Untamed - A. G. Howard Page 0,64
to contain my other strands of hair where they lock around him, but he grasps both my wrists and brings my left palm to his lips.
“Let it be,” he murmurs against my scars, and reaches behind my neck to loosen the rest of my waves. “You know I love you like this.” His voice grinds, rough and raw.
My hair whips around us both, rapturous to be liberated. It encircles his biceps, shoulders, and waist. With gentle force, it brings our half-clothed bodies together and his lips find mine. He tastes of the ocean, sparkling cider, and chocolates. He’s been sampling the reception food.
I drop the rose and run my hands across his chest. His skin is wet and warm and his muscles twitch with restraint.
“This is worth any amount of bad luck,” I whisper against his full, soft mouth, returning his feverish kisses.
“We’ve never had good luck anyway,” he whispers in return, dragging us down to the bed together while careful not to crush my wings. “But we’re damn good at making our own.”
He eases me onto my back, his weight ensnaring me in a most delicious trap. His knee wedges between my thighs, his damp pants snagging my underskirt. A breeze rushes over us, cool on my bared skin. So strange, to burn like a furnace, yet still get chill bumps.
Jeb’s hands glide along my curves—an intimate expanse that he’s familiar with, but has yet to fully explore. “You’re cold,” he says as his lips move across the chilled flesh at my neck.
My bones feel like they’re turning to liquid, my blood to molten lava. “Furthest thing from it,” I answer, breathy.
Eyes heavy with desire, he rolls away—freeing me. He reaches behind my back and drags a corner of the lavender and turquoise striped coverlet around to wrap my body and wings, separating my skin from his.
I groan. “Jeb. I don’t want anything between us.”
His fingertip traces the shape of my lips. “After the ceremony, there won’t be. I’m going to make you mine tonight, and it will be all we ever dreamed of.”
My body lights up, sparks of anticipation igniting in every part of me that he touched earlier. I’m about to tell him that it will be even more than we imagined—because he can literally share my dreams this one night if we can pull off our wedding—when the door crashes open.
“Oh, come on!” Jenara shouts.
Jeb boomerangs off the bed and gives me a sheepish grin as his sister herds him toward the door.
“Are they back? Did they find everything?” he asks her just before she pushes him out.
Jenara scowls. “Yeah yeah. Not that it matters, now that you’ve tempted fate by seeing her.”
Jeb ducks in one last time and smirks at me. “As if fate has anything on a fairy queen.”
I smirk back, still tasting his kisses.
“Meet me on the shore at sunset?” he asks.
“A stampede of wild Jubjub birds couldn’t keep me away,” I answer.
He laughs and then disappears around the corner, leaving me with a grumpy maid of honor, a thousand questions, and a glowing heart.
MEMORY THREE: STARDUST
Fifty-six years later . . .
Rain slaps the window in fat droplets curdled with ice. It’s only six o’clock in the evening, but autumn dusks come early in Pleasance. I stare through the glass, rain filling my skull by osmosis, blurring my thoughts as I lean against the chilled pane. The soft blue walls behind me close in, reaching for the dark grounds outside and forming a tunnel. Claustrophobia, my old nemesis, lurks in the shadows.
My curved spine hunches lower. Ammonia singes my nose. I taste the bitter purity in the back of my throat, and it stings.
The movement around Jeb’s hospital bed reflects back through the glass’s reflection. He’s surrounded by family: our two sons and our daughter, along with their spouses, children, and grandchildren. Jenara and Corbin are absent—she’s in a nursing home, and he’s in a cemetery. But our nieces and nephews have all sent flowers, plants, and well-meaning texts meant to comfort and give hope.
Hope is the last thing I feel.
Just two weeks ago, Jeb was perfectly healthy. Then, after a routine exam, our whole world turned upside down. Ugly words like malignant, aggressive, and inoperable ate away at our happy life, leaving it as crippled and depleted as Jeb’s body would soon be. The doctor said only six weeks at most . . . that to offer a chance for any longer would be impossible.
But he’s wrong, because he doesn’t know that