by J. N. Baker
The heat from the nearby fireplace danced across my skin, but it was nothing compared to the delicious burn Josh’s presence sparked within me. A burn I wasn’t currently feeling. I scanned the room only to confirm Josh wasn’t in it. Maybe he’d gone back to the dining hall to join the party. Or maybe he went on a walk.
Or maybe Baldric’s Mr. Hyde side came back out and he decided to kill Josh despite what he’d said.
I pushed away my worry, believing that, even in Baldric’s darkest moments, he wouldn’t allow himself to stoop so low as to be like Edward. Not unless it was regarding William. I’d have to make sure Baldric didn’t harm a hair on Annie’s head in his desperate need for revenge. None of this was her fault. Hell, she didn’t even want William.
Telling myself that Josh would eventually return, I moved farther into the room, heading for his big bed. The sheets were disheveled as if he’d been tossing and turning, one of his shirts thrown across the footboard. Without a second thought, I stripped out of my clothes and slipped his shirt over my head. It hung from my body loosely, the hem stretching just past the curve of my butt. I crawled into bed, pulling the sheets and blankets around me, enveloping myself in Josh’s masculine scent.
I inhaled deeply, the familiar scent of amber and sandalwood telling me I was home. It calmed me. And yet, there was a natural spice to it that was all man—glorious, sexy, powerful man. It had my toes curling as I burrowed deeper into the bed. How could he soothe me and yet set my entire body on fire all in the same breath?
I tried to stay awake long enough for Josh to come back to his room, fighting my heavy lids. But, eventually, the stress of the day caught up to me and I let sleep pull me under. And, despite Josh’s absence, it was the most restful sleep I’d had in months. Maybe years.
Being in Josh’s bed made me feel safe in a way I hadn’t for a very long time.
I wasn’t sure what woke me first, the metal lock on the door being flipped or the way the bed dipped as someone climbed onto it. All I knew was I was wide awake, my body on fire in a way I didn’t think I’d ever get used to. At least, I hoped I wouldn’t.
“Finding you asleep in my bed. That’s how it always should have been.”
I rolled into Josh’s arms, breathing him in as he wrapped me in his warm embrace.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” I said, pressing a kiss to his sternum. “I was worried when you weren’t here.”
Josh’s hands tightened on me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think he would’ve let you leave the hall so early. I couldn’t bear to sit there any longer and staying in my room waiting was driving me insane, so I went for a walk. I came back when it sounded like the party was finally over.”
He ran the back of his hand down my side, following the curve of my hip until he reached the bottom of his shirt, his fingers slipping under the material to cup my bare ass. “But I have to say, the small amount of time we lost together is almost worth it to see you stretched out on my bed, in my shirt,” he added with a growl, his eyes trailing down my body, making me squirm against him.
Growly Josh really did things to me.
But even those things couldn’t keep my mind off the reality we were facing.
“I don’t want to marry him,” I blurted out, extinguishing some of the flames building between us.
Josh’s hand stilled. “I know. But it’s just a title, it means nothing.” I wasn’t sure which of us he was trying to convince.
“It should be you,” I whispered, clinging to him. “It always should have been you. That title is yours.”
His chuckle caught me off guard, being about the last reaction I would have expected during this conversation.
“Did you just propose to me?” he asked, the humor draining from his voice, last word coming out in rumble.
“I—”
He caught my tongue with his, cutting me off in a way that had me moaning into his mouth. I arched against him as he rolled on top of me, savoring the feel of his hard body over mine. Just when I was about to tear through both of our clothing, he pulled away from me.
“That’s my job too,” Josh said, taking my confusion up a notch.
“What are you talking—”
The question died on my lips as he dragged me from the bed until I was standing in front of him. Josh cupped my face in his big hand, his thumb stroking my cheek. The look in his eyes had me struggling for breath.
“Zoe, I have liked you since we were kids. I have loved you since we were teenagers, and I find there is no word powerful enough for the way I feel about you now. You consume me, give me life. Your very existence is what keeps my heart beating. My world without you would be nothing—I would be nothing. You are a part of me. You always have been and you always will be. I am yours completely, my body, my heart, my soul. Be mine.”
My jaw popped open as Josh dropped down on one knee, taking my hands in his. “Marry me, Zoe,” he said and I felt a tear race down my cheek. “Marry me, right here, tonight. I want you to be mine in every sense of the word. Mine and only mine for the rest of our lives.”
I fell to my knees, wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling his lips to mine. “Yes,” I said between kisses. “A thousand times, yes.”
Josh stood, taking me with him. My hold on him tightened, legs wrapping around his narrow waist as I claimed his mouth again. Baldric couldn’t hold that title if Josh already had it. And while it was only that, just a title that didn’t define our love, I still wanted Josh to have it. It was always meant to be his. Just like me.
But the fairy-tale moment only lasted long enough for me to remember the nightmare we were living in. I broke the kiss. “How?”
We couldn’t exactly find a minister or ordained whatever in my soon-to-be fake husband’s kingdom. And, again, our world was no fairy tale. We weren’t going to go prancing through the dark countryside and randomly run across a minister holed up in some half-demolished church, just waiting to marry us.
Josh smiled softly, pressing his forehead to mine. “Nothing about our lives is normal. Why should this be any different? Besides,” he added, fire lighting his icy eyes, “you are mine. God made you just for me. We don’t need a ‘real’ ceremony to make fate official. We’ll pave our own damn path to happiness.”
And then he was kissing me again, fiercely, passionately. He wasn’t just claiming my mouth, he was claiming whatever soul I had left.
He didn’t take me to the bed as I’d hoped. Instead, he pulled off a couple of the plush blankets and dragged them over to the fireplace, his lips never releasing mine. Keeping one hand on my back, he laid the blankets out in front of the fireplace before setting me down on the soft furs, blanketing my body with his own. The heat from his body was far greater than anything the roaring fire beside us could have ever produced.
“I, Josh Addams,” he said, placing a feather-soft kiss to my temple, “take you, Zoe Brooks, as my soul mate and my wife.” My heart skipped a beat at my name—my real name—falling from his lips. This was right in so many ways. This was us.
His lips traveled across my cheek and over my nose. He was cherishing me and it made my blackened heart squeeze in my chest.
“To have, to hold, and to cherish from this day until long after the world around us is gone.” He kissed my other cheek and down my jaw. “I will be yours through death and destruction, the best of times and the worst. I will hold your hand through every sorrow and I will find the light with you, even when it feels like there is none.”
Josh sat up, pulling me with him so he could grab the bottom of his shirt that I wore. Slowly, he tugged the fabric up, his knuckles brushing against my skin as he lifted the shirt over my head, leaving me sitting naked before him.
“I promise to love you unconditionally, to support you, protect you, honor you, and respect you as long as we both shall live. This is my vow to you, today, tomorrow, and for the rest of eternity. You are mine.”
I felt so human, tears streaking my cheeks, as the love within me
swelled to new heights. Was it really possible to love someone this much? It didn’t seem real.
I crawled into his lap, hands fisting in his shirt. The clothes ratio between us was incredibly skewed in his favor and it was time to remedy that. My eyes never left his as I pulled his shirt off.
“I, Zoe Brooks, take you, Josh Addams, as my soul mate and my husband,” I said, repeating his vows back to him as I pressed my lips to his neck. “To have and to hold from this day until eternity itself ends.”
My lips moved down to his chest, leaving wet kisses across his sternum and down his chiseled stomach, loving every shudder that rippled through him. “I will be yours through apocalypse and salvation, through the good and the bad. I will stand beside you through our darkest times and celebrate with you through our brightest.”
I climbed back up his body to meet his burning gaze. “I promise to love you with every fiber of my being. To support you, defend you, honor you, and respect you as long as we both shall live. This is my vow to you, today, tomorrow, and for the rest of eternity. You are mine.”
Josh’s mouth reclaimed mine and I was positive the entire room was on fire, and I was ready to burn. I’d burn with Josh until forever ended, and all the forevers to come.
Josh…my husband. Baldric could never take that away from me now.
Reaching between us, I worked to undo his pants. The second I popped the button and unzipped them, Josh leaned back so I could yank them off his legs. And, Lord have mercy, he wasn’t wearing any underwear, his ever-impressive erection springing free. I was starting to realize commando was a new norm for him and I was here for it.
I wrapped my fingers around his thick cock, pumping my hand up once and earning a groan from Josh.
“We have to be quiet,” he said, even as another groan slipped past his lips. I would never get sick of the effect I had on him.
Before I could continue my ministrations, Josh flipped us so I was sprawled out on the fur blankets beneath him. His eyes burned into me, drinking up every inch of exposed flesh.
“My angel,” he whispered, “burn with me, from here until forever.”
“And forever after that,” I rasped, arching into him as his hand molded to my breast, setting me ablaze with his touch.
He leaned down, his lips finding mine before they started their journey downward. He trailed wet kisses down my neck and over my breasts, paying special attention to each nipple, sucking and nipping until I was writhing beneath him with my hands fisted in his hair. Just when I thought he’d get me to that glorious peak with my breasts alone—something I didn’t think possible—he released me and I gasped at the sudden loss of his hot mouth over my sensitive flesh.
Almost immediately, he was moving downward, over my stomach and to my hips. His teeth scraped against my upper thigh as he slipped a single finger into me, my hips bucking in response. My head rocked back against the soft blankets, biting my lip to keep from crying out as he added a second finger, working me higher and impossibly higher as he kissed everywhere but where I wanted him.
“Josh, please,” I found myself begging.
I felt him grin against my thigh and, before I could make myself a widow, his mouth descended on my core, that wicked tongue swirling around my swollen bud before sucking it into his mouth, drawing my orgasm out of me with expert skill.
I saw stars. Hell, I might have even seen the goddamned sun.
In an instant, Josh’s mouth was on mine, silencing the scream I could no longer contain, his fingers continuing to pump into me, wringing out every last drop of pleasure from me. The taste of myself on his lips, the fervent kisses he was giving me…it was just too damn good. I was climbing before I could completely come down.
Josh slipped his fingers out of me and lined himself up to replace them with something much bigger. The tip of his cock pressed at my entrance, and inch by delicious inch, he sheathed himself deeply inside me, filling and stretching me until we were burning as one, the flames of his blackened soul dancing with mine.
Using his arms to keep the bulk of his weight off, he rocked in and out of me in long slow strokes, the base of his shaft bumping into my clit with each inward thrust, bringing me to the cusp of another orgasm. Josh broke the kiss, his bright eyes meeting mine.
“I love you, Zoe,” he whispered, kissing me so tenderly that the tears were back in my eyes.
“And I love you,” I told him.
His thrusts became faster, more erratic as he got closer to his release. Seeing him losing control was my undoing, my own orgasm washing over me, pulling him down with me into the endless waves of ecstasy.
Josh collapsed on top of me, panting. He was heavy but I loved the feel of his weight pressing into me, holding me down. My fingers brushed along his spine, enjoying the post-coital bliss of two mind-shattering orgasms.
Suddenly and without warning, he rolled us so I was above him, never pulling out of me. “I’m not done with you yet, wife,” he growled, his cock thickening within me.
And I hoped he never would be. God knew I would never be done with him.
Josh made love to me there on his bedroom floor for the rest of what, only we would know, was our wedding night. And I fully planned to spend my wedding night with Baldric right here in Josh’s arms. And every night from here on out. This was where I belonged.
With him.
When I snuck back into my chambers early the next morning, Baldric was thankfully nowhere to be found, but there was a bath already prepared and waiting for me, the water near boiling and filled with oils that had the entire room smelling of lavender.
Too good to be true, all of it. Or maybe God was finally repaying me for all the trials and tribulations He’d put me through over the years. I desperately hoped it was the latter, but I was rarely that lucky.
Now to help Baldric kill William, end this nightmare, and go live happily ever after far away from this place without losing anyone I loved. Simple, right?
Shedding my clothes on the way to the tub, I stepped right into the scalding water, sinking down into it with a sigh. Baths were made in Heaven, there was no other explanation for it.
I washed away the evidence of Josh from my body, replaying the night in my head. Repeatedly. Those memories couldn’t be washed away with a bucket of bleach and a bristle pad, and I wouldn’t want them to be. My head fell back on the rim of the tub, long hair floating on the surface as my eyes drifted shut. Josh and I hadn’t exactly done much sleeping throughout the night and exhaustion was sinking in.
“You are making this more difficult than it needs to be,” a voice said, and my eyes snapped open, a gasp leaving my lips. I was no longer in a bathtub in Baldric’s castle.
I was in the cellar in William’s. A cellar that had clearly been turned into a dungeon.
The Viking of a man came into view and my hands clenched into fists at my sides, anger rolling through me in powerful waves. If only I could take a person’s head in a vision, he’d already be dead. William was living on borrowed time. I’d end him for what he did to me—to the world. Hell, even for what he’d done to Baldric.
William stalked across the room, stopping at the first of the three cells. He glared into it, big hands gripping the even bigger bars. I’d seen that look on his face before, usually directed at me. He was royally pissed off at someone. I definitely didn’t miss those days.
Shit. Had he found out about Annie and James? If he hurt her, I’d find a way to kill him twice.
“You still have a lot of fight left in you,” he told the prisoner. “But everyone has their breaking point. Even you. You are one of us. You belong with us. And you will stay in here until you remember that. However long it takes. Whatever it takes.” His menacing tone had an uneasiness settling into my stomach. I inched toward the cell.
“You’ll never control me again,” the prisoner shot back, and my feet faltered.
No, it couldn’t be.
I forced myself to move forward until I was standing behind Wil
liam, staring at the prisoner he was facing off with.
Me.
My head broke through the surface of the water and I flung myself over the edge of the tub, coughing up the lungful of liquid I’d inhaled. I sprawled out across the floor, the cold stone a shock to my system after being submerged in liquid fire. Or maybe the chills racking my body were just an aftereffect of the vision.
The vision where I was William’s prisoner.
There was no mistaking what I’d seen. I’d been covered in dirt and blood—whose blood, I wasn’t sure. My arms were enclosed to the elbow in metal casings, no doubt to keep “Sparky” from sparking. Shackles were wrapped around the casings as well as my ankles, holding me away from the reinforced cell door with chains thicker than my damn thighs. I’d been caged like an animal. No, like a monster.
Kaziel had been right, William was going to come for me. He’d find a way to get his hands on me again. He wanted my power for himself. He wanted to make me fight for him.
Yeah, that wasn’t happening. I’d never fight for that lying sack of traitorous shit again.
Dragging myself to my feet, I dressed as quickly as I could and went in search of the king. This was information Baldric needed to know, as well as Josh. I knew talk of my visions made Josh uncomfortable ever since I’d told him about my visions of him killing me. He refused to believe he’d ever do anything to hurt me, let alone kill me. And I believed him, truly I did. But the visions said otherwise, and my visions didn’t lie. It was now just a matter of when.
And why…
One day you’ll understand.
“Where is the king?” I asked Lindsay as I stormed into the main room. Scarlett was in front of her, twirling around in a fluffy pink dress, her giggles even more melodic than Annie’s. She squealed when she saw me, waddling over to me with a big toothy grin that sent a sharp pang through my chest. When William took me, it meant leaving Scarlett.
I picked her up, holding her tightly to me and breathing in her sweet baby scent. Reason number one to get out of William’s clutches would be Josh. Reason number two would be this sweet child who had found a special place in my blackened heart.