When he began with the vows, a peal of laughter erupted from me when I was abruptly drawn back onto Sebastian’s lap, straddling him again.
The officiant’s words faded away when Sebastian gripped my face and spoke his own vows to me.
“I’m gonna love you forever. Respect you. Protect you and hold you and always stay true to you.”
My hands trembled where I cupped his jaw.
“I will never give you up or let this love go. My forever is forever. My life yours to keep.”
We were a flurry of “I dos” and kisses and husband and wife.
Just as fast, we were back on the road, pulling into the hotel valet, hearts pounding and spirits dancing as we rushed through the lobby to the bank of elevators.
We stumbled from the elevator. Sebastian’s hands were on my hips as he edged me backward toward the door. His mouth never left mine as he fumbled with the key to our suite.
He swept me off my feet and into the cradle of his arms.
A bride carried over the threshold by the man who promised to hold her.
Protect her.
Love her.
Sebastian slammed the door shut with his foot. His heavy footsteps echoed across the marble tile. He didn’t waver or stop. He just went straight for the staircase, never breaking our connection as he wound us up the steps to the bedroom above.
“This is real…this is real,” he mumbled between his bid to get me closer. His hold tightened as his mouth went roving down the column of my neck. “Baby, tell me this is real.”
“Yes…it’s real. All of it…it’s real.”
We were real.
My heart crashed around in my chest.
Free.
Joy and light and life.
Our touches were frantic as we tore at the other’s clothes, our mouths never far as we kissed across the skin we revealed. Our hands were desperate as we pared each other down until we were nothing but naked, heated flesh.
He tossed me onto the center of the enormous bed. My gorgeous man stood at the side, staring down at me with a smile of utter amazement. The gleam in those steely eyes predatory.
There had never been a time before, or would there be a time in my future, when I would feel quite like this.
Desired.
Absolutely adored.
So deliriously happy I didn’t know inside from out or up from down, because he’d come in and painted a new beginning. Crushed my walls and altered my realities.
Tonight I had become Sebastian Stone’s wife.
“I can’t believe you’re really mine,” he said, like an echo of my own thoughts.
“I’m yours…husband.” I felt the catch at the corner of my lips, a tremble that wavered somewhere between playful and wonder.
The sound he made was something akin to a growl.
“Husband.”
He said it as if he were testing out how it sounded on his tongue, before he suddenly pounced on me. “Come here, wife. I’m about to take what’s mine. You ready for me?”
Laughter tickled from between my lips, and I arched my back as my need swelled, coalescing as a sweet, exquisite ache low in my belly. “Always.”
Sebastian ran a hand down the outside of my thigh. “Do you have any idea the fantasies I’ve been having about being wrapped up in these legs, Shea? All the nights I’ve spent alone, dreaming about them? About how fuckin’ amazing they feel every time I have them wrapped around my waist? Wondering how someone like me got lucky enough to be with someone like you? Now I’m gonna be wrapped up in them for the rest of my life.”
He ran his nose along my jaw, arms wrapped around me tight.
“You’ve made me the happiest man alive.”
Energy zinged like a live wire. A billow of joy and a bolt of desire.
I looked up to meet the promise in his gaze, fingers grazing over his pouty bottom lip. “I never knew there was happiness like this. And then there was you.”
And then there was you.