Page 42 of Sweet Rule
“I will never leave or forsake you,” I begin and she goes still. Our eyes meet and I keep wrapping the length of the tie slowly around our joined hands. “Any hand raised to you is raised to me. I am your shield, your weapon, your husband. For all of my days I will honor and protect you.” The soft sound of the tie sliding across itself and our skin wisps in the quiet that’s fallen around us and I let myself forget that we’re in a room of strangers while I make my declaration the best way I know how. I draw up the ends in a knot above her wrist. I tie it off with a tug of my hand. Honey’s soft exhale when the fabric pulls tight on our hands is music to my ears.
“I will always come for you when you call, Honey Sokolov. This is my vow to you.”
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
HONEY
I’m married. As in… I married Law. I’m Lawson Sokolov’s wife.
I’m fucking Mrs.Sokolov.
I blink at myself in the mirror and take a steadying breath. I lean forward, hands braced on the sink and swallow hard. The events of the past hour happened so fast. The day went in a blur, the week was just one big mesh of events that I can hardly piece together, because all of it pales in comparison to seeing Law.
And I didn’t just see him. I married him.
I bite my lip so hard I taste blood and when red appears in the porcelain I’m leaning over, I snap out of it.
“Shit,” I whisper, grabbing a tissue from the little toiletry set up that sits on the counter. I’m in an ensuite. I don’t know if I’m meant to stay here or for how long.
Connie said that Zeus wanted the marriage consummated. I shudder and toss the tissue into the wastebasket before I grab another and press it to my lip. I hope the bleeding stops before I see Law.Fucking fuck. Before I see my husband.
“I will always come for you when you call, Honey Sokolov. This is my vow to you.”
He said that to me. He said that in front of a room full of witnesses. Strangers, yes, but they still saw it. Zeus saw it. I repeated the generic vows the priest spoon fed me, but Law? His vows were…personal.
Intimate.
They were perfect.
They were so perfect I thought maybe he knew what would happen tonight, but by the thunderous look on Zeus’ face at not being able to control Law, I knew he hadn’t. There was no way Law’s disobedience would have made Zeus this angry if they’d planned this together, because if they had, Zeus would have had a back up plan. I smile but wince at the sting of my lip and sigh. At least the bleeding is done now. I get rid of the tissue and leave the bathroom. I am still in my wedding dress. Mostly because I don’t know what else to change into, but definitely because I like having it on.
I like the reminder that I’ve just married Law. It is something I’d dreamed about when we’d been together. In my head, it went differently. There was sunlight and pink peonies. We snuck away together without even Taylor knowing where we’d gone and got married in some tiny little church by a kindly priest. There was laughter and champagne. It would be soft and gentle. Joyful. Our wedding would be our secret that we surprised everyone with when we returned to the city.
Tonight hadn’t been that. There’d been no softness or sunlight. Only darkness and greed.
I rub my hand against the place Zeus had held my arm when he’d practically dragged me up the aisle to Law. I hadn’t meant to walk slowly, but seeing Law waiting for me up ahead had done a number on me.
“Touch my wife like that again and I’ll cut your hand off.”
My chest goes tight and I flush warm all over. It rolls over me head to toe until the only thing I can do is smile. He said that to Zeus. I don’t care if he said it out of a bullshit sense of machismo posturing. The fact is that he’d said it. He’d meant it too. And for the first time since I’d been tossed on my ass into Zeus’ orbit, I feel stronger. Like my next step isn’t going to end up with me walking right off a cliff.
Law is stable ground to stand on. I know him. I know what he is capable of and what he’ll make me do and I can handle that. At least…I think I can. Because even if he’d made Zeus stand down, there’d also been the part where he’d said…he’d said…
“You’re going to beg sweet for me but you won’t be calling me Lawson when I do. The only word on your lips is Daddy.”
The heat on my skin turns into a fire and I rub my temples. Daddy. I still think of him as that, though I try not to. A week hasn’t been nearly enough time for me to let that part of what we had go.
Being married is one thing, but that? He wants me to call him Daddy? That just…well, that is a dangerous line to walk. Law might be able to turn that side of himself on and off, but I can’t. Or at least, I can’t when it comes to him.
When it’s him, I can’t think of letting him go. Of losing him and the intimate dynamic that’s so much a part of us I know there’s no way anyone could ever hope to find where it ends and begins. It feels ingrained in my bones. It is the only way I’ll ever know how to be with Law.
Dominant and submissive. Daddy and little.
The door opens and I startle. It’s not Connie this time but I know that from the lack of knocking. She’d never just barge into my room, but Law would.
“What do you want?” I snap. My voice shakes but I force my words to be harsh with him. I can’t soften. If I do, I’ll crumble and never be able to pick myself up again. I need this anger to stay standing. His betrayal is fresh so that makes it easy, even if he married me to save me from marrying a worse kind of man.
The kind of man that wouldn’t just betray, but would use me and hurt me for their own pleasure. I heard what the men were saying about me, but pretended I didn’t, because Zeus gave no reaction. If he heard them, he didn’t show it. I can’t believe he was going to make me marry one of them just to gain an upper hand in whatever little fucked up game of Monopoly he’s got going on in the city.
