Page 147 of The Sinner's Bargain

His flared nostrils.

I feel his heat roll over me like a wave and I forget where we are until the justice of the peace clears his throat.

I blinked and flushed and quickly dropped my gaze. I carefully retracted the step I’d unconsciously taken forward only to have Thoran capture my wrist and tug me back to him. Both of my hands were taken and held in his large ones as if assuring I wouldn’t try again.

“That’s too far,” he said low under his breath.

The tips of our shoes nearly touched. My skirt whispered around his legs. I was close enough that I could almost count his lashes, and still, he was right.

He was too far.

Words were spoken and lost in the cotton candy cloud soaking into my brain. We were asked to repeat vows and promise each other a single lifetime together and I hurt a little thinking no way was that enough. It annoyed me that we hadn’t met sooner. That it wasn’t him in Jarrett’s place. But Thoran would never lust after a fourteen-year-old. He wouldn’t do the things Jarrett did.

“Longer,” Thoran murmured, upending an entire ocean of desire straight into my soul. A cascade of warmth trickled across my skin, and I shivered. His fingers flexed around mine. “Your turn, love,” he teased when the justice had to repeat himself.

“I’m sorry. Yes. Yes, I very much so do.”

When Thoran was asked for the rings, I expected him to tell the other man we were ill prepared and we’d get them at the bigger ceremony, but Cyrus stepped forward and drew out twin boxes in velvet black. He checked the bottoms, looking a bit sheepish before passing Thoran the bigger one.

The stiff, gold hinges creaked under the fingers prying the top back. Soft, navy-blue silk shimmered in the light before the early afternoon caught the most stunning and familiar, princess cut diamond nestled in a circle of elegant silver and surrounded by a small cluster of flawless emeralds. The second one was a simple silver circle with tiny, square cut diamonds around the band.

The bigger one went on my finger first. Then the band. Both fit a little too well, as if designed specifically for me, but I gasped as something much deeper dawned on me.

“Your mother’s?”

Or a very good replica of the one in his parents’ portrait.

Thoran nodded, gaze fixed on the thumb he smoothed over the set. “She used to tell me they would be mine when I got married.”

I didn’t want to think they could have been worn by any of the other five women before me and focused on the fact that they were mine. I got to wear them. I was Thoran’s wife and, one day, the mother of his children. The person who got to spend the rest of her life with him.

“We’re nearly finished,” the justice promised when I had to be jostled again.

Cyrus opened the second box and held it out for me to pluck the matching, male version of my wedding band from the satin bed. A smooth, silver with a single, square diamond and much weightier than mine. I hadn’t realized how badly I was shaking until I nearly dropped it once and missed his finger several times.

“Can we start over? I’ll do better,” I only half teased.

“Shhh, we’re nearly at my favorite part.” Thoran grinned.

We were both grinning when the justice finally allowed him to kiss the bride.

It was a long, deep kiss that momentarily had me forgetting where I was when my body bowed into his and my fingers slid into his hair. But even when I heard the discreet cough and started to pull back, Thoran tightened his hold.

“I’ll tell them to fucking leave,” he growled into my ear, and I laughed, breathless.

“Take me home,” I said instead.

“Home,” he groaned against my mouth.

I hadn’t meant to imply Lacroix House was my home, but I guess it was. It was my home and Thoran was my husband, and I would never be Naya Blackwell again, or Naya Brixton.

Naya Lacroix.

It sounded so much better.

---