Page 64 of The Child of Rue Royale
I run a hand along his shoulder, shaking my head. “It’ll work, it has to.”
“Yeah,” he whispers, looking behind me.
I lift his chin with a finger, aware there’s still a battle waging inside my sunshine boy. There are so many changes, and he’s doing so well.
“It was only supposed to be just a taste,” I whisper, sliding my hands through his hair and grabbing it at the nape of his neck. “And look at us now.”
His fingers curl around the sides of my bikini, his teeth biting into his bottom lip. “It was never going to be just a taste for me. You silly, naïve, little witch.”
He moves in slowly then, his head curving to my neck, planting wet kisses up to my ear, his tongue gliding along the sensitive skin, and he whispers into my neck.
“We are on the verge of walking into so many unknowns by going home. And I need you to know before we go back, how dedicated I am to you and Aven. That I will spend the rest of my life protecting you as much as a human can. I want you to know that I would die all over again for both of you, but I won’t let that happen. Never again. You’ve made my dreams come true in every way possible, and I won’t fuck it up.”
“Of course I know that, Bastian,” I say, a lump of emotion rising in my throat.
“You said something on the wharf the other day that I can’t let go. That we are partners. Partners? Like a business transaction,” he scoffs, his hand entwined with mine. “I don’t want to be called your partner. I want to be called your husband. I want your soul tied to mine forever. I want everything that’s mine to be yours.”
My heart races under my wet skin, loving the words that come from his mouth but knowing that’s not the fortune of a witch.
I squeeze his face between my hands, kissing each cheek. “Witches aren’t really supposed to get married. It never ends well.”
He pulls his face back. “They can’t have sons either, but look at you.”
I laugh because he’s right, and I really can’t pretend. I love the idea of being his wife.
“Let’s just do it. A small ceremony, something between you and me. Our moms. Cousin, Cassius. I don’t want you left with nothing if something happens to me again.”
“I don’t have nothing. I have a paid-off house and my business. And Cassius gave me two of your houses. But nothing is going to happen to you,” I vow.
“You are the mother of my child. Even if you can’t take my lastname,
I am bound to you forever. Your stupid legacy has kept you from doing so many things, but there’s a chain between our hearts forever, yours and mine. We can’t be married, yet I can promise my heart and soul to you? We’re going into an unknown, and I want you to know that I am happy to be growing old with you now. My vampire life is over, and I thought that would kill me, but all I want is to live the rest of my days with you and our son. You should be my wife.”
His jaw tightens, eyes stern—almost wounded—and he pulls his pinky ring off and grabs my hand.
“Let’s just call it a promise ring because I will buy you the biggest fucking diamond you’ve ever seen when we get home,” he says, slipping his BD pinky ring onto my ring finger. Everything seems to still, like I’m floating out of my body, his love pouring over me, the ring I kept around my neck for so long, now sitting on my ring finger. A promise from my soulmate. Yet something still sinks inside me. I don’t know one witch who has married a man and stayed married to that man. The prognosis is not good.
“There’re those overthinking eyes I fell in love with. Baby, let go.”
“I just—”
“That’s not the right answer, Aster Wildes. I came back from the dead for you, you should be my wife.”
“Technically I brought you back, so…” My hand rises to his cheek, thumb rubbing along his bottom lip. “Marriage was always something intangible, not something in my reality, so how can I even dare to dream of such a thing? The future is so unknown right now.”
“There’s always room for dreams,” he whispers, moving his mouth dangerously close to mine, the mouth he’s denied me kissing since we got here.
“Every second you’re here is like I’m home again. Like I’m safe, like everything has led to this moment. Like I can dream. Every kiss, every touch.” I swallow, the need for him pounding over every pore of my skin.
“Then kiss me like you mean it,” he commands into my mouth, and my legs could melt away from those words. So I do. Pulling his lips onto mine, his tongue into my mouth, and I kiss him fully and deeply with everything I have. The kind of kiss that makes you gasp for air when your lips part, the kind of kiss that makes you want to cry.
“You taste so good,” he growls, “I could feel you, feel you the entire time I was gone, my soul ticking like a clock, waiting to bebrought back.” He presses his chest tightly against my breasts, his hands twisting and roaming over my back.
My legs clench outside of his thighs, his dick, thick in his swim shorts. I want him, all of him so badly that I find my pelvis rising against him, my tongue sliding out of my opened mouth, and he takes it, sucking, his hands grabbing my ass and squeezing.
Then his mouth falls down my chin, kissing slowly between my breasts as I pull my head back, staring at the grove of trees over my head, the sun peeking through them. It’s such a beautiful sight, the enchanted forest around us, and I feel one side of the bikini top being slipped away as my hard nipple is adored by his hot mouth.
I bring my head up, running a hand through his thick waves, and use the other hand to free my other breast from the confines of the bikini top, demanding more.
