I know that. I read a bit about the traditions, but I didn’t want us to stand in front of the wedding officiant without having aligned our compasses first.
She’s wearing nothing but a robe that clings to her beautiful body like a second skin. I don’t know if it’s because the ceremony is so close—when we’ll officially be each other’s—or because I’ve already seen her naked, but she doesn’t try to pull the silk any tighter, even though it’s slightly open.
Her hair is pinned high on her head, and I wish she’d let it down. Everything about my princess is about freedom, and I want it cascading down her back—long, wild, just like her personality.
We haven’t had a moment alone since the few guests—Kaled and my friends, as well as Josephine and Athol—arrived, so I decided to send social conventions straight to hell.
“I needed to come.”
“Why?”
“It makes no sense for us to say our vows in front of a wedding officiant while we’re at odds with each other.”
“We’re not at odds.”
“Liar.”
“That’s disrespectful. You shouldn’t speak like that, Your Grace.”
“Then yell at me! I don’t want this submissive, resigned princess act. I want my untamed girl.”
“You’re insane!” she says, turning her back on me, but not before I catch a half-smile.
Finally.
She hasn’t spoken to me since that business about not trapping me.
Does she think that’s why I don’t want children?
“I have to agree, my fiancée,” I say, using the term she calls me by. “I’m more insane about you every day.” I wrap my arms around her from behind, burying my face in her neck.
She turns to face me. “You really prefer me untamed?”
“Jazmina, I want you. The full package, not a doll programmed to be what others expect her to be.”
She loops her arms around my neck. “How can you be so unbearable one moment and so perfect the next?”
“I’m far from perfect, but the unbearable role fits me like a glove. Just so I know, what am I being accused of this time?”
She hides her face against my chest. “I don’t want to talk about it because it’ll make me sad. Even if this isn’t a real marriage . . .”
I silence her with a kiss. “It’s a real marriage in every way that matters. We desire each other, and there’s no one I enjoy being with more than you. Isn’t that a good start?”
Her forehead rests against my chest. “Yes. It is.”
There’s no one else here now.
That’s exactly how I feel. Obsessed with my now wife.
Somehow, the ceremony felt all wrong.
She smiled, said her vows, and when I pulled her into our first kiss as husband and wife, she returned it with such intensity that for a moment I thought the bad atmosphere was just in my head.
But the feeling lingers. Jazmina deserves more. I want to give her more, and I don’t know how.
“Come with me?”
“Don’t we have to have dinner with the guests now?”