Chapter 18
Ash
"Don't you think we should say goodbye?" Zelda asked as I led her out of the dress shop, my hand fisted on the waist of her skirt like a true savage while she waved to my mother and sister.
It wasn't as though I was truly dragging Zelda away or I doubted her willingness to leave the shop under her own free will.
It was that I rather enjoyed the visceral satisfaction of claiming her, possessing her.
It was that she rather enjoyed it too, and there was no material difference between fisting her skirt on a sidewalk and cinching my belt around her wrists in the bedroom.
God, the things this woman made me feel and think. The things she made me want.
"I think finding you in a wedding dress calls for the suspension of all polite conduct," I replied, scanning the street for the arrival of our car service.
"And why is that, boss?"
I couldn't wait any longer. I just couldn't. "They've had you all afternoon. It's my turn now." With my hand still gripping her skirt, I brought my lips down to hers.
"I didn't plan that," she whispered between kisses. "I mean, I didn't expect to try it on."
"Doesn't matter," I murmured to her cheek. "Damage is done, love."
She leaned away, scowled up at me. "What do you mean by that? By 'damage?'"
"It means I won't be able to scrub the memory of you standing there like a glowing moonbeam bride and I don't believe I care to scrub it anyway. Not when I know I want to see you just like that again."
The car pulled up and I handed Zelda into the back seat. Rush hour—or hours, as it was in Boston—meant we inched through traffic one jerk and stop after another though we were too busy touching, kissing, leaning into each other to care.
"What did the doctor say?" she asked, her lips on my jaw. "Let's talk about that. Tell me about your shoulder."
I kissed a line up her neck. "It's fine. No surgery."
"More," she demanded. "There has to be more."
I shook my head. I wasn't getting into the doctor's recommendation of light activity and physical therapy if I didn't regain full range of motion in a few weeks. Unimportant to my present needs. "Nothing else to report."
She laughed, saying, "I doubt that. Details, please."
I flipped open the top buttons of her little sweater, only enough to reach inside, and ran my knuckles over the gentle rise of her breast. "Fuck the details."
Zelda covered my hand with hers as she glanced at the driver. "Ash, I don't want—"
"No one gets to see you but me," I whispered into her dark hair. I scraped a finger over her nipple before buttoning her back up.
Eventually, we made it to my building though we were forced to ride the elevator alongside a pair of men who felt that was the appropriate venue for their disagreement on grocery spending.
Zelda gazed up at me with her chin on my chest as we listened, not bothering to pretend otherwise.
It was a good diversion from all the emotions I'd experienced since finding Zelda on that pedestal and the way they swirled together, melting and melding into a fervent, boundless desire to keep her—and not simply in my bed, in my presence but in my future.
I couldn't imagine the next week, the next month, the next year without her right here beside me, and that was a vast new ocean of emotions I was helpless to handle on my own.
Fortunately, I had Zelda to put me in order.
She led me down the hall, inside the apartment, into her arms, though I required much more than that this evening. With both hands on her waist, I walked her backward toward the dining table. She edged up onto the surface and brought her palms to my chest.
I wedged her legs apart, stepped between them. Unbuckled my belt and drew it through the loops with a swish that vibrated like a warning. "Answer me this, my moonbeam bride." I leaned in, my hands flat on the table and my mouth a breath from hers. "Will I fuck you before the vows or after?"
She closed the distance between us, nipping at my bottom lip. "Does it matter?"
"It does." I slanted my lips over hers, sighing into her mouth as I tasted her tongue. "It matters if you're walking down the aisle full and wet from me or waiting until after you're mine."
Zelda hummed for a moment, her eyes shut. "I know which way you want it."
I unbuttoned my shirt, unzipped my trousers as I watched her considering it—and what a strange, strange thing it was to speak this way about a marriage we'd never discussed yet accepted without hesitation. "Is that right? And how do I want it, love?"
"You want it before." A feline smile curled her lips and sparkled in her eyes. "You'd want to keep a secret like that while everyone watched us say very polite and chaste things to each other."
I could see it as if it'd already happened.
Zelda alone in some quiet, cloistered room as she waited for the ceremony to begin.
Me sneaking inside without a word. I'd skim her panties down and her dress up, and I'd fuck her from behind while she clutched her bouquet.
I'd use those panties to mop up the mess I'd made between her legs, then I'd tuck them in my breast pocket.
Certainly, grooms were entitled to keep up the tradition of something borrowed.
Zelda shifted her hand to my gaping trousers, stroking me over the fabric. "That's it, isn't it? I can see you thinking about it."
I tore her sweater over her head, tossed it behind me. The bra followed. Rucked her skirt up to her waist because I intended to use it for leverage. "The bite mark I'll leave on your thigh will be my something blue."
"That's not the kind of wedding gift most brides receive," she said, lifting up her bottom to help me free her of those panties.
"It's a fine thing you're not most brides, love." I bucked into her hand, my entire body tensing, tightening as I dropped my head back and let loose a snarling sound. "There's a condom in my back pocket. See to that for me."
I thrummed my knuckles down her breasts, snaring her dusky nipples while she opened the packet. She sawed her teeth over her bottom lip as she sheathed me, her mermaid eyes clear and focused on each deep, twisting stroke.
"Zelda," I rasped, the table biting into my legs as I edged closer.
"Yes, Ash?"
I smoothed my hands up her thighs. "Open for me. Show me what's mine."
With a starved gasp, she settled back on her elbows, her legs parted wide. She was luscious and ripe, her folds blooming like a summer rose. "All yours."
These words, they were dangerous. They made promises—promises I intended to keep.
"Good girl," I said, taking hold of her ankle.
I set her foot on my uninjured shoulder and raked my teeth up her shin, and my chest was tight like I'd forgotten how to exhale.
"Keep your eyes open, Zelda. Pay attention.
I'm going to fuck you just like this after I marry you. "
The first thrust was like my first ever, new and raw and overpoweringly right. As it was, that rightness threatened my ability to stand unaided, inhale properly, and last through the next thirty seconds.
"Oh my god," she whispered, her hands stretched flat on the table. "God. You feel like you're in my throat."
It was her lips I focused on as I fucked her, plump and barely pink.
Lips I loved seeing wrapped around my shaft, pressed to my skin, parted on the most beautiful cries of pleasure I'd ever seen.
I focused on those lips because if I glanced down to watch my cock moving inside her, I was certain to come on the spot and say something irrevocable while I did it.
Something like I'm falling for you. Falling so damn hard.
To stave that off, I pressed two fingers to her ass and grinned while her entire body shuddered.
"I'm right there," she panted. "Right there."
Honestly, this came as a massive relief. There was no way in hell I'd leave my girl wanting but my body wasn't interested in long, thorough loving right now. This moment existed for the purpose of possession. Loving would come later. We had all night for that.
"Right there, right there, riiiiiiiight there," Zelda continued.
I lashed an arm around her waist, yanked her up. "You're not there yet," I snapped.
Defiance shined in Zelda's eyes but then her lips found my neck and that seemed to keep her close enough to the edge without sliding over as I hammered into her.
"There you are," I crooned as her cunt gave a vicious clench. "There you go. Take it, love, take it all."
Everything hurt. Everything, every last stitch of me, and I was burning up. We'd only been at this a few minutes but my muscles were wound tight and my heart was slamming into my ribs and every one of her deep, rolling spasms clamped down on my cock like she meant to keep me inside her always.
The idea of that, as impractical as it was, shot fire down my spine. I came in a panting, roaring burst and the only logical response was touching Zelda everywhere, kissing her everywhere. I needed her to know everything.
"Zelda, I—" I stopped myself because what the hell did I intend to say? What was the everything I needed to share? What did any of it even mean? I knew I wanted to snatch all the joy and permanence I felt with her and shove it into a jar so I'd never be without it again.
She ran her fingers through my hair, nodded. "Yeah."
"Yeah? You…?" I asked.
What was I asking? We could've been agreeing on the merits of wedding day fantasy sex or determining we needed to eat soon. And we could've been saying the most important things we'd ever said.
Another nod, a small kiss on the corner of my lips. "Yes."