Page 98 of Bound By Flames

“You caught me.” Thick tears echo in her throat.

“I’ll always catch you, always,” I say, turning her soaked body to face mine, keeping her above the ground, protecting her from the elements. She looks at her feet, her trembling hands landing on my chest and gripping the wet fabric.

“Mia, look at me.” My voice is softer than I’ve ever heard.

Her sweet face lifts slowly, biting her lips hard with watery eyes.

“I love you,” I say, locking my eyes with hers.

There.

I said it.

The four-letter word.

“I love you, and I’ve been loving you since the day I held you in my arms when you had your first panic attack here. Even then, I already knew.” Our foreheads connect in the darkness.

“I…I love you too,” she murmurs in a breathy voice.

I’ve never been a man who needed validation, but damn if those words didn’t tear my inside out and build me back into a new fucking man.

She loves me.

My Mia loves me, and I’m the luckiest man on earth.

“That’s it, princess.” I rub my finger on her wedding band. “Till death do us part.”

“Yes.” She nods with a shy smile rising at the corner of her lips.

“Let’s gohomenow. I think it’s time I show you all the things I’ve been burning to do with you for months,” I rasp, my body suddenly reaching a thousand degrees.

“Ares, don’t. I don’t want to go back yet.” Her hands hold my shoulders as if she’s afraid to let go.

“I.. Fuck, I didn’t mean to pressure you. Fuck—” Regret instantly settles in my guts for pushing her too far too soon.

“No, it’s not that…it’s, I can’t wait a second longer.” She shakes her head, tears falling from her chocolate pupils.

“But you’re freezing. I’m not leaving you out here.” No fucking way, I’m leaving my wife in the cold of the night. We’re getting home right fucking now. I let her down and take her face in my hands.

“No—I…Ineedyou,” she repeats, her voice more confident than before, her eyes shining with a dangerous spark I’ve been trying to ignore since the moment I kissed her on our wedding day. Her body gets closer to me, with heat burning in her hazelnut gaze.

“Now, please,” she pleads with a mix of gravity and eagerness, fisting my shirt with a desperation I know can onlymatch mine. There’s nothing I can refuse her, anything she wants, she can have it. And I’m just as much on the edge as she is, barely able to think, knowing I have in my arms the woman I’ll be spending the rest of my life with.

My little tornado.

My wife.

My Mia.

I should know better and bring her back to dry herself in our home and not stay here, at night, on the ground, trees surrounding us with rain pouring in the forest of our property with drenched clothes sticking to our bodies as the water pours down on us. But at that instant, I don’t feel the cold anymore, nor the drops of water or the pulse of my heart running wild in my chest.

Nothing matters but the woman I’m holding in my arms.

Anything she wants, I’ll give it to her.

Everything that I am.

Back then, before knowing her, I expected her to want silky things, expensive sheets and a luxurious mattress, but now I know that my Mia is just like me. She doesn’t need material stuff. She just wants to feel alive. And even wet and shivering with leaves and small branches in her wild hair, she looks more royal than any woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.