Page 81 of His Custody

“Yes, Master.” With those words, she felt kept, and she would whisper them just as surely as she rubbed the star of her bracelet when she needed him.

Settling against him, she curled into her favorite spot, her head on Jasper’s shoulder, his arm wrapped around her. He held her for minutes as they looked into the licking flames of the fire, his heart beating reassuringly under her ear. Which meant when he took a deep breath, she could feel it.

“Keyne?”

“Yeah?”

“I wanted to tell you...” She stroked the hard planes of his abdomen through the cotton of his T-shirt and tried her best not to hold her breath. It was fine. He’d already said he’d keep her, he was going to marry her, and they could be together forever in the way they were meant to be. Anything outside of that was details, so why did it make her heart beat unpleasantly fast? “Since you’ve been gone, I started seeing a therapist.”

“Okay?” Why? She hoped he wasn’t still being eaten alive by guilt about wanting to be with her. And if that was the issue that the doctor would help him and not make him feel like a monster.

She heard him swallow, and waited. For all the times he’d been so achingly patient with her, she waited.

“The thing is, I never dealt with what happened to our parents, to Gavin. I put off my grief because I couldn’t handle that and your grief at the same time.”

She went stiff under his arm, guilt curdling in her stomach and slithering through her nervous system, cold fingers of regret. But he stroked her arm, kissed her hair and nuzzled the top of her head. God she loved that, and it helped. She hoped it made him feel better too, to have someone to hold onto.

“I don’t regret it for a second, and I don’t want you to, either. I would do the same thing over again because you needed me to. But burying all of that forever is untenable. And if I want to be good for you in the long run—and I assure you I’m not going anywhere—then I need to work through some of it, and I can’t do it by myself. I also... I started going to AA because I can’t honestly call myself a casual user anymore. I controlled it for a long time, but I don’t feel so in control of it anymore and I need to be.”

Oh, Jasper. That had to be excruciating for him to admit—he couldn’t handle everything by himself, he felt out of control, he needed help. And for him to describe himself as grieving, well. She held him as tightly as she dared and closed her eyes to keep the tears from leaking out between her lids. This one time, she wouldn’t burden him with her tears.

“I think that’s a good idea. And I’m proud of you and grateful you’re doing it. You’re a good man, and this will only make you better. I love you.”

He squeezed her back and his chest rose beneath her head. Hopefully he was filling his lungs with not just air, but pride and pleasure, too. She wanted to do for him as he’d done for her so many times, and say the words he needed to hear, the ones that helped him get through the day. She must have done okay, because he tipped her chin up so he could look in her eyes and with the most heart-squeezing look of devotion, said, “I love you, too, Keyne. Always and forever.”

Epilogue

Three-and-a-Half Years Later

Their wedding was this gorgeous, excessive thing, he made sure of it. Held a month after Keyne graduated from Yale, it was completely over-the-top, meant to be the social event of the season.

She was going to be his, and he was going to shout it from the rooftops. Show everyone they weren’t ashamed. Let the bastards talk. They would anyway. And if they were going to, they were going to say—along with all the unkind speculations—that the Andersson-O’Connells knew how to throw a damn good party.

If anyone thought he was the domineering one in their relationship, they’d be hard-pressed to say so in regards to wedding planning. He’d tried to get her to push it back at least to the fall or later in the summer so she could focus on her schoolwork, but she wouldn’t hear of it. He’d even threatened her with punishment if she didn’t keep her grades up, but she wouldn’t budge. She’d pleaded with her professors to grade her exams early and she’d be graduating with honors. Because of course she would.

He’d rolled his eyes at her delighted glee when she’d sat on his lap in his office and logged into the website to look up her final grades. One A minus, and three As. He’d rucked up her skirt and fucked her over the desk, her smug face pressed into the blotter, her wrists crossed behind her back and bound with his hastily removed tie.

And now... now he was standing in front of hundreds of pairs of gawking eyes, waiting for his bride. His gorgeous, brave, brilliant and delightfully submissive bride.

They’d broken the taboo of not seeing each other today. He’d come into her room before she put on her dress and while she was in the obscenely expensive and decadent white lingerie he’d picked out for her, he’d marked her. Not a lot, just a few strikes of the evil stick along her shoulder blades where they wouldn’t show under her dress. She said they made her feel like she had wings, had asked for more even as her eyes watered. He’d refused.

There was going to be a lot of handshaking, hugging, sitting, standing, dancing. He wanted to remind her she was his but not because she was hurting in a bad way. He would rather die than harm her.

He tugged at his cufflinks, again, willing her to materialize at the end of the aisle. And then she was there.

The dress he’d picked for her, a modest structured silk number, made her glow. Her hair had grown out and was back to being her natural red, but it was tucked up, hidden by the long veil. They didn’t have any attendants, so there was no waiting for her as she floated down the aisle. Everyone in the audience probably turned, but he couldn’t see anything but her.

Step by step, she got closer and he found himself overwhelmed by the depth of his feelings for her. Without knowing it, she’d brought him back from the brink of disaster. Without trying, she’d made him a better man. He’d needed to be, to be worthy of her and the trust she put in him. That would be his goal for the rest of his life. To earn the love Keyne bestowed upon him so freely. He had to protect her from herself even in that. Something so precious and she’d hand it over to a man like him, no questions asked.

Silly little girl.

Or maybe not so silly, because he would fight to honor the promises he’d made to her until the day he died. She made him want to become the man she thought he was. Brave and maybe savvier than he’d ever given her credit for, to see he’d give anything to fill the shoes she thought he already walked in.

Her small shoulders were squared and he could tell she was holding herself tightly. Nervous. Her fingers were probably clenched around the stems of her bouquet, hidden away by the gorgeous flowers spilling over her wrists. He hoped her nerves were a result of the hundreds of pairs of eyes staring at her and not because of the commitment she was about to make.

Doubt hadn’t been a familiar feeling in his life until Keyne had come along. He’d experienced more doubt and uncertainty since he’d brought her home on that awful June day than in the rest of his life combined.Am I doing the right thing? Am I good enough for her?Those questions hadn’t made him weak, though. They’d made him stronger, smarter, more industrious. For her.

And for the last three-and-a-half years, he’d waited for her to change her mind; to find someone else who intrigued her, who she wanted to be with. Someone more appropriate maybe, although he couldn’t believe she’d ever find someone who would love her more. But though she’d had some flirtations with guys at school and she’d gone with Alice and Leisl to play at clubs with people other than him, she returned to him time after time. Not with reluctance, either, but with gratitude, relief, joy, and yes, love.

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