’t get it inside her soon.
My hands are clumsy as I fumble with my belt, losing the battle to take this slow. It’s been nearly a year since this beautiful young woman stumbled into the library at her parents’ house and the connection we shared then pales to what I feel for her now.
The moment my cock is free, I lean over her, bracing my hand on the shelf beside hers, and guide my tip through her seam, gathering her arousal, before driving forward in a single, ruthless thrust that tears a scream from Josephine’s lips and a roar from mine.
Jesus Christ. I will never get used to how good she feels.
“I was going to worship you today. I thought I’d make you feel like the princess you are, but that’s not what you need, is it? You don’t need to be a princess, you want to be mine .”
I don’t think I’ve ever been this out of my head. The need to claim her is as vital as the air in my lungs, anticipation and urgency pressing down on us both. This is my wife, the love of my life, and one of the two greatest things to ever happen to me. She also has a body tailor made to drive me mad, and a cunt that threatens to milk the cum right out of me with how hot and tight it is.
There’s no way to hold back.
Josephine’s fingers tighten on the shelf and she’s driven to the tips of her toes each time I plow forward, her cries filling the quiet room in time with my thrusts. “You’re so deep,” she half cries, half moans, and I lean forward, using my free hand to drag her face around and claim her mouth in a messy, bruising kiss.
“Arch your back a little more,” I grunt, dropping my forehead to her back and wrapping an arm around her waist, pulling her ass higher. “There you go. That’s better, isn’t it? Such a good girl, letting me go at it as hard as I like.”
Her cries get louder, but even without that clue, I would know she’s close. Pressed together as we are, I can feel every muscle in her body straining, reaching for something just beyond her grasp.
“I’m going to come, Daddy,” she warns me, her voice high and needy. In this position, she can’t do more than take what I give her. Everything she’s experiencing is because of me, and the rush is intoxicatin g. God, do I love it. God, do I love her.
Shoving my hand between her legs, I find her clit and pinch the swollen bundle of nerves between my fingers.
She loses it, coming with a sexy little cry of surprise, wetness flooding over my cock. “Every time,” I growl, fucking her through it. “Every time you take me so well. You never complain when I’m rough, do you mon amour ? Do you like it when I make this tight little cunt ache?”
We’re both panting, the wet slap of skin on skin coming faster as I start to chase my own orgasm. This wasn’t how I planned tonight going. I wanted to make this last, but it doesn’t matter. We have all the time in the world.
I come with a roar, hunched over my wife and wedged as deep as I can inside her.
“ Oh god ,” Josephine moans, her knuckles white on the bookshelf with how hard she’s holding on, my cum coating her inner walls. “I loved that.”
Yeah, I loved it too.
We both sag at the same time, falling in an undignified, boneless heap onto the ancient wood floors. Josephine is still wearing her bridal lingerie and I’m somehow fully dressed, my pants and briefs caught comically around my knees.
“Wow,” she says softly as our breathing slows. “I think I like being married.”
I lift my head to look at her, and Josephine squeals, having realized her mistake a moment too late as I flip her over, tickling her sides. “ Think !” I exclaim in playful disbelief. “You think you like being married?”
“I know!” she gasps through peels of laughter, trying to push me away without success. “I know! I know!”
When my hands slow, my cheeks are aching from how big my smile is. Josephine is beaming right back, as if it’s every woman’s dream to be bent over in a library and fucked senseless on her wedding day. “I love you so much.” I run my hand down her side to settle on the curve of her waist. “It’s such a gift you’ve given me, mon amour .”
Her smile softens. “Our second edition?”
By now, we’ve talked a lot about Jean-Luc Perdue and his lost love, Mari. Up until the last shelf of books cleared, I was still finding his notes here and there. This entire room was a testament to the power of love and regret. It seems strangely poetic that it was here, where I decided, once and for all, that I was going to confront my fiercest inner demons so I could keep Josephine Sutton.
It was worth it.