Chapter 23 Savi
Savi
Midnight couldn’t have come sooner.
It wasn’t as though Savi hadn’t enjoyed their Dipali celebrations.
She had. Seeing Silverburn lit up with oil lamps—diyas—soothed her soul in a way she hadn’t expected.
It had been a job and a half to accomplish; there were no diyas available to purchase for love nor money, so MacDonald had recommended a metalworker who could make them—using Savi’s only diya as a template.
They’d been up since Dhanteras, which she’d explained to Alex was the first of the five days of Dipali, making the castle glow from within.
The paper lanterns—fanush—had been invariably more entertaining to construct.
All of them had spent the evening sat round the dinner table, surrounded by candles, coloured paper, wooden sticks, and plates of sandesh, rasogolla, and nimki, making their fanush.
It had been the most fun she’d had in years, all while eating food made using Ma’s recipes.
Recipes she never thought she’d taste again.
Ma’s fanush, of course, was perfection. It always had been.
Savi’s was reasonable. Ben’s was passable, although she suspected he’d practised with Ma beforehand.
It had been downhill from there. Alex managed to tear a thumping great hole in his just before lighting it, Ophelia’s collapsed in on itself, and Lily managed to set hers on fire.
Even thinking about it brought a smile to her face. To Savi, Dipali wasn’t about religion so much as it was about spending time with the people she loved.
This year, she was spoilt for choice.
Today, on the fifth and final day of Dipali, Savi could admit she’d been a little…distracted.
It had sat in the back of her mind, curling around her every thought like smoke.
Anticipation.
Savi pushed open the back door, leaving behind the warm glow of the diyas behind.
Earlier today, she’d worn a sequinned satin sari of the deepest red, but she’d replaced it with one of the least expensive items of clothing she owned; a washed-out blue sari that was flecked with paint.
She’d done away with her usual underskirt, instead having to tie the blue sari to itself and hoping she’d be able to run in it.
Where the end of the red sari had been pinned in place by a glittering golden brooch.
Savi had decided to forego such a thing with her current one, simply throwing her pallu over her shoulder.
She wasn’t intending for it to remain neatly in place.
Her heart pounded as she made her way along the Dower House path, a dark mist hovering around the trees. She sucked in a breath as she sighted movement, but it was only a lone deer, assessing her as she entered the forest before disappearing in the gloom.
They’d gone through the rules, the thresholds, the limits.
Biting? No.
Hair-pulling? She’d be offended if he didn’t.
Contraceptive pessary? Alex had left the decision of whether to wear it up to her.
Screaming? Definitely not. They didn’t want their little game to attract any unwanted attention.
Hitting and kicking? Only if she didn’t aim below his belt.
“Run as fast as you want,” Alex had purred into her ear last night. “I’ll still catch you.”
Savi turned around as a branch snapped behind her, glaring at the misty woodland. She hadn’t anticipated how…real this would feel. The logical part of her brain knew that Alex was out there. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her.
Yet…she was being hunted all the same, and the illogical part of her brain couldn’t stop thinking about what would happen when he caught her. His rough hands on her body, his breath in her ear, his erection pressed against her.
Loosing a slow breath, Savi strode forward down the path, following the forked track that would take her to their cottage.
Damn him, was he going to make her endure the entire journey before pouncing?
She was nearly at the clearing. The closer she came to the cottage, the slicker she felt between her thighs, the cloudier her mind beca—
Terror stabbed into her every pore as a dark figure moved in her peripheral vision.
Half a heartbeat later, she remembered who was out here waiting for her.
Savi ran. She hiked her sari up past her knees, darting down the twisting track as branches clung to her on both sides. Raw adrenaline propelled her forward, her heart pounding. Heavy footsteps shadowed her own, injecting a deliciously addictive mix of fear and anticipation into her bloodstream.
She made a sharp left turn along the track, just managing to keep her feet as she sent a shower of soil up in her wake—but there was the clearing, mere yards away. She put everything she had into those last few feet, the sky above her opening up as the trees fell away.
But then she felt a pull on her sari from behind.
A ragged gasp left her as Alex’s hand locked around her waist, hauling her against his hard torso.
His wide shoulders enveloped hers as he wrenched her pallu over her collarbone.
She cried out as he grabbed a handful of her hair and jerked her head back, his predatory eyes as black as night.
“Mine,” he panted in her ear, his hot breath shivering over her skin.
Savi sent him a sly, heavy-lidded smirk, knowing she was about to be utterly ravished.
An abrupt tearing sound burst through the air as Alex wrenched the layers of her sari from her body. Instead of undoing the knot securing it around her hips, he simply tore it in two, leaving the fabric remnants to glide over her bare skin as it fell.
“I’m so fucking desperate for you,” he growled in her ear, lifting her off her feet, locking an arm under her knees, and roughly lowering her to the ground. He quickly followed, his knees thudding against the grass. The noise was softened by the long yards of fabric that she’d been wearing.
She let out a desperate noise as he ripped the buttons of her choli open, leaving her fully bare. “Then hurry up and do something about it,” she ordered.
He shoved her legs apart, letting out something halfway between a growl and a grunt, before slotting his hips between them. She sucked in a breath as he ground the rigid length of his erection against her. “Can you feel how hard I am?”
A breathy, needy whimper escaped her lips. “Claim me. Please.”
“God, I hope you didn’t wear that fucking pessary,” he snarled, unbuttoning his trousers, “I’ve been meaning to put a baby in you for weeks now, and I’m tired of waiting.”
She smirked as he notched himself at her soaked entrance, knowing how frustrated not knowing must be making him. “Then do it,” she teased, her hips lifting, trying to tempt him in.
It worked.
Her eyes rolled back in her head as Alex slid into her in one long, sublime thrust. Simultaneous gasps of pleasure left them both, as deeply intertwined as two souls could possibly be.
Alex came down to rest on his elbows above her, pulling her into a hungry, all-encompassing kiss. “You’re mine,” he growled, before covering her mouth with his palm.
On the next thrust, she found out why.
Alex plunged into her in swift, punishing movements.
She’d barely recovered from one before the next one was on her, hard and brutal and exquisite.
Savi’s moans became continuous, her eyelids fluttering as she looked up at him, his jaw clenched and his eyes dark.
The night’s sky loomed large above him, dotted with a million glittering stars—and a brief glimpse of a barn owl flying overhead.
Heaven. This was heaven.
“This is what I’ve wanted the entire fucking time.” His voice was hot and harsh in her ear. “You spread beneath me while I fill you with my seed. Do you want to carry my baby, Savi?”
Savi nodded through a moan, her insides clenching around him. Every slide of his cock had her unravelling further, dragging through her at the perfect angle.
“Tell me you didn’t wear that fucking pessary,” he grunted, sweat beading on his face as his thrusts quickened. He was almost there, same as her. “Tell me, Savi.”
Her cries grew more incoherent by the second as heat spread beneath her navel. Lingering on the edge of ecstasy, she managed to get out the words she knew he was desperate to hear. “I didn’t.”
She had the briefest glimpse of feral, untamed triumph on his expression before her orgasm came crashing down on her.
Her voice broke as she cried out, her spine arching as sheer, rapturous bliss spread through her body.
Did she think she’d found heaven before?
Because nothing could be better than this.
“Make me pregnant,” she begged him, slowly regaining control of her shaking limbs. “Please.”
Alex seized her lips in a kiss as brutal as his thrusts, letting out a deep, guttural groan as his cock pulsed inside her. Those mesmerising shoulders of his tensed as she clung to him.
With the echoes of her own release still travelling through her body, Savi tightened her thighs around him, pressing their bodies closer together.
“Give me everything,” she whispered, her voice hoarse from her moans.
She pressed her heels into his arse, needing him deeper, until the two of them collapsed as one in a pile of heavy breaths and gentle touches.
Eventually, Alex lifted his head, cradling her cheek like she was made of glass. “Were you telling the truth?”
With the ghost of a smile touching her lips, she nodded.
His eyes widened as he beamed down at her, before descending to brush his lips against hers. This time, there was no brutality in his kiss, only a delicate reverence. “I love you,” he murmured.
“I love you too,” she breathed, running a hand through his white-and-brown hair.
“Hold on,” he advised her, sliding one hand under her back and another around her rear.
When she’d secured her grip over his shoulders, he lifted her, his cock still seated deep within her.
Bracing her against him, Alex shouldered out of his jacket before wrapping it around her, bringing with it his warm, intoxicating scent. “You must be freezing.”
In all honesty, she hadn’t noticed the temperature until he’d mentioned it. The night was mild, considering the season, but even so the temperature had dropped. “Not at all.” She sighed as his smell surrounded her on all sides. “I had someone to keep me warm.”
Alex’s adoring look had her chest blooming with love. “Let’s go into the cottage. I brought over food and fresh bedding for yo—”
Heavy footsteps stopped Alex mid-sentence.
She froze, spying movement over Alex’s shoulder. Fear speared into her at the thought of someone finding them here like this—Alex kneeling on the ground, his cock still inside her, with her naked except for an oversized jacket.
As Alex’s head furiously snapped towards the sound, Savi saw the culprit, and her lips parted.
A red stag calmly moved through the clearing, his huge, antlered head dipping every couple of steps to tear mouthfuls of grass from the ground.
Savi couldn’t take her eyes off him. He was beautiful. There was an otherworldly grace to his movements as he weaved in and out of the moonlight, his reddish coat turned a rich mahogany.
“He’s a monarch,” Alex whispered in her ear, holding her close. “His antlers have sixteen points.”
She sucked in a juddering breath, barely daring to breathe as the stag let out a haunting bellow, a cloud of misted breath erupting from his mouth. Here he was. The stag she’d always wanted to behold, in the place she called home, surrounded by the people she loved the most.
Her very own Monarch of the Glen.
Thank you so much for reading Wedding the Marquess!