Page 163 of As the World Falls

I hear her footsteps halt, and I begin slowly around another passage, realizing she is closer than I had anticipated. “Can you be a runaway bride if you’ve already said I do?” she hollers back.

“You didn’t let me kiss the bride. As of now, our business is unfinished.”

She giggles, and it’s even closer. I turned down in the opposite direction from what I was planning, an excited beat picking up in my chest because I could sense her like she was my own soul playing hide and seek with me. She was close.

“You’ll have to find me to close the deal.” Her enthusiasm dies when I turn the corner and find her just getting the last of her heels off in the middle of a long passage. She had nowhere to run, no turn close enough to escape me. I would catch her no matter her attempt to run or hide.

I grin as she straightens, her height falling several inches to the ground as she toes her heels to the side. Her smirk grows, making a delicious need unfurl in my gut like a burning hunger only she could sate.

“Trying to run off again?”

She tilts her head to the side, feigning innocence. “Are you mad?”

I purse my lips as if to think about it and shake my head. “For taking off right before the end of our wedding ceremony? No.” Right as our officiate, a.k.a. Ambrose, claimed I could kiss the bride, all I heard was a mischievous giggle from her before she burst into the maze, beckoning me to capture it from her.

I shrug my suit jacket off, letting it fall to the ground, and begin rolling my shirt sleeves up. “It just means I get to punish you on our special day,” I muse.

Her cheeks flush, and it looks so fucking good. She looks so fucking good. Her hair was in what looked like an attempted updo that couldn’t hold the weight of her hair, so several curly pieces hung down, springing out everywhere, but somehow she managed to make it look perfect. She had gold flower and butterfly clips clipped in everywhere, and her dress…fuck me. She, of course, is anything but traditional, so her dress is whatshe calls a dusty mauve color. The sleeves were off her shoulders, draping around her upper arm and chest. The chest part clung tightly to her, pushing her breasts up and driving me crazy the whole fucking ceremony because I couldn’t touch her in front of everyone. The rest of the dress draped around her in several layers of ruffled tulle. She about killed me walking out into the garden looking like she was going to grow some kind of goddess wings and demand everyone to bow down to her.

She steps toward me, her hands gripping the skirt of her dress to keep it from dragging against the ground. “How about you just kiss the bride now?”

I walk toward her, closing the rest of the distance between us. Now that it was colder out after a long summer, her skin was paler than usual. Her blushed cheeks looked rosier on her winter skin, and I wanted to paint her color everywhere.

I lift her chin with my hand, lean down, and kiss her softly. She closes her eyes, leaning into me. She’s still lost in the moment when I pull away, her eyes barely opening again when I move my mouth to her ear. I kiss her there before whispering, “I’m going to tear into you.”

I watched the flush spread over her chest and lifted my hands, dragging my fingers over the redness. I dragged my hand down the front of her dress until I gathered a handful of the fabric. Her eyes narrowed on me, and I smirked back at her as realization dawned on her. But before she could object, I ripped the fabric across the front of her dress, letting it pool around her feet.

“Damnit, James,” she grouses, looking down at her dress, which now exposes her front legs as the rest drapes at her sides and down her back.

“I like it better this way,” I remark as I look at her. It was very short in the front now, and my attention caught on her leg, spotting the white garter around her thigh. “Is this for me?”

She shivers when she finds where my gaze is as I drop to my knees in front of her, and I can’t help myself as my hands shoot out, wrapping around both of her thighs. She stumbles off balance, her hands shooting out behind her, steadying herself as she grabs fists full of the hedges.

“Yes,” she finally answers in a small, breathless voice.

“What a pretty surprise.” My fingers dig into her skin with barely restrained need as I lean in, placing a small kiss just above the garter before sinking my teeth into her skin. She hisses in pain as I graze them down her thigh and bite onto the garter, dragging it down her leg. She lifts her foot slightly when I get around her ankle and pull it off her leg completely.

I stand back up, her eyes rising with mine as I hold the garter out to her with my finger. She goes to take it, but I pull it away just before she reaches it. “Give me your wrists.”

“What for?”

“To restrain you, of course.”

“Typical man, wanting to restrain his wife even on their wedding day.”

I trace my thumb over her lip, pulling it aggressively. “Your wrists. Now.”

She plays, putting up a fight for a second longer before holding both wrists out toward me. I gently take them and begin wrapping the garter around them, looping it around her wrists until they are tightly restrained together.

“I won’t be able to hold onto anything for balance now,” she complains.

I observe her and then decide to pick her up completely. She makes a yelping noise as I do, her legs flying around me as her intertwined hands fall over my head and rest behind my neck. I press her back into the thick hedges, finding them sturdy enough to lean into. “You may have a couple of scratches, but consider it part of your punishment for running off, wifey.” Mycock was straining painfully against my zipper, and I can’t take it anymore. Having her wrapped around me in her messy wedding dress, her hands tied behind my neck, with no choice but to hold onto me. I hold her with one hand, pressing her harder into the hedges to keep our balance as I unzip my pants and pull my aching cock out.

She makes a small moaning noise as she feels me rub against her leg. I wasn’t even inside her yet, and she was already enjoying herself. It made me want to fuck her even harder, let her feel just how much she could really enjoy me. That as her newly lawful husband, it’d be my cock giving her pleasure for the rest of her life.

Her chest was panting quickly, her breaths becoming shorter, and her skin becoming hotter despite the chill in the air. Her thighs grip me tighter, and her fingertips curl into my hair. “You’re so fucking desperate,” I growl into her. “Tell me what you want.”

“Fuck me,” she says without hesitation.

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