“Come here, wife,” he said, still standing alongside the bed. He opened his arms wide and beckoned her closer with flicks of his wrists.
She didn’t move, just lifted an eyebrow at him. “Perhaps I wasn’t clear when I said I don’t like that word.”
“Only because you associate the word with the wrong thing. With subservience,” he said. “Allow me to show you what the word wife means to me. Maybe it will change how you feel about it.”
“Doubtful,” she said and flipped her long hair behind her before moving against him.
“Wife,” he whispered, holding her securely to his chest. “The only one I hold in my arms.”
His heart was thudding so hard, she could feel it against her chest.
“Wife, the only one who holds my body, who holds my heart.”
Aggie sucked her lips into her mouth to stop their trembling. He spoke his feelings so seldom that when he did, she could scarcely handle the enormity of his sentiments.
“Wife,” he said and stroked her hair. “She has the only hair I want to caress, the only eyes I want to get lost in, the only lips I want to kiss.”
Aggie lifted her face to look at him, and he smiled softly. He cupped her face in one hand and traced her trembling lips with his thumb. “Wife, whose face is the first I want to see each morning and the last I want to see before I close my eyes at night, so I can meet her in my dreams.”
“Jace,” she whispered, her eyes swimming with tears. He never opened up like this.
“Wife,” he said, taking her hands in his and drawing her knuckles to his lips. “Who possesses the hands that give my body everything it craves. The pain. The pleasure.”
He pressed her down on the bed and leaned over her, trailing kisses along collarbones, her breasts, and her belly. “Wife, owner of the only body I desire.”
He continued down her body and opened her legs gently. “Wife, who conceals a wondrous place between her thighs. The only pussy I’ll ever taste.”
His lips moved against her, rough beard stubble rubbing sensitive skin, soft tongue collecting her cream. She quickly lost herself to the pleasure. “Jace,” she called to him as her desire bloomed.
“Wife,” he said, “the only voice I want to hear call my name in ecstasy.”
He rose above her and used his hand to guide his thick length into her.
“Wife, who accepts me into her body, holds me within, blinds me with pleasure.”
She reached up to pull him into her arms. He joined her on the bed, careful to stay buried within her as he found a comfortable position above her.
He rocked slowly, staring into her eyes as he possessed her most intimately.
“Wife, who I love above all things and will cherish until the day I die. My wife. My one. My only love. My Aggie. My wife.”
She was really loving the word wife at the moment, she couldn’t deny it. As long as she was his wife—his and no other’s—she’d bear the title proudly and with love in her heart.
“That’s what wife means to me, Aggie. So when I call you my wife, know that it isn’t a word that means subservient to me. It’s a word that encompasses every wonderful thing you are to me. Do you understand now?”
She nodded mutely, her throat much too tight to form words. She drew him against her, and he nuzzled her neck as his hips began to move more vigorously to drive himself deep inside her. She knew how long it took him to find release when he was being tender, but she was totally fine with him making love to her slow and gently for as long as he needed to get off. It wasn’t exactly a negative quality of his, though he’d eventually get frustrated as orgasm eluded him.
“Thank you for loving me,” she whispered, one hand clinging to his firm ass that tensed and relaxed with each penetrating thrust. Her other hand touched the soft hair on the back of his head, and she rubbed her cheek against the roughness of his beard stubble, delighting in all the various textures of his body. “Nobody has ever made me feel the way you do, Jace. Tomorrow I will be proud to call you my husband, proud to be your wife.”
He lifted his head and stared down into her eyes. Apparently he was all out of words, but she could see his feelings for her in his brown eyes.
His entire body was drenched in sweat by the time he finally lost himself inside her. He clung to her shoulders, forehead pressed to her collarbone, excited bursts of breath warming the sweat-slick valley between her breasts. She met him, her belly slapping against his as her back arched in bliss and her pussy gripped him tightly in earth-shattering waves of orgasm.
Arms trembling, he collapsed on top of her and gathered her close while he caught his breath.
“Wife,” she heard him whisper between gasps of breath.
She smiled and hugged him tightly, remembering all he said that word encompassed. “Husband,” she answered, her word meaning just as much.
And tomorrow they’d be recognized as wife and husband by the others who were important to them. Would their friends and family be able to tell how much their union meant to him? To her? Somehow, she thought they might.
Chapter Nine
Jace’s heart thudded at the sight of his wife as she sat at a vanity arranging her long black hair into an elegant twist. They hadn’t said their I-dos yet, but in his heart, Aggie was already his wife and everything that sentiment meant to him.
He’d always loved the way she looked in thigh-high boots and leather corsets, but there was something about her being dressed in a luxurious sixteenth-century gown that totally did it for him. Perhaps it was because she was naturally well-endowed on top and her breasts were fighting for room in her tight bodice, settling as beguiling cleavage above the neckline of her forest-green dress. It made him want to bury his face—and his cock—in the sweet crevice between the soft mounds of flesh. He was used to her cinching her waist tight in corsets, but the wide skirt of the gown made her waist look impossibly tiny and her hips even fuller than her luscious tits. He hoped she’d gotten her fill of slow and gentle sex that afternoon, because there was no way he’d be able to restrain himself after having the tantalizing swell of her breasts in sight all evening.
Jace wasn’t quite as keen on his own attire. The fitted forest-green jacket wasn’t so bad, but the knee breeches and buckled shoes were asking far too much of him. He didn’t care how many eyelashes Aggie batted at him or how many threats she muttered, he wasn’t wearing either of them. So yeah, he was wearing a formal sixteenth-century jacket with his worn blue jeans and his biker boots, and if anyone had a problem with it, he’d call it a night and leave early. He didn’t particularly want to go to this party, but he knew how upset Eric would be if he bailed, so he’d show up. No promises that he’d stay, however.
“You’re going to be the only one dressed like that,” Aggie said, grinning at him in the mirror and shaking her head at his mismatched style. Mismatched style? Hell, his millennia were mismatched. He knew Eric and Rebekah liked to play make-believe, but he preferred to keep his head firmly planted in reality. And right now his reality was how stunning his wife looked in that fucking dress. He didn’t care if he made a complete ass of himself by showing up half baron/half biker. No one would be looking at him anyway. Not with that stunning woman on his arm.
Thomas, a voice whispered through his head.
Jace started.
The bedroom door slammed.
Aggie paused with her lipstick halfway too her mouth. “A draft?” she asked.
“Must have been,” Jace said. “Did you hear someone say the name Thomas just now?”
Aggie’s eyes darted to one side. “No,” she said, drawing out the word. Her eyes darted in the opposite direction and she bit her lip.
She actually looked unsettled. Jace had never seen Aggie anything but badass and confident. He’d seen her attack an armed mugger once. In the end, Jace had been shot twice, and she hadn’t had a scratch on her. The woman didn’t do frightened. It was as if she didn’t possess a fear response. At least that’s what he’d al
ways assumed. He didn’t like the trembling of her lips as she smeared them with a soft pink lipstick, a shade he hadn’t known she’d owned.
“Me neither,” he said with a chuckle he hoped didn’t sound false. “Just messing with you. You aren’t scared are you?” He hoped a challenge would remedy her of any lingering anxiety.
“Well, it is Halloween,” she said.
The bedroom door creaked open again. Jace turned to stare at the empty doorway, his heart thudding high in his chest. He didn’t see anyone. But he felt someone there. Watching them.
Something cool brushed his cheek.
A chill slid down his spine.
“Wow, that’s some draft,” Aggie said, rubbing her hands over her arms. “I think we’d better get going.”
She rose from the dressing table and for a split second, Jace caught the reflection of a light-haired woman in the mirror. She was wearing the same green gown that Aggie had donned, but the resemblance stopped there. He blinked and stared hard into the mirror. It was just Aggie now. Apparently he’d been seeing things.
As well as hearing things.
And feeling things.
He grabbed Aggie’s hand and tugged her toward the front door.
“Yeah, we’d better hurry,” he said. “I’m sure we’re late.”
Lights glittered in lanterns posted along the otherwise dark pathway that led from the cottages toward the field that separated the quaint set of cottages from the main castle. Jace’s breath plumed before him in the chill of the night.
“It’s cold out here,” Aggie said. “Let me go grab my wrap. You pulled me out of there so quickly, I left it on the bed.”
“I’ll get it,” Jace volunteered, though he honestly did not want to go back into the cottage. He suddenly had a bad feeling about the place. And as little as he wanted to go in there, he wanted Aggie to brave it alone even less.
“Don’t be silly. Just wait for me,” she said and went back inside.
The expansive field between their accommodations and the castle was dark. Fog slowly rose from the ground in twisted wisps. Jace looked up at the castle in the distance. The windows glowed with inviting warmth. Every nerve ending in Jace’s body was on high alert. He wanted to be inside the castle, surrounded by others, not out here alone in the dark. Normally he preferred to be alone or in an intimate group of those he loved, but he was craving a big anonymous crowd to get lost in at the moment.
Jace caught movement out of the corner of his eye. A pale mist moved through the field of grass beyond the cottage lane. It was human-like in shape and moving toward the castle. A trick of the light reflecting off the fog, he told himself.
Thomas, who is she? A voice whispered behind him.
He spun around. Aside from the pale stone of the nearest building, there was nothing there.
Thomas?
“Okay, who the fuck is in here?” Aggie yelled inside the cottage. “This isn’t funny, Eric. Where are you? Hiding under the bed?”
Suddenly the cottage seemed like a very nice place to be. Jace dashed inside and found Aggie yanking the closet open and pushing through the clothes hanging there.
“What are you doing?” Jace asked.
“Some jerk is trying to scare me,” she said and pointed at the mirror.
He is mine was written on the glass in pink lipstick.
“Uh, yeah,” Jace said, grabbing Aggie by the arm and pulling her out of the closet. “Let’s go now. Right now.”
Aggie grabbed her wrap off the bed and allowed him to haul her out the front door again. He shut it before taking her hand and dashing toward the castle as if the ground was caving in behind them and they were trying to escape falling into the depths of Hell.
“What’s gotten into you?” she asked.
“That message on the mirror didn’t freak you out?”
“It’s just someone’s idea of a prank,” Aggie said.
“There was no one in that cottage but you.”
“Just because we didn’t see anyone doesn’t mean no one was there.”
Right. But someone—something—was in there. Jace had seen her. Heard her. He was pretty sure that he was the “he is mine” mentioned in the mirror message. But if Aggie wasn’t afraid, then neither was he. Nope. Not him. Not scared at all.
She grinned at him crookedly. “You look a bit freaked out,” she teased.
A bit? “Whatever. Let’s just get this party over with.”
“And then we can go back to the cottage and fool around under the covers.”
Oh second thought, partying until dawn sounded fantastic. While time spent with Aggie under the covers was always phenomenal, he preferred to be anywhere on Earth other than that cottage.
They entered the castle and followed the loud music and voices to the ballroom. An attendant took Aggie’s wrap and opened a set of double doors that was actually muffling the sound far more than Jace had realized. The hall had been set up with a long buffet table along one side. Round dining tables, each seating six, were arranged on a plush patterned carpet to designate the dining area. The rest of the room had wooden floors and a DJ who was currently playing the worst club music Jace had ever heard. But people—members of the wedding party and guests who had arrived early enough to attend—were dancing. And looking a bit odd in their ball gowns and suits as they bumped and grinded and bounced and swayed to the rapid tempo of the pop song. Perhaps the haunted cottage wasn’t so bad after all, Jace decided.
“There you are,” Eric said. “Thought you might have been eaten by zombies or something.” He did his best impression of an evil laugh, which grated on Jace’s already raw nerves.
“That dress looks so great on you.” Rebekah squealed at Aggie. “I knew it would be perfect for you when I saw it.” She took Aggie by both hands and made her sway side to side to set the skirt swinging.
Aggie’s mom, Tabitha, came over to give her daughter a hug. “I’d never be able to pull off that dress, baby girl. You’ve always had the most beautiful skin.”
Every inch of her was beautiful. And his. He couldn’t seem to help but stand a bit taller when she was on his arm.
“I stay out of the sun,” Aggie said.
“Because you’re a vampire?” Eric asked.
Aggie’s white teeth flashed as she smiled. “You guessed it, Sticks. I’m queen of the dead.”
“That would explain her cruelty,” Eric said, jabbing Jace in the ribs with a sharp elbow.
But Jace knew a different Aggie. A loving Aggie. Maybe he was the only one who recognized the gentleness and vulnerability inside her because she didn’t allow anyone but him to see it. Jace squeezed her hand and even though she was chattering with the women and apparently paying him no mind, she squeezed back.
Aggie and Rebekah complimented Tabitha on her flapper dress—whatever that was. It was covered with long shiny strings that reminded Jace of spaghetti. Which sounded delicious. His stomach rumbled in agreement.
“What’s for eats?” Jace asked Eric, releasing Aggie’s hand and slapping Eric on the back to get him to head toward the buffet table.
“Rebekah thought we should eat British foods popular in various time periods.” He glanced at his wife to see if she was paying attention—she was still fawning over dresses—and then he crinkled his nose in disgust.
“Oh,” Jace said.
Out of the corner of his mouth, Eric whispered, “And they ate some really weird shit back in the day. Kidney pie? Did they not realize that kidneys are where piss is made? Blood pudding?” Eric gagged.
“Uh, I think people still eat those things in this country,” Jace said.
The corners of Eric’s mouth turned down. “You’re kidding?”
Jace shook his head.
“I think it’s time the fine people of Great Britain were introduced to hot dogs and scrambled eggs. Separately and together.”
It was Jace’s turn to gag. “You do realize what hot dogs are made of, don’t you?”
“Sunsh
ine and happiness,” Eric said.
They met Sed picking through the buffet selections and filling a large plate. Apparently he’d decided to try one or three of everything.
“You hungry?” Jace asked.
“Mmm, yeah, but this is for Jessica,” Sed said, glancing at his wife at a nearby table.
Jessica was hugely pregnant and nibbling on the after-dinner