“Doesn’t that come after the wedding?” I teased.
“After the wedding, we shall be lost in the crush of party guests and embroiled in celebration. I wanted to take my moment with you while I could.”
“There is still time to elope. We could tie the knot at an Elvis wedding drive-through.”
I’d actually pitched that idea frequently in the last couple months, but Grim promised we’d do that for a vow renewal.
He reached out to run one of my softly curled hair tendrils through his fingers. “No,” he said, voice now husky. “I want everyone to see you, to worship you, to know you are mine for all eternity.”
My knees turned to rubber, and any smart-mouth comeback died in my throat at his intense sincerity. The love radiating from his eyes was positively bone melting. Before him, I’d thought I’d been better off on my own, but knowing the warmth of his love allowed me so much more in this life than I could have imagined for myself.
I belonged. I belonged with him. And I’d always be safe, respected, and desired.
“Are you ready for your present now?” The mischievous tilt of his lips had me curious.
I closed my eyes and held out my hands. “Ready.”
He set something in my palms that felt like a phone. It better not be a phone. I already had one of those.
“Open your eyes,” he said.
I did, and then frowned. Itwasa phone. Wait, it was his phone. A video played, showing a shop in the Sinopolis lobby, covered up by a big curtain.
“Now, please,” Grim asked, and I realized we were on a live video call. A woman walked over to it and tugged at the fabric.
I gasped as I read the shop’s name. “Bite Me: Cupcakes and Desserts” was next to a logo with fangs biting into a cupcake.
“It’s yours,” Grim said. “You can run it, let others run it for you, do whatever you like. But I remembered how intently you desired this to be a part of who you were. Now it can be.”
Then I saw a petite woman standing at the edge, smiling up at the sign.
“Wait, is that…”
“Cheri,” Grim nodded. “Your friend who owns the Cupcakery. She agreed to help get the shop off the ground, and depending on what you two set up, I’m sure she can find happiness running both storefronts.”
I clutched at my now-beating heart.
Cheri waved at the camera, and I could only blink. My heart exploded. I was going to perish moments before my own wedding. Not cool.
Grim turned off the phone and put it away in his pocket.
“I don’t deserve you,” I croaked.
The full-body laugh that escaped him shocked me out of my stupor. “No, my darling sekhor,” he said, stroking another strand of my hair before trailing a finger down my neck and exposed collarbone. “I do not deserve you. But let’s not get in a game of deserving. There are far more interesting and pleasurable games to play.”
“Like what?” I dared, stepping into him. My hands smoothed down the ridges of his exposed muscle. My mouth watered. I wanted him. I didn’t care that we needed to get married in a little bit. I wanted him now. Hard, fast, and dirty. I licked my lips, slow and deliberate, until his attention was arrested on my mouth.
Then Grim turned me around, so I faced the mirrored vanity. He put my hands on the countertop. “Don’t tease Death,” he warned, even as he nuzzled into my neck while shooting me a dark look in the mirror.
“It’s only teasing if I don’t intend to follow through,” I shot back. His hands molded down my sides until he gripped my hips. Then I found my words coming out breathy. “Like you said, after this, it’s all about the party and socializing. Maybe I can give you a gift before we go out there and say I do.”
The smile on his face turned the place between my groins positively liquid. “Oh, I have one more surprise for you. The wedding gift from Osiris.”
Without ever moving his hands, dark smoke curled around my dress, melding into it while lifting the back of it, until he exposed my thighs and backside. I wore strappy garters and a complicated undergarment that more framed my womanly bits than covered.
A growl emerged from his throat.
“I thought the repair of Sinopolis was his gift?” I said, even as I felt the velvet hardness press against my already slick center.
