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I climb up on the table beside her, and pull her into my lap before lying down and dragging Etta up my body until she’s hovering over my face. She moans at just the anticipation I think—it must be, because she won’t sit the fuck down.
“Get your ass down here.”
“No, I—”
I don’t have the patience for this. I grab her ass and pull her down, thrusting my tongue inside her. Her knees buckle and she falls forward, her hands bracing against the stone.
“Oh my gods,” she moans, bucking her hips against my tongue, melting against me, the sweetest godsdamned thing I’ve ever tasted.
Etta’s knees shake and she screams, long and loud, and I close my eyes willing myself not to come just from this alone. I want to fuck her after this, and come inside her, just like I will every day for the rest of our fucking lives.
When she comes down from her orgasm, I move her back down my body to straddle my waist, trying to ignore the way my cock is aching while I wait for her to be ready for more.
But then, thank gods, Etta looks up and meets my eyes as she reaches back and wraps a hand around my shaft. She moves her fingers up and down, slow and teasing, and her lips curve into a smile. “Can I have this?”
Fucking hell.Apparently I really have tainted her, because Etta is finally grasping dirty talk. That, or she’s doing it by accident. Both are equally hot.
She raises her hips, impaling herself on me. We both moan and I swear nothing and no one else has ever felt this good. Like she was made just for me.
She rises and falls, riding me, using me to make herself feel better and drive away her demons and finally, when she’s shuddering again around me and I let myself explode inside her she falls on my chest with a murmured “I love you.”
Act Five
DENOUEMENT
ChapterTwenty-Nine
ETTA
TWO WEEKS LATER
When I was a little girl, I never pictured my wedding day, the way I imagine that normal girls must. I didn’t imagine parties or dresses or princes. Sure, as a teenager I remember picturing who I would marry. Picturing Roman, and hating myself for that—for that fantasy I could never have, which felt so silly and out of reach.
If only I could tell my younger self how it worked out.
Still, I can’t recall picturing the actual ceremony itself, even as a teenager once I had some idea what it would entail.
All Order ceremonies are treated with a veil of mystery, even to those who grow up in the community. A, “You'll know when you’re older,” type of secrecy, where everyone knows, but no one will confirm what goes on; where the rumor mill is almost certainly correct, but the lingering doubt is enough to keep details from leaking to the wider public. Even now, if I went online and searched “witch wedding,” or “skyclad pagan ceremony,” there would be enough results to prove the half-truth of things, but not give the practical details.
As far as I am concerned, today isn’t my actual wedding. I feel like Roman and I pledged ourselves to each other more than enough in that crypt, that we are married in every sense of the word. However, as far as the Order is concerned—and more specifically, as far as my mother is concerned—a real ceremony is the least I can do to make this “scandal” somewhat more acceptable.
Why I need to get naked in a room of robed men to compromise with my mother, is a question for my future therapist.
To say that our families weren’t happy about finding out about us would be the understatement of several centuries. Disownment was discussed, and never-ending guilt tripping, however the whole thing was slightly over shadowed by Councilman Lawrence’s betrayal and death. That, plus the realization that in another life, Roman and I would have easily died in that cemetery, sobered both our families.
There was also the surprise reveal that Harrison had known about Councilman Lawrence the entire time and said nothing. I’d been right about the bodies in his basement apparently—he just wanted to be the first to report on the stories, and was planning to break the whole exposé when it was the best time for him politically. It didn’t matter how many people got hurt in the meantime.
Left with very few options, multiple scandals to cover, and a council to manage, my mother relented. To paraphrase T.S. Eliot, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but with a begrudging, uncomfortable compromise, and many family fights to look forward too. Sometimes reality isn’t all that exciting—even with magic and Champagne problems.
The door behind me opens and I turn to find Roman striding in. “Nice robe.”
I turn away from the window, where I was staring out over the tops of the Elsinore University buildings, and pick at the edge of my robe. “Stop it. It’s not supposed to be a fashionable moment.”
The robe looks a bit like a bathrobe. If I’m being honest, it mightbea bathrobe. I don’t know what I was expecting—ancient, pagan, druid robes? Gandalf’s cloak? The Order exists almost entirely in the modern age, with only a few small exceptions. There’s no reason we wouldn’t get our ceremonial robes fromNordstromrather than spinning them from hair or something.
Roman grins at me. He’s been doing that more often than not lately—actually smiling. I’d think it was strange, but I’m the same way.
“You’re right,” he says, coming to stand in front of me, his fingers spanning my hips. “Fuck the robe. Take it off.”
