Sewn & Scarred (The Fated Creations Trilogy #3)

Chapter Seventy-NineMaddox

Chapter Seventy-Nine

Maddox

Y es.

The word had never sounded so good until it came from her lips. Until it had burst through them in half a laugh, half a sob. Until she’d fallen into my arms, and continued to whisper it.

“Yes, yes, yes.”

And now, as I carried her in my arms through the halls of the manor, as I stumbled my way up the stairs to our suite, she mumbled it against my lips, and down the bond.

I felt the cool bite of the band she now wore against my neck, where her hands pressed against it, held herself close as she kissed me.

I shoved open the door to our room, kicked it shut behind us, and spun to pin her against it, if only to feel her body pressed against mine.

“I love you,” I whispered against her lips.

“I love you,” she whispered back, and I felt her smile against mine.

Her hands shoved the collar of my shirt away, and my lips traveled down her neck.

I felt her breath quicken and knew what she wanted. And Gods, I wanted it too.

I let my fangs slide along her skin before I let them slip in, and she gasped, throwing her head back against the door.

“Bed,” she rasped, and I pulled her from the door, not daring to remove my face from her neck.

I neared the bed, when I felt her shake her head slightly.

“No,” she said, and I could hear the annoyance in it. “Sand.”

I chuckled against her throat and turned us to the bathroom, pulling out my fangs and flicking my tongue over the wound to heal it.

When I set her on her feet in the bathroom I threw my head back and laughed at how absolutely adorable she looked with that frustrated look on her face and her arms crossed.

But that cracked a smile. “It’s not funny,” she said, but laughed.

We were covered in sand from the proposal, from her launching herself into my arms and falling down into it.

I nodded toward the bath. “Will you do the honors?”

She smiled and turned toward the water basin that sat in the room. She moved the water to the bathtub and held a hand out toward it.

I walked up behind her and kissed down her neck, down her bare shoulder, and past the thin strap of the light linen dress she wore.

She shivered but didn’t move her concentration from the bath, even as I slid the straps of her dress down.

She spun in my arms, and I looked up to see the bath steaming.

Her hands made quick work of the buttons of my shirt as I slid her dress down her form until it gathered around her wide hips, and at the same time that she slid my shirt over my shoulders and down my arms, I shoved her dress down her legs.

We were a mess of skin and sand and tangled hair. When we were naked we grabbed for each other again, our lips connecting, before we made it to the tub, and sank into it together.

I sat with my back against it, and she didn’t hesitate to crawl on top of me. To look down at me with a smile and a swatch of sand across her lower cheek as she reached down for me, and lined us up together.

My hands found her hips at the same time that she sank down, and we both gasped when our hips met.

Her hands came up, dripping in warm water, and fanned out on either side of my jaw, my neck, and lowered her head to kiss me.

I felt her love down the bond, felt the way she moved above me, felt the softness of her skin in my hands.

And Gods, I’d never loved her more. Emotion swelled in my chest and a lump formed in my throat from the weight of it all.

To know that she’d just been a woman in Kembertus, looking for a way to escape. And I’d just been a man, waiting for his own love story to start, when we met. Two people that would’ve never thought our lives would change so wholly, from one pickpocket attempt.

A few tears seeped through my closed eyes as we kissed, and she must’ve felt them because she pulled back slightly.

“What’s wrong?” she breathed, lips fluttering against mine as she spoke.

I gave one shake of my head. “Absolutely nothing. I just love you.”

She smiled, some tears of her own peppered her eyes, and she lowered her head to kiss me again, soft and sweet and slow.

When we’d finished, she turned and laid against my chest. We sat in the warmth of the water for a while, before she spoke.

“I have to tell you something,” she said, suddenly, raising her left hand out of the water and appraising her ring.

“What is it?” I asked, and tried to ignore the slight panic that she was about to revoke her agreement to marry.

“I’ve already seen this ring,” she whispered. “When I came to you, in Wyott’s suite. When I tried to trick the Vasi into being distracted while he fed from me. That night, I came back here and cleaned up. And in the closet, your jackets fell, and the box fell out.”

The smile on my face was immediate.

“Damn,” I mused in her ear, “I thought that was a pretty good hiding spot.”

She laughed and nodded. “It would’ve been if I hadn’t fallen in the closet.”

I kissed her shoulder, growing serious. “I’m sorry you found it when I wasn’t myself. I’m sure that was hard.”

She took a deep breath and nodded against my chest.

“It was, and I considered taking it out of its box. I considered wearing it because I knew I wanted to marry you even back then.” That same emotion swelled in my chest at her words, but I only listened as she continued. “But I decided that I wouldn’t wear it until you slipped it on my finger,” she whispered, then turned in my arms to face me. She smiled as she met my eyes. “And now you have. And I’ll never take it off.”