by K. J. Dahlen
We’ve driven and talked and waited all night.
Father Lawrence takes his place at the altar and begins the ceremony, head bowed, and when he raises is, Sia puts her arm through mine.
We walk up the aisle together.
It’s a breathtaking intimacy, standing up here with her. There’s nobody else to interfere, to offer an opinion—we’re past that now. And the ritual words that Father Lawrence is saying are the only guide I need. Words about marriage and fidelity. About man and wife. I hear all of it as if I’m underwater. The only thing that matters is Sia, standing here with her hands in mine.
She looks beautiful.
Father Lawrence let her slip away for a few minutes while he filled out the paperwork, and when she reappeared she was wearing a dark blue dress with modest cap sleeves, so heartbreakingly appropriate that it makes me want to rip it off her.
It’s her wedding dress.
Father Lawrence takes a breath, readying himself to move on to our vows—it’s not a long ceremony—and that’s when it happens.
The sun breaks through the window behind me, and the light slips down over my head. Sia is ablaze with it, golden with it, her blue eyes shining, her hair a fiery blonde, her dress like dark water over her curves. She is radiant. Absolutely radiant.
She is an angel.
My chest tightens and swells at the same time, my heart squeezing at the sight of her, burning into my memory. I’m in the presence of something so precious and holy that the church could fall down around us and she’d walk away without a scratch—God himself would never allow it. The thought comes wildly to my mind and falls away.
Shit.
I need to breathe. I can’t suffocate myself at my own wedding.
Sia squeezes my hands, smiling up at me, and brings me back down to earth.
There are no bells ringing in the bell tower; there is no crowd of well-wishers in the pews. But it doesn’t matter. This is my wedding day. This is my wife.
30
Sia
The old Sia is dead.
It sounds morbid as fuck, I know, but here in this church—this beautiful, well-cared-for church—in the presence of Gio’s own spiritual adviser, I feel it.
The freedom.
It’s not only the old Sia who’s dead. The old Gio is, too. It wasn’t until this moment, saying our vows to each other, that I saw him this way—renewed. Reborn.
The past is another world entirely, and we are stepping together into a new place.
It’s so exhilarating I can hardly catch my breath. I hold Gio’s hands, demure despite my excitement, and play the part of the perfect bride. It’s like I’m watching myself promise to love him and honor him all the days of my life. My spirit flies around the room and then snaps back into my body, where my heart is pounding and my skin is prickling with anticipation.
“I do,” I repeat after Father Lawrence, and with a shock like diving into cold water on a sultry summer day, I realize that it is finished.
It’s done.
We are man and wife.
Father Lawrence is still speaking, giving a blessing, and I bow my head. I can’t stifle the smile on my face, and why the hell would I want to? I’m Gio’s wife. His wife. I am his, and he is mine, and there is nothing in the world that can set us apart.
Except, maybe, his father.
But I’m not going to think about that right now. Now.
“—I now pronounce you husband and wife,” says Father Lawrence, his voice as big as if the church was full.
Gio doesn’t hesitate. He puts a hand behind my neck and the other at my waist and kisses me.
He tilts me back and it’s so fucking romantic I could die, with the taste of him on my lips and the strength of him holding me up. I could live in this moment forever. I could stay right here, stand in this spot, forever, if only he’d keep kissing me.
But he pulls away before it gets out of hand. Is it stupid that I feel disappointed? Is it stupid that I want to press him down to the ground and leap on top of him right now?
He takes my hand.
The doors of the church open, the early morning light streaming in like a choir of angels, and then it’s filtered by the bodies of the monks. They’re here for the early service.
It’s time for us to leave.
Gio leads me out by the hand and we stand on the steps of the church, blinking in the sun, breathing in the new world.
He looks down at me, dark eyes lit with the dawn. “Wife.”
I lean my head against his arm. “Yes,” I breathe, and for once, I don’t need anything more.
Gio drives us further into town, and in the new light we pass a flowerbed with a sign. “Welcome to Verona,” I read out loud. “That’s cute.”
“Very cute.”
“You’re distracted,” I tease.
“You’re wearing that dress.” His eyes shine as they flick over the lines of it, riding up over my knees. “How could I not be?”
I pat his hand. “Pay attention.” Heat rises to my cheeks. I want this dress off of me as much as he does. I want his hands back on my body as much as he does.
Maybe more.
“What am I looking for?” He grumbles, peering out the driver’s side window as we roll to a stop at what appears to be the town’s only stoplight. Jesus, it’s quaint as hell here. We’re on an actual Main Street right now, the buildings snugged up next to each other, and all of them look newly washed in the morning dew. Tiny restaurants and stores. Flowers already in bloom in flower boxes.
I groan. “Gio, please. A room. You’re looking for a room. A hotel.”
His face curls into a smile. “Right. Yes. Right.”
He finds it on the opposite edge of town. It’s almost a mirror of the monastery, only it’s closer in, a wide lawn separating it from the rest of the businesses. I laugh at the sight of it—at the manicured lawn, at the hotel-in-miniature asthetic of the whole place. This is no impersonal high-rise. The parking lot is a strip of spots to the side. No hiding. “Verona’s only hotel.”
“We could try one of the bed and breakfasts.”
“What bed and breakfasts?”
Gio shrugs. “They have to have a few here. That’s what people do, in places like this—in places this beautiful.”
My impatience wanes, but only a little. He’s right. This town is gorgeous in an unearthly way, in a movie-set way, in an outside-of-time way.
So is Gio.
The hard lines of his jaw, the dark embers of his eyes, the strong hands—I want all of him pressed up against me, well before the sun is high in the sky.
There’s still so much to do. We need to make our marriage as legitimate as possible, beginning in the white, elegant courthouse we saw downtown. We need to convince his family that I’m one of them. We need to live.
The man behind the counter at the Verona Inn is dressed for a five-star hotel, and he smiles at us, eyes twinkling, like we’ve met before. “Good morning.” His voice has no early-morning gravel, and a tension I didn’t know I was holding in my shoulders releases. “If you’re interested in booking a room, I have several available for immediate check in.”
Gio sticks his hand in his pocket and pulls out a thin line of hundred-dollar bills. “We need a room.” A grin plays at the corners of his lips. “Whichever one we can get to the fastest.”
31
Gio
The door closes behind us and the air in the room shifts.
It was so normal when we walked in here. A hotel room like any other hotel room. But one little snick of the lock and the weight of it presses against me, laps against my skin like currents in deep water.
Sia drops her bags onto the floor and turns to face me.
She feels it too. She must. She blushes and looks down, and that’s all it takes to snap me out of waiting.
I take her chin in my hand and tilt her face toward mine—her gorgeous, blushing, beautiful face—and she’s mine. She’s mine, now, whatever comes next. “Wife
.” My own voice is gravelly with the possession of her. Never in a thousand years did I think it would happen this way, but now that it has...
“Husband.” Sia’s voice is soft and aching. Jesus, the whole of her must be aching, the way I’m aching. She got to come last night, but there’s a tension in the arch of her back that tells me she needs more. And that she’s scared of it, too.
“Don’t be afraid,” I whisper, trailing my fingers along her spine. She curls against me like a cat, pressing in hard, and when she offers her lips to me to claim I don’t hesitate.
The kiss turns Sia wild, her hips rocking against mine.
I lift her in my arms and take her to bed.
I saw her last night, naked and spread open for me on another hotel bed, but this time is different. This time, I don’t bother to close the curtains. This time, I let the dawning light caress her skin in every place I caress her with my fingers, and my god, my god, I almost ended this. I will live the rest of my life knowing that I almost denied myself the creamy flat of her stomach, the desperate curve of her hips, and the pink softness between her legs.
Her dress pools beside the bed.
She’s not wearing any panties.
The bra follows the dress, forgotten in an instant.
Sia opens herself for me, golden hair spread over the white coverlet, and every kiss I press against her skin is half-apology, half-worship.
“God, Gio,” she gasps when I lick down the length of her collarbone.
By the time I stroke my tongue between her legs, she’s lost for words.
I lick her with the flat of my tongue, tasting as much sweetness as I can, and delve in again, press in with the tip. It draws out the loveliest sounds from her mouth. Her hips buck under my hands, so insistent that I have to pin her down.
“Be a good girl,” I growl into her folds, then lick there again. “Let me have you.”
Her body stills, her hands gripping the coverlet, but her body still trembles beneath my tongue. Jesus, she’s sweet. Jesus, she’s wet.
“Gio.” My name wrestles from behind gritted teeth. “Gio, I can’t wait any longer.”
My cock has been straining against my pants since the moment we walked into the room, and now it jerks and jumps, leaking from the tip.
I step away from the bed and strip off my clothes.
Sia watches, eyes wide with anticipation, and when my boxers drop to the floor her mouth falls open. “Whoa.” Her blue eyes glitter, and I catch that little flinch when the length of me is on display.
“Don’t worry, sweet thing.” I crawl onto the bed over her. “It’ll be fun.”
Sia buries her face into my shoulder, and even in the unbearable sweetness of that moment I feel her spreading her legs beneath me, arching her hips up toward me. She’s so pretty this way, torn between hunger and fear. No, not fear—that buzzing anxiousness of being one step away from the future.
It undoes me.
I want to take it slow with her. I want to give her all the time she needs to adjust to the size of me. But her body beneath mine is calling so loudly that I can’t resist. The air shifts again, animal and crackling. “I need you.” It’s my own admission, but it’s all around us, too.
Sia holds her breath.
I force myself to hold back, to pay attention. “Don’t do that. Breathe.” She exhales, and I dip my fingers between her legs, stroking the wet folds there.
“More,” she breathes against the side of my neck.
I work one finger inside.
She’s tight as fuck.
My cock pulses at the squeeze around my finger.
I add another.
Sia moans, the thrum of her voice making its way down to her pussy, which clenches over my fingers like she never wants to let me go. It shatters the last of my reserve, the last of my self-control. I have to have her.
She whimpers when I take my fingers away, my blood singing with the nearness of her, with the scent of her in the air, so far past anything my teenage self could have imagined. I crawl over her and she slips her hands around my neck. She is hanging on for dear life. I can feel it in every movement, every tremble.
I position the head of my cock against her slick, hot opening, so swollen, so tight, so ready for me, and I hold my breath.
Sia’s eyes are so blue.
Her face is the picture of trust, her tounge darting out to wet her bottom lip. She breathes fast against me, hard nipples grazing my chest, and I am struck with the significance of this moment. This isn’t just fucking. This isn’t preparing to fuck, to discard, already moving on in my mind to the next woman.
This is consummation.
Taking her like this is more of a vow than the ones we spoke in the church this morning. Every bone in my body thrums with it, the heavy, golden, timeless meaning. I want to savor it for another heartbeat, then another.
Sia doesn’t.
“Please, Gio,” she begs. “Please.”
32
Sia
I’m still human, if being human is being a bundle of raw nerve endings that light up with intensity every time Gio draws his tongue along my skin. I feel him above me, in the air, all around me, his muscles tensed and tight, ready to fuck. And those eyes—those dark wells of wanting—call to me. I could fall in, right now, and never resurface.
I beg him to fuck me.
Of course I do.
I’ve been waiting years for this, lifetimes, and both of us hover together over the surface of now. One leap, and we’ll be crashing through to forever. I will be his wife. Our marriage will be sealed with blood and sighs, deeper than vows.
He presses a kiss to my lips and I sigh into his mouth, the thick head of him pressing against my entrance. I’m slick—slicker than I need to be, surely, surely he’ll fit, there’s no reason to think he wouldn’t—
His breath is against my near, his teeth nipping at my earlobe. “Relax, sweet thing.”
Of course.
I suck in a deep, sweet breath and let the tension out of my muscles. How can I say no to him? I don’t want to. In fact, I want him to be inside of me. I want him to be one with me. I want to leave the past behind.
He kisses me again, softer, and tilts his hips so that even as the first inch of him begins to impale me, his hips are rocking against my clit. It’s a throb of pleasure, every move he makes, and it covers the pain like a blanket.
“God,” he groans. “You’re so tight.” I tense again. Too tight? “No, no,” he whispers, dragging hot lips over my collarbone. “Let me in.”
I spread my legs wider to let my husband inside and he rocks forward another inch. A firework of pleasure blooms away from my clit, and oh, god, I like it, I love it, I love this sensation of being stretched, of being taken.
It frees me.
All my fear slips away, all my nerves ignite, and I thrust my hips up toward Gio with a growl. “Please. Please,” I say into his ear, and he shoves away from me, his hand on my hair, and looks down into my eyes. He seems more animal than man.
“Is that what you want?” He thrusts forward, another inch, and I gasp. “If you want to slow down, tell me right now. Tell me right now, Sia, because—” He grits his teeth. “I won’t be able to stop. Do you understand?” His hand curls around my chin, holding tight. “I won’t be able to stop.”
“I want it. Please.”
I am begging, almost a whine, because this is agony, this pleasure, this pain. He’s halfway in and I want him all the way in. I want to be taken. I want to be claimed. I want the past to fall away and become nothing, I want my blood to be the sacrifice that carries us into our new life. I want to feel his power between my hands, between my legs.
It’s not the gauzy, white scenario I painted in my mind when I first learned about sex. It’s not stopping to kiss me gently, murmur sweet nothings into my ear, back off when I feel that first pain.
No.
No.
Unleashed, Gio thrusts forward with a deep growl, taking me all a
t once.
It’s a shock of pain that tears a cry from my mouth. He swallows it with his lips, with kisses that devour me and my pain all at once.
He’s right—he’s not stopping.
He draws himself out so that only his crown is left inside and thrusts back in. It’s a vicious movement and I feel all of it, all of it, raw and open, but something happens in the moment before he makes contact with the very base of me—the pain turns inside out.
It changes form, a scream to a song, and becomes pleasure.
“Fuck,” I say into his ear. “Fuck.”
He’s filling me to the limit. He’s not small man and I have to stretch and stretch again to accommodate him. He is pure energy, pure raw sexuality, and the pleasure heightens with every roll of his hips.
I’m climbing, soaring, flying, dizzy with the pleasure, disconnected from the part of me that would be embarrassed at my moans, at the frenzied scrape of my fingernails against his back. I am not embarrassed. I am nothing but pleasure embodied, and I am being fucked by my husband.
I am being fucked by my husband.
The thought sends me over the edge, spiraling and clenching and crying out so that Gio claps his hand over my mouth. We’re in a hotel, not our home, and it’s early yet, so he catches my screams in his palms and holds on tight.
His balls tighten and pull up, still slapping against the place where he’s thrusting in, but his eyes are black with the impending release. Black. “Sia—”
“Do it,” I hiss into his hand. “Do it.”
He comes hard, with abandon, his eyes locked on mine, muscles tensing with a grunt.
It’s a beautiful fucking sight.
When he’s spent, when the last has spurted out of him, he rolls over, taking me into his arms, gathering me against his chest. He dips his hand beneath my legs and rolls his fingers idly over my clit, bringing me to another orgasm. I shudder against him, his heart beating fast in my ear, and when he lifts his fingers they’re bloody.