Chapter 14: A Late Reception Start
Kael stepped into the room, the door clicking shut behind him with a finality that severed the last thread to the outside world. The distance between them evaporated. He didn’t walk; he simply was there, his body a solid, heat-radiating wall pressing her back against the door. The velvet of her robe was a futile barrier. His scent—wedding jasmine, male sweat, and the unique, clean spice that was purely him—flooded her senses.
“I don’t think I can wait until tonight,” he breathed into the hollow of her neck, the words not a suggestion but a ragged confession. His lips brushed her skin, a spark that traveled straight to her core. She felt the hard, urgent proof of his statement pressed against her belly.
Her hand came up, trembling. He braced, his muscles coiling as if expecting a push, a delay. But her fingers only slid past his shoulder, fumbling until they found the cool brass of the door handle, pushing the lock home with a soft, definitive snick. The sound was obscenely loud in the quiet room.
“We must be quick,” Myella whispered into his chest, her lips brushing his skin with every word. She felt the frantic hammer of his heart against her cheek. “We have guests waiting.”
A low, dark chuckle vibrated through him. “I’ll be as quick as you are quiet.”
In one fluid motion, he bent, an arm hooking behind her knees, the other cradling her back. He lifted her as if she weighed nothing. The world tilted. Her wings fluttered instinctively, brushing against his forearms. He carried her the few strides to the vast, canopied bed, its coverlet a deep crimson velvet that seemed to drink the gilded candlelight. He didn’t lay her down. He deposited her, a gentle, deliberate drop that made the mattress sigh and her body bounce.
Before the motion even settled, he was on her.
His mouth found hers in a kiss that was all possession and no apology. It was hungry, devouring, his tongue sweeping in to claim the taste of her—champagne and nervous joy. But his trajectory was downward. His lips blazed a path along her jaw, down the column of her throat, over the frantic pulse at its base. He shoved the robe apart, the fabric slithering off her shoulders to pool around her elbows, trapping her arms. He didn’t seem to notice or care.
His mouth closed over one peaked nipple, and she cried out, back arching off the velvet. He sucked, hard, his tongue laving the taut bud until it ached with a pleasure so sharp it bordered on pain. One large, calloused hand palmed her other breast, his thumb rolling the nipple in a counter-rhythm that scattered her thoughts. He worshiped her breasts with a frantic intensity, as if memorizing their shape and taste anew, now that they were irrevocably his.
Then he moved lower. His hands hooked behind her knees, spreading her wide, opening her to the cool, scented air and the hotter weight of his gaze. He looked at her, at the glistening, swollen proof of her own need, and a raw, guttural sound tore from his throat.
He didn’t ask. He bent his head and feasted.
His tongue was a flat, hot stroke through her soaking folds, a languid, savoring pass that made her thighs quake. Then it became precise, relentless. He licked into her, his mouth sealing over her, sucking at her clit with a focused, devastating rhythm. His nose brushed against her, his stubble rasping against her inner thighs. One hand remained on her hip, pinning her in place; the fingers of the other slid into her, curling, finding that sweet, secret spot deep inside with an unerring accuracy born of four years of intimate study.
Myella’s hands fisted in the velvet. A choked scream lodged in her throat. The coil within her, wound tight since she’d first seen him waiting for her at the end of the aisle, snapped with brutal, breathtaking speed. Pleasure detonated, a silent, white-hot supernova behind her eyelids. Her body bowed, shuddering, waves of sensation ripping through her so violently her wings beat against the bedspread, scattering pillows. He didn’t relent. He drank her down, lapping at her convulsing flesh, gentling only when her whimpers became pleas, when she lay utterly spent, boneless and limp, a sheen of sweat making her pale skin glow in the candlelight.
He pulled back, rising to stand at the edge of the bed. He was breathing hard, his shirt hanging open. His eyes, still near-black with desire, raked over her supine form—the flushed skin, the marks from his mouth, the tremors still occasionally wracking her legs. His tongue swept over his own lips, cleanly capturing every trace of her. He wrestled with his belt, the buckle jangling loudly in the hushed room.
“Here,” Myella murmured, her voice hoarse. She pushed herself up on shaking elbows, a new, deeper hunger awakening in the wake of her climax. “Let me help you with that, husband.”
She slid to the edge of the bed, her knees hitting the floor with a soft thud. Her fingers, now sure, found his zipper. She tugged it down. The heavy weight of him, thick and long and already weeping at the tip, sprang free, the hot velvet-soft skin of the head landing against her cheek with a gentle slap.
She looked up at him, her honey-brown eyes holding his ice-blue gaze. The sight—her, on her knees, his cock against her face, her lips swollen from his kisses—made his entire length twitch violently against her skin.
A slow, wicked smile curved her mouth. She didn’t speak. She turned her head, pressing a soft, open-mouthed kiss to his base. She traced the thick vein along the underside with the tip of her tongue, a slow, torturous ascent. She swirled her tongue around the crown, tasting the salt-bitter prelude of him before taking the head into her mouth.
She suckled, gently at first, then with more pressure. Her hand wrapped around the base he was too thick for her to fully encompass. She began to move, taking him deeper with each downward glide, her throat relaxing, opening for him. Her tongue worked in relentless, twisting circles, mimicking a different, more intimate rhythm. A rhythm he had taught her on a mountain top under the stars. Pleasure, acute and dizzying, shot up his spine. His hands came down, tangling in her golden bridal braid, not guiding, just holding on.
“Uh… My… My love…” he gritted out, his hips giving a tiny, involuntary thrust. The muscles in his abdomen were stone, trembling. “I’m…”
She pulled back until just the tip rested on her tongue. She looked up, her eyes gleaming with challenge and adoration. “Feed me, Daddy,” she whispered, the title a dark, sweet poison they’d only recently dared to use, a secret surrender of power that electrified them both. “I am starving.”
She took him whole.
Her nose pressed into the wiry hair at his base, her throat convulsing around him. The wet, tight heat, the absolute surrender, the echo of her words—it shattered the last of his control.
With a broken roar he tried to stifle into a groan, his release erupted. He pumped into her throat, pulse after hot, salty pulse, and she swallowed diligently, her throat working around him, taking everything he gave. A final, shuddering thrust, and he was spent, collapsing forward to brace his hands on the carved headboard above her, his body trembling with the aftershocks.
She released him with a soft, wet pop, resting her forehead against his thigh, breathing hard. He slid down to the floor with her, his back against the bed, pulling her into his lap. He kissed her, deeply, tasting himself on her tongue. It was possessive, profoundly intimate.
“They’re going to notice we’re missing,” she mumbled against his lips minutes later, though she made no move to get up. Her fingers traced the familiar ridge of scar tissue on his abdomen, a mirror to her own.
“Let them,” Kael murmured, his tail—which had been lashing slowly against the floor—curling around her ankle possessively. His hand stroked her hair, unwinding the braid. “The food is terrible anyway. Lyra said the cake is the only decent thing.”
Myella laughed, the sound bright and free in the gilded sanctuary. “Your father spent a fortune on that caterer.”
“He’ll forgive us.” Kael nuzzled her hair. “He, of all people, understands.”
The distant waltz from the reception hall finally faded into silence. The world beyond the door—the laughter, the toasts, the expectant crowd—felt like a distant dream. Here, on a velvet robe on the floor, tangled together in the aftermath of frantic, loving need, was the only reality that mattered. It was a stolen, perfect quiet, built on a foundation of scars, choices, and a love that had tasted death and spat it out. For now, the guests could wait.
For now, the guests could wait.
Twenty minutes later, both Kael and Myella found themselves walking hand in hand into the reception hall to greet their guests as husband and wife. They had managed to get dressed and looked more than halfway decent to anyone who wasn’t looking too closely. A fresh, simpler cream dress now hugged Myella’s form, though the back zipper was slightly askew, and Kael’s shirt was properly buttoned, though a single stubborn strand of her gold hair was caught in the cuff.
Kael looked over the crowd, beaming with pride, when his eyes fell on his parents Elara and Raziel. Both of them shared similar knowing smiles, Raziel’s gaze dipping for a fraction of a second to the hastily retied knot of his son’s tie. Kael’s cheeks flushed red, a warm wave spreading from his neck to his temples. Meanwhile, Myella was practically glowing, a soft, persisting radiance that had nothing to do with the candlelight and everything to do with the fulfilled ache still humming in her veins. She hadn’t caught the looks of her new in-laws yet, but it didn’t really matter.She was the happiest she had ever been in her entire life.
As they took their seats at the head table and ate the allegedly terrible lamb, Lyra nudged Myella with her elbow, the motion gentle due to her swollen belly. “You know we had to take pictures without you two,” Lyra said, her eyes falling to the blossoming hickey just above the neckline of Myella’s dress. “Took your time getting…dressed, did you?”
Myella’s hand flew to her neck, fingers attempting to conceal the mark. “Oh…sorry.We just needed to take a breather. You know…take it all in.”
“I’m sure you did take it all in…didn’t you, sister?” Lyra said, giggling to herself as she forked a bite of cake. Myella just smiled and shook her head, realizing she had walked right into that joke.
An hour later, the reception was starting to wind down. The crowd had thinned, the music softened to a single, melancholic fiddle over a gentle rhythm. Kael and Myella were having their last dance of the night, his hand a firm weight on the small of her back, her head resting against his shoulder. They moved in slow, swaying circles, staring lovingly into each other’s eyes, blind to everything else.
“I am so lucky to be your husband,” Kael murmured into her hair, his breath stirring the loose strands.Myella pulled back just enough to see his face. “I am the lucky one here. You and your family took me in and protected me, even though I had come to you all with ill intentions after all.”
“True,” he conceded, his thumb tracing the line of her spine through the fabric.“But I wouldn’t have it any other way. Speaking of lucky, the honeymoon suite is ready for us.”
A slow, familiar heat rekindled in her abdomen. “Round 2?” she asked, her voice a low whisper meant only for him.
Kael’s lips curved against her temple. “And 3, and 4, and however many it takes until we’re both too sore to move.”