Page 97 of Yours, Now and Always
“I can. I am.” His arm tightens around me, possessively. “You’re mine, Princess. And I don’t know how to want you any other way.”
“I don’t know what I did to deserve you,” I whisper while my heart beats so fast I’m concerned it’s about to malfunction.
“You existed. That’s all you had to do.”
My hand slides from his shoulder to the nape of his neck, fingers curling into his hair as I press myself hard against him. Every cell in my body feels like it could burst from how much love I feel for this man.
“You know what I promise?”
His eyes darken. “Tell me.”
“I promise to be the kind of wife who makes you question your sanity on a daily basis.” My fingers dig into his skin. “The kind who drives you crazy. Who keeps you up at night and begs you to fuck her over and over.”
His grip on my waist turns bruising. “Fuck, Amelia.”
“I promise to want you back just as obsessively. Just as unreasonably.” I lean in closer. “And when I’m eighty and yelling at you about the thermostat?” I bring my mouth right next to his ear. “I’ll still want you to make me come.”
He stops moving entirely. Just stands there, holding me, looking at me like I just said something that broke him in the best way.
And then his mouth is on mine, and I forget we’re dancing. I forget we have an audience. I forget everything except the way he’s kissing me like he’s claiming me all over again.
When he finally drags his mouth from mine, because apparently we both still need oxygen, I’m dizzy and breathless and not convinced I can keep standing.
The song ends and the applause starts.
Sarah waves at us with both hands. Luna is twirling with excitement.
Tim whoops. Ethan yells out something that’s highly inappropriate but that, thankfully, Sarah and Luna won’t understand. Gage’s other brothers and their wives are cheering loudly with grins on their faces. Colin’s holding up a napkin like a scorecard.
Marin yells, “Ten out of ten, would emotionally spiral again!”
And I have never loved these people more.
The greenhouse is glowing now—the same glass building where we held the ceremony, but completely transformed. Gage had a team reset it while we were off taking photos. The flowers are wilder. The lights are warmer. The whole place hums with laughter and music and the sound of family.
“Your brother’s having a moment,” Gage observes.
I glance at them again and see that Tim’s now full-on sobbing while Colin pats his back. When we step off the dance floor, Tim immediately crashes into me with a hug.
“That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever witnessed,” he sobs into my shoulder. “You’re a literal goddess and Gage is obsessed and I can’t—I just—” He pulls back, dabbing at his eyes with a napkin. “I’m not okay. I will never be okay again.”
Colin appears by his side. “You need to pull it together for your toast later. You’re up first.”
Tim’s eyes widen. “Oh god. I have to give a toast. I can’t give a toast. I’m emotionally compromised.”
“You’ll be fine,” I assure him.
He’s not fine.
He makes it through his toast, but only after Colin fans him with the dinner menu, Kristen physically restrains him from climbing onto a chair to declare his feelings about love, and Gage threatens to mute the mic if he says the wordwombagain.
But honestly? That kind of unhinged energy sets the tone for the rest of the night.
Because Gage might have planned the perfect wedding, but our reception is perfectly, chaotically us. The Sinclairs and the Blacks. Equal parts mayhem, love, and too many feelings with not enough filters.
There’s a photo booth in one corner that spits out double strips of black-and-white pictures, and I can’t remember the last time I laughed as hard as I did taking photos with Sarah and Luna.
There’s glitter on my face now. I don’t know where it came from. Possibly Marin. Possibly the sticker station. Possibly the unholy combo of both. Which, by the way, what even is a sticker station? That wasn’t part of our wedding plan. Gage and I did not arrange a sticker station.
