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Jace concentrated on her face, allowing everything but her to fade into the background. It wasn’t difficult; she was more radiant than the sun. All things paled in comparison. As he stared at her, his pulse slowed, his thoughts focused, and he found himself in that perfect headspace that at one time he’d only been able to find after he’d suffered enough physical pain to blot out the emotional agony he didn’t think he’d ever escape. But he had escaped it. And he had to tell her how much that meant to him—how much she meant to him. He took a deep breath and forced the words from that wounded place inside him that he’d never revealed to anyone but her.
Chapter Thirteen
Aggie could see that Jace was struggling to find his voice. And she was struggling with a powerful protective instinct—the one that no one brought out in her more than Jace did. Part of her wanted to let him off the hook and not make him say whatever he’d thought it was she should hear from him on their wedding day. But the wiser part of her knew he needed to do this for himself more than for her.
She couldn’t stop thinking about how he’d met her halfway down the aisle. She wasn’t even sure if those dozen steps in her direction held the same significance to him that they did to her. They were partners. Lovers. Friends. They always met in the middle. That’s why when he’d looked at her, kissed her, and touched her in the middle of the aisle with absolute reverence, she’d fallen to emotional pieces. As a dominatrix, she was used to men worshipping her, but in her head and her heart, Jace had always been her equal. So when he showed utter adoration in front of a hundred witnesses, the gesture meant something. Hell, it meant everything. She still had a fucking knot in her throat.
“I’ve been trying to find the right thing to say to you for months,” he said at last. “I never did find perfect words, but I ran out of time to come up with something better, so you’ll have to forgive me if I botch this.”
She wanted to tell him she knew whatever he said would be perfect to her, but was afraid if she interrupted, he’d stop talking.
“My entire life people have only see pieces of me,” he said, his voice strong and unwavering. “Some see what they want to see. My mother only saw the parts of me that stood in the way of her dreams. My father looked at me and saw nothing but loss and pain and rebellion. My first love, Kara…” He swallowed. “Kara saw adventure and recklessness, the bad boy in me.”
These were all people Jace had lost before he’d become a man, but Aggie knew how much they’d shaped him. Correction: had shaped pieces of him. But not the whole of him. The whole of him was amazingly resilient and talented and compassionate and loving. And hers.
Jace pushed on. “Some see what I let them see. My boxing coaches see the violence that needs an outlet. Past dommes saw the perversion that twists my perceptions of pain and of pleasure. Fans, they see the music that burns within. To my band, I’m still the new guy who just wants to be accepted as one of them and can’t help but worship them to this day. To my cat, I’m a provider and a somewhat entertaining plaything. But you, Aggie, you’re different. You see all of me. The best pieces and the worst. Everything in between. You worked so hard to get all my pieces to fit together like the world’s most frustrating puzzle.”
She smiled. That was exactly what he’d been like at the beginning, and his insight amazed her.
“I didn’t think I was worth the trouble. I was so damaged. So broken. And I didn’t even realize it.”
She shook her head and squeezed his hands. She’d never seen him that way. Lost. Confused. Hurt. But not broken.
“Despite my best defenses, you persisted relentlessly to make me whole. And you could. You could. Do you know why?”
Not trusting her voice, she shook her head.
“Because you saw all the pieces. Even the pieces I didn’t want you to see. You saw them all and accepted them. You put me back together one piece at a time until I realized there was only one piece missing. The piece that holds all the rest together.”
She stared at him wide-eyed as she steeled herself for whatever bombshell he was about to drop on her. Something he’d managed to hide from her all this time. She was sure whatever it was, she could handle it. She just wished he’d picked a better place to tell her about that one missing piece.
He smiled gently and squeezed her hands.
“You, Aggie. You’re the piece that holds me together. The missing piece that made me whole. You, Aggie.”
She sucked her trembling lips between her teeth.
“I’ll probably never understand what you saw in me. What kept you from giving up when I fought so hard to push you away.”
“I love you,” she whispered.
“Thank you for being so strong and stubborn. So harsh and tender. Thank you for being you. For never giving up on me.”
Never, she mouthed.
“I only make one promise to you today, wife,” he said.
When he called her wife, she felt the power behind the word because he’d so clearly showed her what it meant to him just the day before. “I promise to love you with all of my pieces forever. I just don’t know how to love you any less.” He lifted her hands to his mouth and kissed her knuckles, staring deeply into her eyes with that look of reverence on his face again. She could definitely get used to seeing it.
Someone in the pews began to clap. The enthusiasm for Jace’s words spread through the entire room until everyone was cheering. Jace turned his head slowly, as if surprised they weren’t alone. And maybe that was how he’d opened up to her the way he had. By pretending they weren’t surrounded by a hundred riveted spectators. He blushed and lowered her hands, peeking up at her sheepishly.
“That was beautiful,” she said. “Perfect.”
The priest raised a hand and eventually their guests quieted.
“Not sure how I’m supposed to follow that,” Aggie said. “I knew I should have gone first.”
Jace bit his lip, his eyes trained on her cleavage. She tucked a finger under his chin and forced his gaze up. She could only imagine how hard it had been for him to pour his heart out to her like that, but he was going to have to fight off his inherent shyness for a few more minutes, because she had things to say that he needed to hear.
“We make an interesting pair,” she said. “A cold-hearted bitch and a selfless, misunderstood man.”
Jace opened his mouth to protest, but she covered his lips with her finger.
“My turn to talk.”
He inclined his head ever so slightly in agreement.
“I eat men like you for breakfast and pick my teeth with their bones,” Aggie said.
A few people chuckled.
“At least, I did. Until I discovered who you really are. You weren’t what I expected. You brought out something in me I thought I’d lost.” She closed a fist over her chest and pressed it against her breastbone, crushing her father’s heart-shaped pendant into her skin. “My heart. I didn’t think I needed it. It only ever caused me pain. Got in the way of my ambitions. I did a really good job of pretending it didn’t exist anymore. That I didn’t need a heart. Or love. And then you happened. I still don’t know how you managed to not only remind me how to love, but how to need love. To want it. How to need you and want you. I should be pissed off that you took my life by storm and made yourself the center of my universe. I had plans, aspirations, goals, and none of them involved a man.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and then he grinned. “Actually, I’m not.”
“You shouldn’t be sorry,” she said, her voice softening. “I’ve never been happier to have been so wrong about what is most important to me. It’s you and the love we share. It can get me through anything.” She stroked the stubble on his jaw, delighting in its rough texture against her fingertips. “You only made one vow to me today, but I have dozens to make to you.”
His eyebrows drew together.
“I promise never to make you buy me tampons.”
He laughed.
“I promise I will not c
hoke you in your sleep for leaving the toilet seat up. I promise to hug you hard when you need it and even harder when you think you don’t. I promise to tell you exactly what’s on my mind and wait patiently for you to tell me what’s exactly on yours. I promise to support you in your career and allow you to support me in mine. I will be your partner and your wife for the rest of my life, but I promise to love you forever.”
She glanced at the priest expectantly. He twitched, as if she’d cracked her whip at him, and then he cleared his throat.
“Do you Jason Michael Seymour take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, with God as your witness?”
“I do,” he said without hesitation.
“Do you Agatha Christine Martin take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, with God as your witness?”
“Hell yeah, I do,” she said, wanting to make Jace smile. It worked.
The priest again cleared his throat. “The rings.”
Eric produced the rings from inside his pocket and handed them to the priest. He said some words that Aggie didn’t pay much attention to. She was too lost in Jace’s brown eyes to be fully cognizant of anything but him.
Jace took the smaller of the gold wedding bands and slipped it onto Aggie’s left ring finger. “With this ring I thee wed,” he said.
Aggie reached for Jace’s ring with trembling fingers and slipped it over the knuckle on his left ring finger. She stroked the band, rubbing it into his flesh to solidify the physical evidence of their lifelong bond. She was surprised by how emotional the simple gesture of putting a ring on his finger made her.
