Chapter 29
GAGE
Isurvived the ceremony without losing control.
I survived the photos without dragging my wife behind the nearest tree.
I even got through her laughing with our families while her thumb kept brushing over my ring, reminding me each damn time that the whole fucking world finally knows she’s mine.
But now we have ten minutes before we’re expected at the reception. Before the toasts and the dancing and all the shit that’s going to keep me from getting her alone for hours. And I’m not sure I’ll survive these ten minutes without breaking the last bit of restraint I’ve got left.
I follow Amelia into the tent I had set up for this moment. She stops inside and her breath catches in that soft little gasp I fucking live for.
Her high’s mostly worn off now, but the afterglow still clings to her edges.
She’s flushed, soft in that way she gets when her walls are down.
The fog in her eyes is clearing, but I can still see the last haze of it.
She hasn’t fully reentered her body yet, still floating, just a little.
And I don’t want to pull her out of that softness.
I want to meet her there and give her a safe place to land when she finally does come all the way back down.
She glances around at the softly lit space before turning to me with wide eyes and a smile that ruins me all over again. “This is magic, Gage. Actual magic.”
Twinkle lights stretch across the ceiling, giving the kind of low light that makes everything feel closer.
Quieter. There’s a velvet loveseat in the corner, with a soft throw draped across the back.
A small table holds a tray of chocolate-covered strawberries and her favorite champagne, the bottle chilling in a metal bucket
The tent walls are lined with plush fabric in her favorite color.
She calls it vintage mauve. I call it the-shade-I-had-to-audition-against-nine-others-because-the-rest-looked-too-fucking-purple.
It took three rounds of samples and an argument with Lucy, my assistant, to get it right.
I’ve now burned the damn hex code into my memory like I would a classified security clearance.
There’s music playing quietly, something from the playlist she made for late nights in our library. It’s half classical, half witchy mood songs that have somehow rewired my brain to think of as foreplay.
I can’t take my eyes off her while she trails her fingers over the fabric and across the seat. While she breathes it all in.
I created this space because I wanted her to have somewhere private to catch her breath after the ceremony and photos. I don’t care if she wants to spend ten minutes in here or two hours. I just want her to feel every second of it in her bones.
This means it had to be perfect for her. Warm enough and stocked with everything she might want or not even realize she wanted until it was already in her hand.
There’s a bottle of still water because she always forgets to hydrate when she’s running on adrenaline.
A little pot of honey beside the champagne in case she wants to swirl some in. Something I’ve only seen her do once but know she loved.
The fancy salted caramel truffles she devours in the bath after long days.
Her favorite snacks in a basket, just in case she’s hungry.
I packed in every practical thing I could think of.
Deodorant. Breath mints. Bobby pins. Hair elastics. Makeup for touch-ups. Slippers. Socks. Eye drops. Hand cream.
I had Lucy track down every supplier of Amelia’s favorite discontinued lip balm until we found a warehouse with some left. That’s here too.
There’s a heating pad beneath the loveseat. Painkillers on the table. Her favorite cashmere wrap folded neatly on the seat in case the heater isn’t warm enough. Or if she just wants to feel it against her skin.
And—though Lucy rolled her eyes and said it was too over the top, even for me—I insisted on the lavender essential oil diffuser. The one that always helps Amelia breathe a little easier.
I didn’t choose any of this for the luxury. I chose it because I know my wife. I know what calms her. What helps her find herself again when she needs to.
“Oh my god,” she says when she discovers the truffles. “You would get so lucky tonight if I didn’t have my period.”
My brain doesn’t turn to filth immediately. It takes a second. Two, maybe. Because I wasn’t thinking about getting her naked in here. I was thinking about water. Advil. Somewhere to put her feet up.
But now I’m thinking about her mouth.
“You’re trying to kill me,” I groan as I move closer.
She pops one of the truffles into her mouth, eyes fluttering shut, and moans.
Fuck me.
The sound hits low. Too fucking low for the options I’ve got right now.
“Jesus, Amelia.”
I crowd her, backing her against the fabric wall of the tent, one hand on her waist, one in her hair. “You moan like that, and you really think I’m not going to lose my fucking mind?”
Her eyes flare with heat. Her hands come to my jacket. “It’s not my fault they’re so good.”
“No,” I say, lowering my mouth to her neck, kissing my way up it and losing myself in her perfume. “It’s your fault I’m thinking about that mouth wrapped around something else.”
She breathes in sharply. I feel it all the way down.
“You keep looking at me like that—” I graze my thumb along her jaw “—you’re not making it out of this tent without me marking you.”
Her fingers tighten. Her body presses in, every part of her begging without words.
And then she looks up at me, fire in her eyes. “Stop wasting time, Gage. Just ruin me already.”
My control snaps.
I crush my mouth to hers. No patience. No softness. Just everything I’ve been holding back all fucking day.
Her arms wrap around my neck as our bodies come together, my hand in her hair, my mouth devouring hers like it’s the only way to breathe.
She moans into the kiss, and this time, I don’t even try to survive that sound.
I deepen the kiss instantly—tongue, teeth, mine—dragging her bottom lip between my teeth, not even caring if it bruises her. I fucking want her marked. I want every fucker to see me all over her.
Her back arches off the tent wall, chasing me. Like she’s starved for me. When she moans again, I growl into her mouth, grip her hair harder, and swallow every goddamn sound she gives me. It’s as if all my restraint today was fuel and I’m finally allowed to burn.
She tastes like chocolate and trouble I’d beg for.
And I would fucking beg for her.
Amelia gave me her full truth today. All her possessiveness. All her jealousy. All her obsessive, unhinged devotion. All for me. And fuck if that doesn’t make me want to bury myself so deep inside her that she forgets she was ever anything but mine.
I reach a hand under the skirt of her dress and grip the back of her thigh so I can pull her leg up around me. I’m not gentle. Not when I’m running on this kind of pure, feral need.
“I’ve been holding back all fucking day,” I growl against her lips, voice fraying. “And then you say that to me?”
I kiss her again, rough and claiming.
“You really think I can hear you beg like that and keep my hands off you?”
Another kiss. I’m fucking insatiable for her. Desperate for her.
“You don’t know what you’re doing to me, Princess.”
I grind against her, my grip tightening on her thigh. “I’m hanging on by a fucking thread.”
She whimpers, and . . . Christ.
“Fuck, Amelia,” I groan as she rolls her hips against me. “You feel that? You feel what you do to me?”
My hand slides higher up her thigh as she deepens our kiss, her fingers digging into my skin. And fuck me, then I’m thinking about all the ways I could make her come when my brain finally catches up to what my body’s trying to do.
“Fuck,” I rasp, ending the kiss. “You’ve got your period.”
She exhales hard, lips swollen, eyes wide. “You just remembered that now?” She’s not mad. Not even close. She sounds as frustrated as I am.
“It took every cell in my brain fighting my dick to get there,” I grit out.
Her laugh is breathless. “Well, I didn’t want you to stop, so there’s that too.”
I kiss her one more time, softer now. Slower. No heat. Just that soul-deep connection I only get with her, knowing I’m not alone in the world anymore. Then I force myself to step back.
“Oh god,” she says suddenly. “Your lipstick.”
“What?”
She starts laughing. “Your face, Gage. You have my lipstick everywhere.”
I don’t give a fuck about lipstick right now, but she’s coming toward me with her thumb out, ready to wipe it off.
I catch her wrist gently. “Leave it.”
“You want to walk into the reception looking like you just—” she gestures vaguely at my face “—like you just got mauled in a cosmetics aisle?”
I grin, tugging her in close. “I want to walk in looking like I just kissed my wife until she forgot her own name.”
She rolls her eyes, but her cheeks flush and her smile goes soft in that way that fucking floors me. “Let me fix you.”
“In a minute.” I tighten my arm around her. “I just want this for a second longer.”
Her hands slide under my jacket. “Today is the best day of my life,” she murmurs.
I arch a brow. “Even though you were stoned for half of it?”
She smiles. “I mean, I wish that hadn’t happened, but yes, even with all of that.
” She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth for a second and hits me with a fucking filthy look before saying, “I got to say “I do” to a man who is obsessed with me, feral for me, and who still eye-fucks my boobs in public like he can’t get enough of me.
And I got to do that with my family and your family loving on me.
” Her eyes flash with mischief. “Also, your mom loves me. And she and your sisters-in-law gave me all the hot tips for how to survive our honeymoon and then our marriage.”
“Do I even want to know?”
Her grin is wide and I fucking love that look on her. My family making her happy.