Gradually I came to realize that although I didn’t need a large ceremony, Asher did. He wanted the most beautiful wedding and he wanted everyone to see it, as if he had something to prove to them.
As if he wants no one to doubt who I belong to now.
So I did not complain when the guest list grew to five hundred in the largest cathedral in Tanglewood, with another few hundred to join us at the reception tonight.
After such a long day neither of us want to board a plane. We make our own honeymoon suite on the balcony of his bedroom, a plate of strawberries and brie and sesame crackers to eat, a bottle of Lambrusco to drink. Asher makes a project of painting me with the deep red liquid and then licking me clean—starting with my shoulder, the underside of my breast, my hip. He makes me twitch and sigh before he finally moves between my legs. He licks and licks, until I’m lost.
It’s too much, so he uses the bowtie from his tux to affix my wrists to the iron rail.
“Such a good little wife,” he murmurs, stroking my sides while I writhe in helpless surrender. There’s nothing I can do with my hands tied above my head, my thighs pushed wide by his muscled body. Even lean and hard as he is, he’s still impossibly large. It’s like being pinned down by a jaguar, all massive paws and ferocious eyes. “It’s your duty to take me now, isn’t it? To lie still and let me have you, whenever I want, for as long as I want—and you always fulfill your duties.”
His thumb swipes my clit, and I flinch, my hips rocking forward to seek more pressure. More or less, anything would be better than this. This glancing, quicksilver touch he forces on me.
“Please,” I whisper.
“You might have to suffer,” he says, his voice thoughtful. “That was part of the vows, I think. Implied by the honoring and the obeying. That you’d have to wait until I’m good and ready to give you my cock. No matter how wet you get or how loud you moan.”
A blunt finger slides through my core, dragging moisture up to my clit, where he taps me, as if pointing something out for my instruction.
“No matter how plump your little clit gets.”
“Asher,” I gasp, pressing my hips towards his hands. “I can’t—”
“Of course you can.” His tone is genuinely sympathetic. “You were built for this. Doing what your husband wants. Being a living doll for me to fuck and fuck and fuck.”
He’s going to drive me insane, and I think he might want that. It’s one of his kinky games—a new one, where I’m the dutiful wife and he’s the implacable husband. The role sinks into me, as soft as the blanket he laid down beneath me. Cool breeze wafts over my body, making my nipples tighten.
“If that’s what pleases you, husband,” I say, because it’s part of the game—but it’s more than a game. He’s right. This is what I was born to do. Bred to do. To be a good little wife, and the dark approval on Asher’s face, the desire in his eyes, is the only reward I need.
He lines up his cock to my sex, the hitch of his breath a secret sign that he isn’t as composed as he acts. Then he thrusts inside me with an uncontained violence, his hardness pushing through my swollen flesh, stretching me almost beyond endurance.
My mouth opens on a silent scream, fists tightening in the hold of his tie.
“Oh God,” he says, the words thick as honey. “You’re so fucking tight. I’m supposed to be gentle with you. I shouldn’t—”
His voice breaks as he thrusts again, reaching somehow farther, making me suck in a breath. I’m spread wide on the balcony floor, my hands stretching high, my thighs pressed almost flat to accommodate him. In every way, I’m the one who must surrender to him. He’s the one in control—and yet his lids are heavy, his lips parted. His hips move in an almost uncontrollable rhythm.
Something holds him in thrall, and I think that something is me. There’s a sweet power in knowing my body does this to him, renders him helpless, unable to resist.
The friction is unbearable and sweet, peaking in a climax that makes me squeeze around him. Every muscle clenches and then relaxes into a slow melt—and still he keeps thrusting.
He fucks with reckless intensity, driving into me again and again. It’s a form of domination, the way he pushes over me, inside me. There’s also a sense that he’s searching for something. That the answers are inside me. He nuzzles at my breast, taking the peak between his lips, sucking and gently biting until I come again in a wash of scarlet pleasure.
And still he does not stop.
He needs something from me, his new bride. I’m not sure what, only that I want to try and give it to him. “I, June Li,” I murmur, my lips brushing his temple. “Take thee, Asher Cook, for my lawfully wedded husband.” These were the words I spoke in front of hundreds of people today—businessmen and lawmakers, underworld crime bosses and the mayor of Tanglewood himself. I spoke the words in front of God, but they didn’t ring as true then as they do now—saying them to my husband while he’s inside me, losing himself in my body, finding himself in the words.
He groans, his hands tightening on my hips. “More.”
“To have and to hold,” I say, more breath than sound as his thrusts speed up, his hips ramming into my body with alarming force, his cock impaling me deep. “From this day forward.”
“For better,” he says, his voice hard.
“For worse,” I answer, letting my softness enfold him. “For richer, for poorer.”
“In sickness and in health.” His breathless words are fervent—a promise muttered in the dark.
“As long as we both shall live.”
A feral sound enters the air. It’s Asher, and he bites down on my shoulder. The sharp pain makes me cry out. That’s how he climaxes, every part of his body holding every part of mine.
* * *