“Are you happy?” Dex asked his bride.
Wavering firelight caught in her hair and played over her curves. “I am,” she said simply.
“You’re too beautiful,” he said worshipfully, drinking in the sight of her.
“So are you,” she answered, her gaze raking him, lingering on his scars, his chest, and then resting on the visible bulge inhis wedding trousers. “Dangerously so. Stop talking and kiss me now.”
He laughed. “I never thought I’d hear you say those words.” He kissed her, pouring his love and gratitude into the dance of their lips, their tongues.
“Now, here are the rules,” she said, pulling back, a wicked light flickering in her eyes. “You will take me now, and we’ll stare into each other’s eyes, and I’ll wrap my arms around your neck, and my ankles around your hips and we’ll ride together until we’re both flying high above the earth, until we’re ‘thrilling to the glittering stars above.’”
He smiled, recognizing the passage from her book. “I’m yours to command, Ana.”
“Good duke,” she said playfully, reaching for his scarred cheek with a touch so whisper-soft that he didn’t even flinch.
“You’ve given me a reason to live, Ana. I understand now that life can hold both darkness and light. That day and night can exist together inside my heart. That I can feel the pain simultaneously with the love. You are a fierce and strong warrior princess. I will become worthy of your love, I swear it to you.”
“You are worthy, Dex.”
“I don’t need my legacy to be reparations for that evil day on the battlefield. I want my legacy to be that I loved you. That’s the legacy I want carved on my headstone. That he loved faithfully, and fiercely. That he was felled by a redheaded hellion and he never recovered his footing.”
She laughed, and he laughed along with her. Even if it was a bit rusty, that laugh, it spoke volumes. And then they weren’t laughing any longer. They were kissing.
Discarding clothing at breakneck pace. Wild for the feel of her skin on his skin. Soft strands of her hair flung across his chest. There was no longer any need for rules. Everything was allowed. Every sigh, every moan, rang with love. Every kiss held untapped depths of emotion.
She climbed on top of him and eased her body down, down, until he was buried in her wet heat, like returning home after a long war, where he belonged.
She rode him with intense concentration, learning how to make him gasp with a clench of her thighs, the brush of her fingers through his chest hair.
Her eyes had gone smoky and languid.
The love in their depths shook him to the core.
She rode him until they were flying... reaching for those stars she’d written about so eloquently, swallowing them whole.
Several hours later, after an exhausted sleep, Dex woke in the middle of the night to find that they were sleeping entwined on his bed, her head on his chest, his arms around her and his leg stretched across her thighs. This was a new kind of contentment. A hard-won joy claiming victory over the darkness. He folded Ana closer against his chest.
“I love you, Dex,” she whispered, still half-asleep. “My fire-breathing dragon.”
“I love you, Ana. My brave princess, the star that guides me. Slayer of darkness. Bringer of joy.”
“I knew you had a poetic soul all along.”
“You bring it out in me.”
“I’ll keep challenging you, Dex, for the rest of our lives. Thebattle’s not over just yet.” She nestled in closer, rubbing her cheek against his chest.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he breathed into her hair, feeling his whole being relax into hers. “The rest of our lives... what a magical thought.”
Epilogue
One year later . . .
Ana pushed her shoulders back, took a deep breath, and walked to the lectern in front of the small crowd of book lovers.
Rupert and Celestia were in attendance. Ana had become fast friends with her sister-in-law, who, after reading her book, had become her biggest supporter. It was she who had organized a group of ladies into a book club. They’d readThe Dragon and the Blue Starand sent her a long list of surprisingly detailed questions to answer.
The book club ladies were in attendance, sitting in the first row. One was garbed as Princess Amsonia with a sapphire diadem circling her brow. Another had chosen to come as the Faery Queen, holding her young child in her lap, plump and adorable in a cleverly constructed hedgehog costume. Still another was wearing a golden horn atop her head, portraying one of the queen’s unicorn guards.