Chapter 37 #3
As my vows based off traditional Celtic blessings ended, a tingling surge of heat rushed from my balls, and Alizé tightened around me, her nails digging into my back.
We toppled over the cliff together, and I collapsed to my knees to her rocking against me and my ears ringing from the strongest orgasm of my life.
I gripped her tighter to me, our foreheads touching, her eyes lidded and satiated.
“I’m never letting you go,” I whispered. “Don’t ask me to.”
“Were those…?”
I nodded and wiped away a lone tear rolling down her cheek. “I gave you no vows on our wedding day. I’ve made them to you today.”
That tear turned into many, and they poured down her face faster than I could sweep them away.
“Oi, what’s wrong, síbhean? They not to your liking?”
“No, they are. They’re everything I’ve ever wanted to hear.” Her face stayed buried against my shoulder, her tears soaking through my shirt, her sobs rocking her into me, my cock still inside her.
“Then why’re you crying, sweetheart?”
“Because…I’m waiting for another morning like this one to happen. For the next time you toss me aside.”
I pulled her off me and leveled her higher for us to be eye to eye.
“Never. Never again, you hear me?”
“Then why? Why only now?”
I shut my eyes, a shudder of frustration tearing through me.
“You remember what I told you? The serial killer?”
She nodded, and with a deep breath, I gave her the full disclosure with all the details my brothers and I had about the Love Knot Killer—her tactics, her motives, her victims.
“It wasn’t you I was against. It wasn’t you I didn’t want. It was the lack of choice. It was the power LK held over me and my refusal to give it to her. It was the certainty of another woman’s demise, where my only part to play was my sex drive.”
“Don’t lie.” She poked my chest. “It was my family’s money, too, wasn’t it? You wanted to keep your cash cow alive.”
I snorted. There was no way I was admitting to that, or even thinking it. “You’re worth more to me than millions.”
She looked unimpressed, but I snagged her closer by the nape until only a hair’s breadth divided us. My gaze anchored hers, and the warmth of her breath seeped into my face against the chill of the afternoon.
“Now you listen, and you listen good. Nothing and no one means more to me than you. You moor me. You force me to unravel the restraints LK’s tied me in for decades and to do better.
You don’t let me burrow in a gutter of my own making.
You drag me out, for better or worse, and every day you make me realize that fighting with everything I have makes living more worthwhile than I ever thought possible. ”
Lips pinched into a soft smile and eyes shimmering with unshed tears, she framed my face in her palms. “Tell me you mean it.”
“I do.”
She bobbed her head. “We’ll fight her together. I won’t leave you to deal with her on your own.”
“You’re not ever leaving me.”
She giggled, the sound reassuring against the heaviness of the conversation. “Perhaps I should be making vows to you too.”
I cinched her waist tighter and growled hungrily. “I like the sound of that.”
Fighting me, holding me, fucking me, loving me, I’d take this woman however she came to me.
“Let me go a second.”
I did so reluctantly, but she scooted a foot back and sat on her heels. Her hands gathered mine. The touch was light and delicate, almost fidgety, a complete contrast to the strength she normally displayed.
A flush tinged her neck and cheeks, and a timid smile twitched across her face. She pressed the back of one hand to her cheek.
“What’s wrong with me?” She tittered. “I feel like that girl I once was, giddy and hopeful.”
“Nothing wrong with that, as long as it’s with me.”
She chuckled, a twinkle in her eye.
“Cillian O’Leary, I vow to help you through the darkness in your life.
To stand beside you in every trial we’ll face and keep you happy.
To guide you when you need it, follow when necessary, hold your hand through your worst days, scold you when you go too far”—I snickered—“stalk you if you ever neglect me, and I swear never to poison you, despite how much you might irritate me some days. But most of all, I swear to love you with all my heart until the end.”
“Happy until the end.”
“Happy,” she repeated.
We met in a kiss that put to shame all others we’d shared.
It was both a confession and a promise, heady and intoxicating, wrapped in a pledge of more to come.
For whatever time we had together, I’d make the most of it with no regrets and no guilt.
This wasn’t something that anyone could steal from me unless I let them.
Gut twisted tight with nerves, I dug out the engagement ring I’d meant to propose with and held it out between us.
Logically, we were married. She had no reason to refuse, especially after our exchange of vows, but I felt suspended in time as her eyes jumped between the diamond and me.
My skin suddenly felt too tight. I cleared my throat and slowly slipped it on her finger. It was a perfect fit, just like her.