I started at the top.
"You've been looking at me like that all day," she said.
"Like what." I worked the first button free. Her skin underneath was warm.
"Like you were waiting for everyone to leave."
"I was waiting for everyone to leave." Second button. Third. The dress loosened incrementally, a slow reveal, and I pressed my mouth to each inch of spine as it appeared. She shivered. "Been waiting since you walked toward me this morning."
"That was—" She exhaled when my mouth found the back of her neck. "That was six hours ago."
"I know exactly how long it's been." Fourth button. Fifth. The dress was opening down her back, the fabric parting, and I could see the clasp of her bra and the curve of her waist and the way her body had changed these past months—fuller everywhere, softer,more. Mine in a way that had nothing to do with a deed or a contract or a clock ticking down. "Been thinking about this since you saidobviously yeson the phone outside that diner."
She laughed, breathless. "Romantic."
"I'm a practical man." Sixth button. Seventh. I spread the dress open with both hands and pressed my palms flat against her bare back and felt her breath catch. "I knew what I wanted. I was just waiting to have it."
"And now?"
I leaned down and put my mouth against her shoulder blade.
"Now," I said against her skin, "you're my wife. And I've been patient long enough."
8:26 PM
The last button came free.
I spread the dress open and stepped back.
She turned around slowly, the fabric slipping off her shoulders, and I stood there and looked at her.
White lace. Soft, delicate, doing absolutely nothing to contain the body underneath it. A bralette that was losing the argument against her breasts—fuller now, heavy, the lace straining prettily—and a pair of high-cut underwear that sat below the roundcurve of her belly and made the whole picture into something that hit me low and hard.
She watched me look.
"You wore white," I said.
"It's my wedding day." A small smile. "Seemed appropriate."
I crossed the room.
She tipped her head back to keep my eyes as I got close, and I took her face in both hands and kissed her—slow, thorough, the kind I'd been saving up all day—and felt her exhale against my mouth like something releasing. My hands moved. Down her throat, her shoulders, the straps of the bralette. I traced the edge of the lace where it cut across the swell of her breasts and she shivered.
"You did this on purpose," I said.
"I have no idea what you mean."
"You wore something you knew I'd want to take off slowly." I hooked a finger under one strap. "You've been doing this all day. Making me wait."
"You're the one who did all the buttons."
"I liked the buttons." I pressed my mouth to her collarbone. "I like this better." My hands slid down her sides, over the curve of her waist, spread across her belly—both palms, the way I always did, feeling the weight of her. She covered my hands with hers.
I looked down at that. Our hands stacked together on her stomach. Her in white lace and nothing else, barefoot on the hardwood, flushed from the reception and the cool air and whatever was moving across her face right now.
"God," I said. Low. Not really to her. Just—out loud, because it needed somewhere to go. "Look at you."
"Gage—"
