Chapter 24
Chapter twenty-four
With My Body, I Thee Worship
Bash
The Mysterious Deep teaches symbiosis better than any scholar could: the remora and the great shark, the anemone and her clownfish—each thriving only because the other does. On land, they call such balance by another name: a well-matched marriage.
— The Mysterious Deep: A Comprehensive Understanding
My wife tasted like cinnamon and coffee, and I couldn’t think of a better fate than to drown in her. Two seconds ago, I was nursing concerns that she regretted her reckless plan, but I should have known better. Rosamund was a storm, and I was helpless in the wake of her.
She murmured her approval as I slid my tongue against her lips like I’d wanted to back in the church.
Her hands tightened around my neck, and there was a hunger in the way the world narrowed down to just her.
Unable to give a single damn reason why I shouldn’t, I wrapped my arm around her and lifted her somewhat clumsily onto my lap.
These were the moments I hated my wooden arm more than anything.
Because the need to touch her like I used to was burned into me. I was half of what I was.
“Eyes on me, Husband,” she said, cutting through my self-loathing.
As I always did, I obeyed her. Her green eyes shone against the white of her high-necked dress, chosen to hide the ink across her chest. A mark that both thrilled and terrified me. She lifted her hands and held my face between them, red lips swollen from my efforts.
“To have and to hold from this day forward,” she whispered.
And so she pulled me into her shores, helpless to withstand her siren’s call.
“For better or worse,” I answered.
Her smile was a light in the darkest night, and I had the distinct feeling that if I were ever lost, it would call me home to her.
When she kissed me this time, it was slow, deliberate, like we were sealing our souls to the words.
I dug my hand into her hair and held her against me, refusing to let her escape. I wanted her.
She nipped at my lip, and it was unexpected enough that I released some of the pressure against her, earning a wild grin from her. Like this was all a game, and I wasn’t burning with the need to be inside her.
“For richer, for poorer,” she said.
“I’m significantly poorer since you looted a decade of wealth,” I said, not irritated in the least.
Rose shifted her hips, rubbing against me and sending a shot of desperation through me. God, this woman would kill me yet.
“In sickness and health.” I ground out.
Her laugh was a melody, and with that, I calculated how best to destroy her damned dress if it meant I got to taste her.
Burying her head into my shoulder, she pressed a kiss to my neck, gentle and loving.
“Say the next part,” she whispered.
And just like that, we were back on the Wraith in the middle of a storm, kraken tentacles all around us. The moment I should have told her what she was to me. When I should have confessed how thoroughly she’d ruined me.
I grabbed her chin with my finger and thumb and pulled her away so she could understand that I wasn’t lying to her. That I would not lie to her. Her eyes that had been sparkling only moments before, shimmered with emotion. A hunger in them that could not be satiated with touch alone.
“To love and to cherish,” I said.
She swallowed hard.
“Till death us do part,” she finished.
It was true enough now. I’d follow her right into the sea. Our souls were intertwined now, and where she went, so did I.
I lowered my mouth to hers and sealed our fates with the way we moved together. Always wanting, never satiated. I needed her. Carriage and dresses be damned. Of a similar mind, Rose began pulling up her dress and twisted her body so she was straddling God and me; she was perfect.
The ache I felt was searing me now, desperate to feel her skin against mine. Dragging my teeth along her bottom lip, I breathed her in like she was a prayer. Her answering moan was all I needed to survive.
The carriage jerked to a halt, and Rose began to fall back, but I held her tight against me, willing the carriage to start again, but it didn’t. Instead, the telltale sound of footsteps on gravel made me wish I’d brought my pistol.
Half ready to murder the innocent driver for having the audacity to do his job and concerned about what rumors the state of us would spread, I let Rose slide off me and right her dress.
My sudden bad mood was somewhat appeased by the state of her hair, which was back to being unruly as it was always meant to be.
The small smear of crimson around her mouth was also uniquely satisfying.
Squinting her eyes, she lifted her finger to her mouth from where she sat opposite me. Something between a frown and a smile on her face.
“You have rouge on your mouth,” she whispered, before glancing at the door.
I enjoyed watching her squirm as the driver opened the door.
Her darting eyes gave away the worry that only a London socialite would harbor.
After all, servants had a habit of talking.
Rose was more confident now, and while I loved that about her, I also couldn’t help but appreciate this version as well.
I subtly scratched at the corner of my mouth as I ducked out of the carriage, but as much as Rose tried to fix her hair, it was in a state of disarray that came from more than a bumpy carriage ride. I offered her my hand, and her grip was a vice around mine as we walked up the steps of Fairview.
A necessary evil and one my father insisted on. An attempt at gaining back power over me, over us. If I wanted to maintain that I was his long-lost nephew, he would attend the wedding and host the ball after. He knew we would agree, and he gloated over it well enough.
Servants stood outside Fairview, ready to greet us, but I ignored them and quickened my step away from their knowing gazes. I’d only been to this hellhole once, but I knew exactly where I was going.
What we began in the carriage ride was thrumming with every beat of my heart, and it was all I could do not to pick her up and throw her over my shoulder.
“Where are we-?”
Her voice was a caress, and it broke my good intentions right in half the moment we stepped into the ballroom, where servants buzzed around placing florals, chairs, and tables for tonight’s party.
I stopped and turned to her, bending just enough that my arm would support her, and threw my wife over my shoulder.
Her yelp was uncommonly pleasing amidst the echo of the room.
“Have you lost your mind? People will talk!” she hissed into my ear.
“I don’t care,” I said.
And god help me, I didn’t. I barely noticed the people around us as I strode through the room and down the hall. I’d warned her many times before what I was; if she didn’t listen, it was her own fault at this point.
Luckily, the door to the library was open, and I didn’t have to set her down. She was saying something, but I kicked the door down before setting her down on the oak desk at the center, unconcerned about the papers that went scattering.
Her eyes were fire, and her cheeks were the brightest crimson as she glared at me.
“Have you lost your mind?” she shouted.
“Rosamund,” I said, tension in every fiber of my being.
She swallowed hard, and all her anger turned to something entirely different as her eyes dropped to my mouth.
“Yes?” she whispered.
I counted to three as I ran my eyes over her, like a painting in her high-necked lace dress and veil half askew, before I pinned her eyes with mine. Lest she think I was anything other than deadly serious.
“I’m going to fuck you right here, right now.”
“Oh god,” she said, her mouth falling open.
I may have offended her sheltered socialite side, but my wife was born of the sea and was a tempest in herself. She threw herself off the desk and turned her back to me, showcasing an alarming number of small buttons.
“If you break this dress, I’ll be very put out,” she said. “Get to work, Captain.”
The grin she threw me over her shoulder was both infuriating and the sexiest thing I’d ever witnessed.
A shame I hadn’t brought the hook extension for my arm, as it would have made this task easier.
I would just have to remember that patience was a virtue, as they liked to say.
I leaned over, pressing a kiss against her warm neck, and relished the sharp intake of her breath.
With that, I began the grueling labor of undoing button by button with one hand.
Luckily, I’d always been fairly decent with my hands.
“How should I take you, Rose?” I asked, two buttons in.
She shifted her body, foiling my attempt at the third.
“Hold still, or we will be here all night,” I commanded. “Answer the question.”
“It’s hard not to move when you say things like that,” she whined.
Stubborn woman.
“Maybe right here across the desk. I'll bend you over and watch how you take me so well.” I said.
“Seas,” Rose panted.
“Are you wet already for me? Are you thinking about me pinning you against a bookshelf and fucking you hard enough to knock the books off?”
“Well, now I am.”
How many buttons could one dress have? I’d fought sea monsters with more ease than this.
Rose reached one hand down and began pulling up her dress, and I saw her intent well enough. I leaned down, pinning her with my body and wrapping my hand around her neck, my mouth against her ear.
“If I have to wait, so do you, Princess, or you can let me rip the dress open,” I said.
“Absolutely not.” Her voice was perfectly strained.
“Then be patient.”
I ran my tongue along her ear, and she shivered, a half-coherent plea coming from her.
When she begrudgingly placed both hands on the desk, I resumed my work, only halfway through.
“Good girl,” I murmured and watched her fists clench.