Page 21 of Plain Sight

Not at all.

People cheer so loud as we leave the nave that it’s impossible to talk to each other. We’re very briefly tugged into a paperwork session to sign the marriage license. I do not hesitate when it comes to filling out the box with my new surname.

Down with Lilith Cecelia Hayes.

Long live Lilith Cecelia Hill.

“Your middle name is Cecelia,” Jameson says from his spot at my side.

“Surprise!” I finish signing and hand him the pen. “I’m betting my mom didn’t know it means blind.”

“Or hidden,” he answers, scrawling his name on the license in bold strokes. He passes the pen to his brother when he’s finished, and his eyes meet mine. “It’s lucky I found you.”

Maybe I was hidden. Maybe I was hiding all those years.

Jameson makes some excuse to his brothers, and then he’s leading me down one hallway, then another, and then we’re in a smaller room that smells like old books and candle wax with the door shut tight behind us.

I leap, or Jameson pulls, and then my back is against the spines of books and Jameson’s mouth is on mine and there is no possible way my lipstick survives this. Elise and Charlotte are going to have to fix me up again if I’m going to be seen at the reception.

I don’t care.

My lungs feel too big for my chest and all of me is bright and thudding with emotions that demand to be let out.

Jameson must feel the same way, because he’s not careful with my wedding dress. He’s only careful with me. His hands grasp at my thighs and my ass and the small of my back, but the pressure there is light. Only as much as he needs to keep me balanced across his hips between his body and the books.

Oh, God, I’m⁠—

I’m so relieved.

I knew he would come. I knew Jameson wasn’t going to let me get kidnapped. But there was a minute when I thought he might not get there in time.

It was a close call. A closer call than I wanted to admit.

I kiss all my residual fear and the stress of being kidnapped into him, and Jameson licks it out of me like he knows what I’m doing.

It doesn’t take very long for all of those cold feelings to turn into heat. Jameson’s warm between my legs, and strong, and my husband.

He’s mine.

I grab for his hair. His neck. His jacket. I know I can’t mess him up too badly—he has to be at the reception, too, and there’s going to be—there’s going⁠—

Photos. There are going to be photos. Taken. Of us.

It’s really hard to care about anything but Jameson.

“We’re married,” I say into the kiss the next time I can get a full breath. I’m the one who insisted on coming back to the cathedral, but I sound astonished.

“Fuck,” he answers. “I know.”

Jameson’s hands are under the skirts of my dress. He pulls back far enough to see his dark, full eyelashes, the flickering green of his eyes, the pink turning to red in his cheeks while his hands work at the structural layers beneath the dress.

Jameson curses again. He’s discovered my panties. “What did Sunshine do to this dress?”

“She cut it,” I answer, somehow more breathless than before. “Cut pieces off the—the skirt.”

“Why? Did something happen?”

“It got dirty.”