Those hands of his, those long legs, that elegant frame—my eyes roamed. That chest, those shoulders, the neck and throat, his smooth jaw …

His face.

Our eyes met and I forgot the audience staring at me. His lips parted slightly, eyes widened fractionally. I wanted to run to him. Was it the surrounding darkness or the chill in the air, or maybe the presence of others? Something …

Something clicked, and I understood that no one wanted me the way he wanted me. To have and to hold, for better or worse, in sickness and in health, until death.

So I went to him.

That is the story: I went to him.

*   *   *

“Were we idiots to let people crash here?” I whispered.

Matt chuckled and held a finger to his lips. Right, Nate and Val were just across the hall.

For the last four hours, we’d wined and dined our wedding guests and toasted and danced. Tomorrow we left for New York—the first of many cities I needed to see, according to Matt—and then Greece. No one had dared to deface his cars with cans, which made me grin. They also spared my brand-new Mercedes, a gift from my husband.

My husband …

He ruffled his hair and stretched gloriously, opened the bedroom window but left off the light. Outside in the dark, our little wind chimes tolled.

I watched him pry off his shoes and drape his coat across the bed.

God, he still made me shy.

I went to him only when he beckoned.

“There you are,” he said softly in my ear. “Are you real? Little bird, I think we can be quiet tonight.” He kissed my mouth and spread his hand across the V of skin on my back. He found my gown’s tiny zipper and tugged it down.

The garment dropped around my feet.

“Come sit on my lap,” he said.

He settled in the armchair in the corner of our room and I—calmly as I could manage in a garter belt, heels, and sheer bra—tottered over to the vanity and removed my accessories.

Be calm, be sexy, I chanted inwardly. This is your wedding night.

I turned to Matt. My jaw dropped, and my calm and sexy soared out the window.

He had his dick in his hand, eyes on me.

“I will never get tired of that reaction,” he murmured. “Come here.”

Sit on my lap … oh, boy, that made a different kind of sense now.

I shuffled over, unclipping my garters as I went. He smiled at me, not with his usual wicked amusement, but with simple, youthful desire.

I kept on my heels and thigh-highs; I kicked off my panties.

“God”—he touched my hip—“let me make sure you’re wet enough…” He stroked himself while he swirled a finger around my folds. The whole display mesmerized me. He still wore his shirt and slacks, only the thick rod of his arousal protruding from his fly.

Because I knew it would drive him crazy, and because his teasing touch was driving me mad, I lowered my body onto his fingers … lifted and sank again.

“Ah, fuck, Hannah. Are you fucking my finger?”

I nodded and rolled my hips, biting my lip to suppress a moan.

“Turn around,” he whispered. “Sit.”

I obeyed, gripping the arms of the chair and lowering myself onto his lap. He positioned his tip at my entrance. I took it slow, loving the way his thighs trembled and tensed.

At last, with a gasp I couldn’t subdue, I sat.

He unhooked my bra and tossed it aside. He hugged my back to his chest.

The way his heart beat against my shoulder blade told me he could barely keep still and quiet, which made two of us.

We sat like that, husband and wife, locked together intimately.

“Even if they can’t hear us,” he said, “everyone knows what we’re doing.” He cupped my breasts and lifted them. I felt his cock shift deep inside me.

“You like that they know, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes. All the men present today wanted you secretly, guiltily. Probably some of the women, too. You were a vision…”

He pinched my nipples and I squirmed, my body clamping around his. Delicious.

“I think…” I panted. “I think the women were focused on you. Matt, you looked—”

He covered my mouth. So handsome, so graceful … so beautiful, brave, and strong.

“Shhh,” he whispered. “Don’t. Don’t make it about me tonight. It’s you, Hannah. It’s always you. I was proud to be on your arm tonight. I was proud…”

I wanted to look at him, but I couldn’t, the way we sat.

And that’s how we did it that evening, sitting together in our home. His hands played me and I moved on his lap. He told me how it felt. He told me many things. No book can hold them.

Epilogue

HANNAH

April 2016

Matt and Seth Junior are in the meadow.

Seth is one and walking, which has thrown Matt into a panic. Last week, I caught him crawling around the main floor of the house (my husband, not our son). I laughed for ten minutes straight. Matt didn’t crack a smile. “I read that you need to get on the child’s level,” he’d explained, “to spot potential hazards.”

Then he crawled away, glaring at walls and furniture.

I doubled over with laughter—again.

As it turned out, anything within Seth’s reach constituted a hazard. Matt stripped our house of knickknacks from the floor to a yard up. He’d already put plug covers in every outlet and gated not just the staircase, but most of the doorways. “So we can control his movements.”