Page 18 of Dearly Betrayed

She looks incredible.

Magnificent.

Like a prize, like a painting.

Her collarbones, her shoulders, those eyes staring angry daggers at me, everything takes my breath away.

I knew she was beautiful, I saw it on the boardwalk and again in the lobby, but now she’s impossibly radiant.

It’s a cliché, to say she’s glowing on her wedding day, and that wouldn’t be right.

She burns. She wrecks. She ravishes my fucking eyes.

I’m so taken away with her that I barely even notice my mother walking her down the aisle. When Fallon arranges herself across from me, mother kisses her cheek and returns to the seats.

I can’t take my eyes away from my wife-to-be. I lean in closer, my mouth watering at the thought of peeling that dress away from her soft body, revealing more and more pale, lovely skin?—

“What the fuck are you staring at?” she whispers at me, her jaw set. Only the old priest hears, and he clears his throat.

“You look incredible,” I tell her.

That softens her a touch. Not much, but enough. “Yeah. Alright. You too, dickhead.”

Then the priest takes over, giving his little sermon, saying all those words. They pass through my skull, nothing but noise in the air.

Fallon’s everything right now, from the gentle cascade of her auburn hair to her sharp nose to her soft lips. I stare at her chest, her breasts rising with each rapid breath, and fuck, I wasn’t lying when I told Conlan I found her attractive.

But this is another level. This is something else. It isn’t only lust. It’s not about possessing her, though it’s about that too.

It’s about worship.

“Bro.” Adler nudges me. “Rings.”

“Right. Yeah.” I exchange them with Fallon. She’s giving me this weird look like I’ve gone insane, and maybe I have.

We say the standard vows. My voice doesn’t shake, and some part of me thinks I might mean them for once. I’m only dimly aware of the deal I struck with her—one year and then we’re done—but right now, there is no future. Not without her.

“By the power vested in me by the State of New Jersey, and in the sight of family and friends, and our Lord God in heaven, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

Fallon’s ears flush. Fuck, that’s cute, how pink they turn when she’s embarrassed. I step forward and she doesn’t flinch away, turning only a touch to offer me one cheek. It’s chaste, and that’s what we agreed on, and maybe under other circumstances I might’ve gone along.

But fuck that.

I put one hand on her lower back, pull her against me, lace the other hand into her hair, and press my lips against hers like I might not get another chance.

The room’s dead silent.

There’s no room, not anymore.

I’m not breathing, she’s not breathing.

For a moment, we hang there, suspended over nothing, and all I can feel is the warmth and the softness of her mouth, the wetness of her lips, the taste of her burrowing into my tongue, down my throat, into my fucking soul.

I kiss her slowly, hold it there, kiss her more, until she relaxes and now she’s kissing me back, mother of fucking hell, she kisses me back and her tongue’s like candy and I’m going to burn this whole casino to the ground if I’m not given my wife right here, right now, mine to claim and own and pleasure and satisfy and yes, fuck, worship until my final days.

Then we break apart and the clapping starts.

Chapter8

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