Jude’s hand engulfed mine as he led me up the steps. The priest disappeared into the sacristy. I inhaled deeply, catching Jude smirking down at me, his dark eyes glinting by the candlelight. He said nothing. Neither did I. No matter how ready I was, I still trembled at the momentous step I was about to take.
Father Clementine returned in a purple vestment with gold embroidery along the border and the cross at the center. He took on a more solemn demeanor as he approached and began the ceremony. He motioned us forward and began rambling off prayers and verse, in English and in Latin. I didn’t hear a word. I couldn’t focus on anything but Jude and the look of adoration he held me in, his thumb brushing over the knuckles of my right hand. I memorized the way a lock of hair partially covered his left eye, the way the candlelight gilded his black hair reddish-gold at the tips, the way his broad chest rose and fell with every breath. The longer the ceremony drew on, the more in love I fell.
Jude’s gaze broke from mine when Father Clementine cleared his throat, then I realized it was the second time he had done so.
“Jude Delacroix, repeat after me.”
I only heard Jude as he spoke the vows I’d heard a million times in movies, on television, in commercials, and at cousins’ and friends’ weddings. But I’d never truly understood them before this moment.
“I, Jude, take you, Genevieve, to be my wife. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.”
My love for him swelled to mammoth-size proportions. My Vessel Sense reacted to my overabundant emotion, shining my white underlight along my skin. Father Clementine simply smiled as he asked me to repeat the vows back to Jude. I did, never breaking eye contact, wanting Jude to know that I would forever be true to him.
“The rings,” said Father Clementine, his palm out.
I gasped. “Oh no. I didn’t think about—”
Jude smiled. “I did.”
He took from his pocket two silvery rings twined together with purple ribbon. He pulled the ribbon loose, handing them both to Father Clementine, who let them sit on his palm as he blessed them. They were simple but beautiful bands with interweaving Celtic lines ringing the entire circumference. We spoke the words as Father asked us to, slipping the rings on in our turn.
“Now, Jude. You may kiss your bride.”
Jude cupped my face gently and sealed his lips to mine, not pressing too deep, but not letting me go too quickly either. The heat of what was to come flared between us both, sending my pulse into super-speed. He broke the kiss, keeping me close, the fire in his eyes promising me more…so much more.
Father Clementine cleared his throat again, effectively breaking us apart for the moment. “It was lovely meeting you, Genevieve.” He shook my hand. “I’ll lock up now as I’m sure you’ll want to be on your way.” He winked at Jude. I choked back a laugh. Cheeky fellow, Father Clementine.
“Yes. We do,” said Jude, taking my hand and sweeping me back down the nave and through the Gothic doors, the varnish rubbed bare where countless hands had pushed through to the outdoors.
“How old is this church anyway?”
“A thousand years or so,” he said, removing his jacket and wrapping it around my shoulders. “Hold on.”
I slipped my arms around his waist as he took us through the Void, zapping us to the cliffside of the Isle of Arran, several yards from his whitewashed cottage. Bone-chilling wind wafted from the sea below.
“I knew it.” I beamed up at Jude, the night shadowing his face from me.
“You did, did you?”
Snow had fallen recently, the powdery flakes dusting the ground. Before I took two steps, Jude swept me off my feet, cradling me close. I squealed with laughter, his buoyant mood lifting me higher.
“Reach into my jacket pocket. There’s a key there,” he said, crunching across the snow.
My teeth already chattering, I fumbled in the pocket. “Why n-not just sift in?”
“Unlock the door.” I did, turning the knob and shoving it open. The yellow warmth within was inviting, but Jude delayed a second. I peered up at him. “Because”—his eyes glinted in the dark, emotion thickening his voice—“I want to carry my bride over the threshold.”
And so he did.
Chapter Twenty-One
In the past few months, I’d been in many situations that would drive fear into the strongest person—facing off a demon prince, murdering a man at a masquerade ball, being forcibly taken to a demon castle in hell, falling under demon attack at the Thanksgiving Day Parade. All of which would make the average person crumble under the weight of sure peril. But nothing,
nothing
had me so unglued as I was at this moment, standing in the bedroom of Jude’s cottage, the weight of his fiery gaze tracking my every move, knowing what was about to happen.
He’d set me on my feet in front of a crackling fire, the bed turned down with warm comforters and fluffy pillows. Champagne chilled in a silver bucket with two fluted glasses on the worn wooden side table, seeming out of place. Charmingly so.
I draped Jude’s jacket over the back of an overstuffed chair, smoothing it a ridiculous number of times. I peeked at Jude removing his tie, untucking and unbuttoning his shirt. The swirls of black ink came into view above the V-neckline of his white undershirt. I moved to the window, pretending to be enamored with the view, my breathing coming quicker.
A gray sheet covered the night sky, allowing vaporous moon-glow to shine below. The black shoreline snaked in dark curves till it was out of sight. Far away, the wind pushed the sea in a sensuous lap toward land.
Jude stepped close, the heat of him lapping against me from behind. I started to turn. “Don’t move.” His voice rolled low and deep, gentle and commanding, like the sea. I remained still.
He pulled out my hairpins, one by one, stacking them on the side table, where I hadn’t noticed a vase of fresh flowers. It hadn’t been there the last time I’d been in the cottage. He’d prepared for this…for us. He unbraided my hair, combing his fingers through the wavy strands till it fell around my shoulders and down my back. He removed my cardigan, tossing it somewhere behind us. His fingers skated back up my arms, rounding my shoulders, sliding to my nape. He pushed my hair over one shoulder and unclasped the pearl necklace, his fingers brushing the short hairs, sending an erotic shiver through my frame. He leaned closer, his now bare chest brushing my shoulder, skin on skin. I jumped at the spark of contact but didn’t turn. He held the strand of pearls in front of me, his arms and body caging me in.
“These are beautiful.”
“They were my mother’s.” I was surprised at how steady I sounded.
He set them on the side table next to my hairpins. “I thought you might wear the opal I gave you, but these suit you.”
My chin fell. He recognized my immediate somber response, turning me in his arms. I met his wondering gaze. “I lost it…in the Void…the first time I sifted, I—”
He stopped my lips with his own, parting mine with a slow, sensuous kiss. Heat burned in lower places. When he pulled away, his expression remained devoid of any judgment or ire. “It doesn’t matter. It was just an object.”
“But, Jude, what you wrote on the back. I loved it,” I whispered.
“You don’t need a necklace or engraved words to know how I feel.” His mouth tipped up on one side. “I’m going to show you. Tonight.”
Crushing me to him, he kissed me again, his mouth demanding, devouring, heating me from the outside in. He backed my body toward the bed. When we bumped the mattress, he lifted me to sit on the edge and broke the kiss, kneeling in front of me. He slipped off one of my heels, his fingers sliding around my ankle and up the back of my calf. He did the same to the other, gazing up at me through a lock of black hair.
My heart hammered like mad against my rib cage from a mixed, heady potion of desire and anxiety. I was confident in many areas in my life—karate classes, Latin translations, essay writing, demon ass-kicking—but I was now in a realm where I was wholly inexperienced and possibly awkward. I knew the mechanics of sex, but knowing and doing it were two totally different things. And while Jude had never divulged his amount of experience in the past, I had not a shred of doubt that he was a master, especially when his dark gaze did the things to me it was doing right now. What if I didn’t do it right? What if I couldn’t please him?
He nudged me back on the pillows and lay down beside me on the bed, reaching over my body to the side table. “How about some champagne?” His smirk told me he knew exactly how I was feeling.
“Sure. That would be great,” I said on an exhale of relief. Liquid courage. That’s what I needed.
Still lying on his side, one elbow propping him up, he twisted the foil wrapping off. The firelight warmed his skin to dark gold, his full-torso ink standing out in contrast. The sharp black barbs of ivy twining through the Celtic cross had me mesmerized till he flexed his abdomen, drawing my gaze to his bicep tightening as he worked on the champagne cork. My hungry eyes followed the contoured ridges of his abdomen, the wide planes of his chest. I’d lost all moisture in my mouth, needing a drink, like, now.
“Grab the glasses,” he said, smiling when he caught me gawking, ogling him like a smitten schoolgirl. I sure as hell felt like one, more intimidated than I’d ever felt with him before.
He popped the top. I managed to get the glasses to the rim before any spilled over. After pouring, he set the bottle aside and clinked his glass against mine. He didn’t offer a toast, his expression saying it all. The potent need rolling off of him in waves and filling up the room had my blood thrumming, a sheen of sweat shining on my skin. I tipped back my glass, the fuzzy bubbles making my eyes water, but the fruity liquid sliding down smooth.
Jude’s gaze wandered lower before swigging his champagne down in one gulp. Charged energy sizzled between us. The invisible string that always seemed to be pulling us to one another tightened to the point of snapping. The idea that we wouldn’t have to pull back tonight had my head spinning.
“You didn’t want to celebrate with some of your Scotch whiskey?” I asked nonsensically, rambling like a fool. “Seems we’re in the right place.” He stretched out next to me, his bare feet tangling with mine.
“No,” he said, arching a brow. “I enjoy my whiskey to be sure, but I want all my faculties clear tonight.”
That sent my pulse racing again. I tipped back my glass, draining the rest, giddy to feel the warm burn of alcohol in my veins. Jude promptly took the glass from me and set it on the table, his eyes darkening further. He rose on his knees, a towering god above me, muscles rippling and bunching with every move he made. “Turn over,” he commanded. “Lie on your stomach.”
Not knowing why but completely at his mercy, I obeyed. He straddled my thighs, his pants brushing the bare skin on the outside of my legs where my skirt had hiked up. Leaning over, he undid the buttons at my nape. “This is a beautiful dress.”
“Thank you,” I murmured into the pillow, heart pounding.
He slid down my zipper, trailing all the way down my spine to my panty line. “Lift up on your elbows.”
I lifted my weight off the bed, knowing what he wanted. He pulled the dress down my torso, legs and off my body. Then nothing. He didn’t move or say a thing. Feeling self-conscious in my thong and corset, even though I’d bought the matching white lace pair just for him, for tonight, I wanted to burrow into the bed and disappear. He wasn’t speaking or touching me at all. After what felt like an eternity, but was more like a minute, I shifted up and started to turn my head. “Ju—”
“Don’t move,” he cut me off, voice gruff as gravel, splaying one hand on my shoulder blade to gently press me down. “Lie still, my heart. You’re breathtaking.”
He lay back on his side, paralleling my body. I faced the other way, watching the shadows from the fire flicker on the wall. His hand skated up one leg, rough calluses trailing behind my knee, up my thigh, over the curve of my behind, dipping to my back where the corset covered my skin. My eyes fell closed, reveling in the feel of his hands on my body. He swept my hair aside and unhooked my corset. Hook by hook, down my back, the fabric came free. He let the flaps fall open on the bed and leaned over, planting a kiss at the center of my spine between my shoulder blades, trailing his lips lower within the groove, down, down, all the way to my panty line. My muscles went rigid, wanting to move, wanting to squirm. Just wanting.
“Jude.”
“Stay still,” he said, hot breath skating along my spine.
He slid my panties down my legs and off. For the first time, I lay naked before Jude, and he’d found a way for me not to be self-conscious. I loved this man.
While his lips worshipped my skin, moving a slow path up my back to lave kisses along my nape, his hands continued to caress my lower back, over the curve of my behind, moving in circles between my thighs. He pushed one leg open, his fingers sweeping up my inner thigh, barely touching between my legs before ghosting to the other inner thigh. Desire flared low and hot. I let out a moan, opening my legs wider, needing more. Then, those fingers I’d watched wield deadly weapons and maim and kill stroked the softest part of me, gentle and slow.
My hips rose off the bed, arching toward his touch. He groaned, nipping at my shoulder, sliding one long finger along my slick cleft, teasing with one more slow caress before penetrating me for the first time. I cried out at the pleasure of him moving his finger in and out. My hips undulated more, feeling a frenzied yearning for more building inside me. I whimpered against the pillow. But he didn’t move faster, continuing his slow, methodic rhythm. He drew out the pace, stretching my desire to desperation, his teeth nipping, his tongue tasting. Then his hand and mouth left me. With a firm grasp of my hip, he rolled me over.
His lips crashed against mine, coaxing mine apart, his mouth devouring me with urgent need. He pressed his chest to mine, growling into my mouth. I met his fire, grasping his shoulder and twining a hand in his hair, pulling him closer. He broke the kiss, scaling his teeth down the column of my neck, marking me, leaving a hot, wet trail to my breast, where he took the tight nub in his mouth.
“Jude!”
He licked and nipped, his teeth spurring me on, my body writhing underneath him. His hand mounded my neglected breast, thumb and forefinger teasing me to a frenzied state. I arched off the bed, trying to get closer, his mouth and tongue making me dizzy with want of him. More of him. I ached on some primitive level, needing our connection to finally be complete, for the knot to snap tight and lock us together in the way a man and woman in love should be.
He skated away, finding my lips again, a melding of heat, his aura of fire licking along my naked skin. His hand trailed down between my legs, fingers circling.
“Oh God,” I murmured against his lips.
“Touch me,” he demanded, his body a tight coil of muscle, ready to let fly.
My mind a blur of desire, my hands roamed over his taut shoulders and across his chest. He moaned into my mouth as I slid one hand down and gripped his hard shaft pressing against my hip. I gasped, having never held him, or any man, in this intimate way, never quite comprehending the enormity of what awaited me—hard as iron and so big I knew this would hurt. Badly. A bizarre thought flitted across my mind—I wanted the pain, the intense sensation of him branding me as no man ever had, as no other man would. I wanted all of Jude, no matter the cost, and tonight, there was no Vessel creed barring the way. I fumbled with the zipper with one hand, making no progress.
He lifted off me and stripped himself bare in a millisecond, then covered me again.
Pushing my thighs apart to lie between them, he lowered his body with a restrained calm, sweat beading on his chest and brow, shining by firelight. A heap of burning need and longing, I opened for him at once. He entwined our fingers, pinning my hands against the mattress by my head. When I thought he would have thrust in, he lowered himself with slow precision. Prying my lips apart, he stroked his tongue against mine with long sweeps. The slow tenderness was torture, making my breath quicken even more. The sensation of his shaft sliding along the outside of my sensitive core nearly made me break apart with the first touch, my body so greedy for him. I squirmed, but he pinned me well. As in all things, he was in control, dominating the pace, mastering me with his heavy body, hard mouth and harder manhood.
When Jude entered a room, there was never any question who was alpha, who ruled with sheer, dominant will. Demon prince or archangel, it didn’t matter. He was king in his world, and every creature—Light or Dark—knew it. At the moment, I was his world. To be the center of all his strength, his body, his will, made me tremble with unimaginable anticipation and awe.
Poised on the threshold, he didn’t plunge right in. No. He let my body grow accustomed to his weight, to the feel of his length against my heat, to the rhythm of his body rolling atop mine. I rocked my hips up, then froze when a twinge of pain stopped me going forward. I pulled back, squeezing my eyes shut. He held himself perfectly still, muscles bunched with rigid control, our lips a scant breath apart, panting.
“Look at me,” he ground out, his tone vibrating on a brutal edge. I opened my eyes. His gaze, usually swallowed by the black, sparked with flecks of amber-gold lighting up the dark irises. “I want you with me when I make you mine.” The fierce look of possession, adoration and the deepest emotion of all held me transfixed as he thrust in hard and deep, breaking my virginal barrier with a swift, fierce thrust.
“Ah!” I bit my lip at the pain, sharp and acute.
“Shhh,” he whispered, brushing his lips over mine, his tongue sliding along the seam. “Relax.” Easier said than done. That stung like a motherfucker. I could actually feel my inner walls stretching to accommodate Jude’s thick length. Jude trailed his mouth up my jaw to my ear, nipping at my lobe, sending a shiver of pleasure through my body. For some time, he didn’t move at all, waiting with unfathomable patience while my body opened farther for him.
He nuzzled my neck just below my ear, pressing openmouthed kisses to that sensitive spot. Instinctually, my back arched, breasts pressed firm against him, hips rolling away. He met the motion, sliding back slowly, then pumped once till he was hilted again. This time, it didn’t hurt as much, the sensation of having Jude sheathed within me converting all pain to wonder. Jude was inside me—all the way—marking me deep. I hadn’t imagined how it would actually feel. The deep intimacy of this connection stirred me in a place I didn’t know existed, a place where only Jude would ever know me, ever see or touch.