Epilogue - Livy
“I’m not your wife yet,” Livy threw back, though the cheekiness in her tone was weak considering she seemed to have melted into a puddle of mush. Where had all her bones and muscles gone? She was a boneless, languid lump.
Dark green eyes flashed, and Derek bared his teeth. “Good as,” he bit out.
She let out a breathless chuckle and lifted a shaky hand to cup his face.
“I am, Derek. It may not be official until a few hours from now.” She slid her hand down to rest over his heart.
“But I am very much your wife.” Her fingers flexed, reveling in the strong pulse beneath her palm. “And you, my husband.”
Derek swallowed hard. “Your husband,” he said tightly, the emotion he so often struggled with threatening to surface.
He settled between her thighs, running his length over her in teasing slides. Their breaths hitched. He leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss on her lips. “Your husband,” he whispered.
She smiled against his lips, then he pulled back. They simply stared at each other, just as they’d done when she’d first entered his chamber. Breathing. Being.
Lost in him.
Not lost.
Found.
“You know,” she murmured, drifting her fingers through his ebony waves.
“When I stumbled upon you in that salon at the Chesterfield Ball…and recognized who you were, how you could help my cause…I thought the odds had fallen in my favor.” Her gaze flicked to his.
“I never would have guessed it would lead us to this moment. A man who’d sworn off marriage, and a woman deemed unworthy of it.
The probability that we’d end up here... ”
Those forest-green irises searched hers. “Essentially zero,” he whispered.
“It wasn’t something I could ever have predicted.”
He lowered until his nose grazed hers at the same time he notched his cock at her entrance. “Pure chance.”
“Serendipity.”
He eased into her, his gaze fixed on hers, unwavering.
Her mouth dropped open as the sensation of being filled took hold of her.
Her head was seconds from falling back, her eyes fluttering closed, but his hand was there, sifting into her hair, forcing her gaze to remain locked with him. Eyes on him.
“Stay with me,” he whispered. Something flickered in his stare—a vulnerability glimmering in shades of green.
“Always.”
He moved in slow, steady slides that had pleasure prickling over her skin.
Each one ended with him grinding into her, an extra flash of heat.
It was just enough to keep the desire at the surface, but not enough for it to spill over.
More than anything, it was what was in those irises that had her heart a cacophony in her chest, sending her blood soaring.
It was like he saw right through her, into the heart of who she was, into that place where a person hid all their fears, all their wounds, all their flaws.
He wanted that woman. All parts of her. Just as she wanted all parts of him.
She hadn’t thought she could feel more than she already did for this man, hadn’t thought she could get closer than she’d already been, but this, what was happening between them right now, it was more.
It was closer. It was deeper. It was each of them stripped down to the barest parts of themselves and giving that to the other. A sharing of souls.
Derek's eyes shimmered, a stunning sea of green. His teeth sank into his bottom lip, nostrils flaring, and she reached up to cup his face, tried to let him know she understood the enormity of this moment. She felt it too.
Two people nobody wanted.
Found in each other a place where they belonged.
An unsteady breath fled him, and his harsh swallow rippled beneath her hands. “Every. Color.” The words were scraped out, raw and ragged like they’d been torn from somewhere deep inside. His lips pressed tight, mouth blanching at the edges, and his thrusts picked up pace.
“Every color,” he rasped. “I love every one of your colors.”
The muscles in her face tightened, and she blinked furiously, determined not to lose sight of him past the tears that threatened.
Her heart drummed in her throat, in her ears, her chest filling with the same heady feeling that was building lower.
She couldn’t take it any longer. It was too much, the emotions so potent she was drowning in them. She needed his lips on hers.
She yanked him down to her, their mouths crashing together.
His hips slammed into hers, and she met him thrust for thrust, their bodies writhing in a desperate drive to touch every part of each other.
Their fevered kiss matched their movements, their tongues tangling in a kiss that tasted of tears and tenderness.
That overwhelming feeling building inside her grew, spreading through her, shaking through her arms to her fingertips, down her legs to her toes.
It was coming for her, going to consume her.
Consume them. And as they melded together in every way, entwined bodies, entwined hearts, they fell over the edge together.
They became infinite—a single unbroken whole.
Forever together.