10. Silas #2
I look at her. Really look at her. The freckles on her nose that she hates and I adore.
The scar on her chin from a childhood fall she barely remembers.
The way her lower lip trembles when she is trying not to cry.
The green of her eyes, clear and bright and full of every future I have ever wanted and never believed I deserved.
"I do," I say, and my voice cracks on the words, breaks open like a dam, and I do not care who hears the tremor, who sees the tears that sting my eyes and refuse to fall. "I do."
The judge turns to Selene. "Selene Brooks, do you take Silas Hayes to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, as long as you both shall live?"
She does not hesitate. She does not falter. Her voice rings out, clear and strong and sure, the voice of a woman who has known her own heart since the moment she walked through my father's door and found me waiting.
"I do."
The judge nods, smiles, closes his file with a snap that echoes in the small room. "By the power vested in me by the state of New York, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride."
I do not kiss her. I devour her. I lift her off her feet, my hands spanning her waist, and I pull her against me with a force that makes her gasp, her body pressed flush to mine, her breasts crushed against my chest, her mouth opening beneath mine with the eager surrender that has always undone me.
I kiss her until she is breathless, until she is moaning into my mouth, until the judge clears his throat and Dad makes a sound that might be a laugh and Stella turns away with her hand pressed to her mouth.
I do not stop. I kiss her until the world fades, until there is nothing but her taste and her heat and the legal, binding, irrevocable fact that she is mine now, truly mine, in the eyes of the law and the state and everyone who might try to take her from me.
When I finally set her down, her knees buckle. I catch her, lift her again, this time bridal style, her small frame light and warm and perfect in my arms. She wraps her arms around my neck, her face buried in my throat, her breath hot against my skin.
"Mr. and Mrs. Hayes," the judge says, his voice warm, amused, kind. "Congratulations. Now if you'll excuse me, I have an angry landlord to deal with."
I carry her out of the courthouse, past the clerk who smiles and waves, past Dad who nods with gruff approval, past Stella who does not meet my eyes but does not stop us either.
The parking lot is bright with morning sun now, the asphalt warming, the seagulls crying overhead in arcs of white and gray.
I spin her in the center of the empty lot, her white silk flaring around her thighs, her laughter ringing out like bells, her hair a copper halo in the sunlight.
I kiss her again, softer this time, a promise rather than a claiming, my hand spread wide over her spine, pressing her into me like I still cannot believe she is real, like I need to feel every inch of her against every inch of me to confirm that this is not a dream, not a fantasy, not the delusion of a man who has spent too many nights alone with bourbon and sawdust.
"Mrs. Hayes," I whisper against her mouth, tasting her tears, her joy, her forever. "My wife. My Selene. Mine."
"Yours," she breathes back, her fingers tangling in my hair, her legs wrapping around my waist, her body arching into mine with a hunger that has not dimmed in thirty days of separation and will not dim in thirty years of marriage. "Always yours. Only yours. Forever yours."
I carry her to the truck, settle her in the passenger seat, slide the emerald ring onto her finger beside the oak band.
It fits perfectly, the green deep and alive against her pale skin, a symbol of everything I am and everything I will give her.
She stares at it, turns her hand in the sunlight, watches the emerald catch fire and throw green sparks across the dashboard.
"It's beautiful," she whispers.
"You're beautiful," I say. "The ring is just metal and stone. You're the treasure."
She blushes, the color rising from her throat to her cheeks, and I want to pull over and take her in the truck, right here in the courthouse parking lot, with the judge watching from his window and the seagulls crying overhead.
But I don't. I have plans for her. I have a house waiting.
I have a bed I carved with my own hands and a tub I installed with my own sweat and a lifetime of mornings I intend to spend waking up beside her.
I drive us home.
The Hamptons streets blur past, familiar and transformed, every storefront and street sign and hydrangea bush suddenly significant because she is beside me and we are married and the world has acknowledged what we have known since the first moment.
The construction site appears around the bend, but it is not a construction site anymore.
It is a house. Our house. Walls finished, roof sealed, windows installed, the exterior painted a soft gray that matches the Atlantic on cloudy days.
I park in the gravel driveway, help her from the truck, lift her into my arms again because I cannot stop touching her, cannot stop carrying her, cannot stop proving to myself that she is here and she is mine and she is not going anywhere.
The front door is oak, heavy, solid, with a brass knocker I forged in Richard's workshop. I kick it open, carry her across the threshold, and she gasps at what she sees.
The hardwood floors gleam, still smelling faintly of stain and sawdust, the grain of the oak rich and warm in the morning light streaming through the windows I installed with my own hands.
The living room is sparse, a couch, a rug, a fireplace waiting for its first fire.
But the kitchen is complete, the island big enough for both of us, the cabinets I built from reclaimed barn wood, the stove gleaming and new.
And the bedroom.
I carry her down the short hall, push open the door with my shoulder, and set her on her feet in the center of the room.
The bed dominates the space, massive and solid, carved from a single oak tree I felled myself, the headboard etched with our initials entwined in a pattern of leaves and vines.
The mattress is new, covered in linen sheets the color of cream, soft and inviting and smelling of lavender and new beginnings.
The windows face the Atlantic, floor to ceiling, the view uninterrupted, the ocean stretching to the horizon in shades of blue and gray and gold.
The claw foot tub I installed sits in the corner of the en suite bathroom, white porcelain, big enough for two, filled with steaming water and scattered with rose petals I bought at the market yesterday while she slept.
She turns in a slow circle, her hand pressed to her mouth, her eyes wide and wet and full of a wonder that makes every blister, every splinter, every sleepless night worth the cost.
"You did this," she whispers. "All of this. For me. For us."
"For us," I confirm. "Every nail. Every board. Every window. Every stroke of the plane and every sanding of the grain. I built this house with my hands, and I built it for you. For our children. For our mornings and our nights and every moment in between."
She turns to me, her white silk glowing in the sunlight, her hair a copper halo, her eyes green and endless and full of my future. "Show me," she says, her voice low, hungry, the voice that has undone me from the first moment I heard it. "Show me everything. Show me what it means to be your wife."
I cross to her. Slow. Deliberate. Every step a promise.
I reach for the strap of her silk slip, slide it from her shoulder, watch the fabric pool at her feet like water.
She stands naked before me, small and perfect and marked with the history of our love, every bruise and flush and imprint of my possession a testament to what we have survived.
I kneel before her. Press my mouth to the faded bruise on her hip, the one I left the night she ran to me through the dark, the night I claimed her against the concrete and knew I would never let her go.
I kiss the flush on her throat, the marks from my teeth and my lips and my endless hunger for her skin.
I trace the swell of her breasts with my tongue, heavy and aching, the nipples tight and dark and begging for my mouth.
She moans, her hands finding my hair, her fingers tangling, pulling, guiding me. "Silas," she breathes. "Daddy. Please."
I stand. Undress slowly, letting her watch, letting her see what she has married, what she has claimed, what she has grown to accommodate through pain and patience and love.
My shirt comes off first, revealing the tattoos, the scars, the muscle earned through years of swinging hammers and carrying lumber.
My jeans. My briefs. And then I am naked before her, ten inches of thick curved cock straining upward, the head flushed and wet, veins running along the shaft like rivers, my balls heavy and drawn tight with the need that has been building since the moment I slid the ring onto her finger.
She stares, her lips parted, her breath coming fast and shallow. She reaches for me, wraps her small hand around my girth, her fingers not meeting, and I groan, the sound torn from somewhere deep and primal.
"See what you do to me?" I growl, my voice rough, broken, the voice of a man who has waited forever and is finally, finally home. "See what my wife does to me?"
She nods, her eyes glazed, her tongue darting out to wet her lips. "I want you inside me," she whispers. "I want to feel you. All of you. Forever."