Page 22 of A Prince of Smoke and Mirrors (Billionaire Sanctuary: The Heir #1)

kissing the bride

LEXI BYRNE

Some guys kissed sloppy.

My ex-fiancé, Jimmy, had always been pushing on my face with his mouth, first keeping his lips closed too long so that he was mashing us together and then shoving his tongue into my oral cavity like he was searching for chicken shreds between my teeth.

It had been an attacking octopus of a kiss, with suction.

At our wedding, when Nico kissed me for the first time, it wasn’t like that at all.

His fingers just touched my jaw, tilting my head up. His kiss was gentle, an invitation.

Tender.

He kissed me more, gently, and his other arm moved to my waist.

His hand where he was touching my face caressed backward, cradling my jaw and slipping his fingers into my hair at the nape of my neck.

My breath caught in my chest.

He stepped forward, which meant he had to bend down even farther. Even though I was wearing high heels, I rose up on my toes to reach him. My knees started to tremble, and his hand on my waist steadied me, gently holding me against his body where I stood on tiptoe.

I hadn’t ever touched him except for that brief moment of holding hands, I realized.

This, our first kiss, was at our wedding, even if this was a ridiculous stunt that we would both laugh about in the morning and then rip up the marriage license.

Maybe we could eat breakfast together before we went our separate ways, after he sobered up.

But this kiss.

How had I gone my whole life without this kiss?

I was melting inside, my brain turning to goo and then mist, dissipating.

I ran my hands up to his shoulders, his so-broad shoulders, the fine material of his suit jacket catching on old calluses on my palms, but warmth from his body filtered through the cloth.

Touching him was so taboo. It felt like I was molesting him, committing a sin by fondling something too perfect, God’s work of art.

His lips caressed mine, slowly drawing out every sensation, a decadent dessert of a kiss.

Trembling crawled over my feet and up my legs. I wasn’t used to this. I wasn’t used to liking it.

I’d giggled along with Jimmy’s married sisters when they’d talked about kissing and more, but I didn’t really get it. I thought something might be wrong with me. Maybe I didn’t like kissing. Maybe I didn’t like guys. Maybe it was me.

But Jimmy’s family’s church had gotten into my head, and they’d told me what I was feeling wasn’t important.

Going along with everybody else was the important thing.

Going along with everybody else meant you belonged, that you weren’t alone.

So I did.

But kissing Nico was different.

I was different.

He was so different.

The gentleness of his kiss dissolved the furtive want to push away and run.

Instead, I wanted to lean closer. I slid my hand up to the back of his neck, anointing oil from the chrismating still damp on my palm.

His kiss was curiosity and stumbling forward and being caught before I hit the ground.

His breath had a hint of mint under a dark taste of alcohol, and a whiff of warmth emanated from his open collar that made me think of clean cedar wood in sunshine, a rich green forest in summer.

I was on my toes in my high-heeled pumps, wanting more, and I overbalanced. I started to fall, but his arm around my back firmed and steadied me.

Lying against his chest surrounded me with his heat.

My fingers splayed over his chest, and my other hand accidentally dipped inside his suit jacket.

My palm and fingers pressed against the fine fabric of his dress shirt.

His heart pulsed steadily against my palm.

My heart fluttered and flapped in my chest.

The energetic surge in my body felt like terror, but the desperation was to be closer, not to run away.

I wished this wedding wasn’t fake.

His lips left mine, and then I was the one stumbling-drunk with intoxicating desire rushing through me.

I batted my eyes open to find him smiling down at me and running one thumb over my cheek. His smile reached his bright blue eyes and sparked there, like awe.

Something true shone in his eyes, something peaceful and genuine.

And he was looking at me, like I’d given him that joy.

“Hello, Mrs. Romanov,” he murmured.

My brain clicked, and I began to think again, a process that felt as foreign as flapping wings and flying. “I didn’t know your last name.

“Our last name,” he said.

I didn’t even bother protesting that the marriage wasn’t real. Nico was obviously either too drunk to remember or didn’t want to face that reality.

The church was bedecked in polished gold, with gilded portraits tiling the walls. Though it was night outside, the walls gleamed.

“It looks like something out of a play in here. Maybe A Midsummer’s Night Dream.”

Nicolai shrugged. “Nonsense. Theseus was merely a duke.”

“What?” I asked him.

“What?” he replied, his dark eyebrows lifted like I was the one who’d said the weird thing out of context.

Was that evasion, or was he just drunk?

Moving on. “So, I guess that makes me Hippolyta.”

He grinned at me. “I didn’t have to threaten you in marriage. Hippolyta was threatened with a fate worse than death if she didn’t marry Theseus, perpetual virginity.”

I stared up at him. Was it actually written on my face? Could he actually see it? “How did you know?”

“What?” he asked.

“What?” I replied, because he had not known. I was just paranoid. And maybe too literal about everything.

And yeah, that was evasion, but we didn’t need to talk about shmex and virginity right there with a priest staring at us.

He dipped, bending while his arms wrapped around my back and took me out at the knees, and I windmilled as I fell, grabbing at anything to not crash to the floor.

But Nicolai Romanov swept me up in his arms.

“Oh!” I grabbed at his shoulders, even though his arms were locked under me.

The priest snatched up the marriage license and shoved it into my hand.

Nicolai turned his head and yelled something in Russian to the priest behind us, and he carried me in his strong arms, my squishiness cradled against his warm chest as I looked up at the determined set of his jaw and teal-blue eyes staring straight at the double-wide church doors like he was on a mission from God, the fluffy white wedding dress billowing as he strode down the aisle and I held our half-signed marriage license like fairies were chasing us, trying to disrupt our wedding with mischief.

The priest and his aide had signed and stamped the marriage license already because, as the priest had insisted, he’d done his part.

We hadn’t signed it. I’d refused, and I hadn’t let Nico anywhere near a pen.

So, my second wedding day was the strangest day in my life, and I had no idea it would lead to so many deaths.