“This is the perfect metaphor,” Dad said quietly, kissing my nose. “I got you halfway there, sweetheart; you do the rest.” He kissed my cheek and then released me to run full bore the rest of the way down the petal-strewn sand and hurl myself into Bennett’s waiting arms.

Cameras clicked all around us, and the guests were yelling their approval as Bennett swung me in a small, slow circle, my face in his neck and his mouth open and pressed to my shoulder.

I could imagine how we looked: not even married yet, clutching each other as if our lives depended on it, my feet exposed as Bennett spun me, the bottoms dark with mud and stark against the perfect white of my gown.

Carefully, carefully he put me down and beamed down at me. “Hey.”

I swallowed back a sound that would probably have come out somewhere between a cry and a gasp and said, “Hey yourself.”

We hadn’t seen each other since I’d been kidnapped from the room just as we were about to attack each other, and I could see it in his eyes: he wanted to kiss me. He wanted to kiss me with such hunger that it made us both vibrate, stare at each other’s mouths, lick our lips in unison.

Soon, I mouthed.

He gave me a tiny nod, and we turned together to face the officiant, the Honorable James Marsters, who appeared completely baffled.

He leaned closer, whispering, “Have we finished the ceremony?” His watery blue eyes swam with confusion, and he peeked down at his notes before looking back at us.

With the sweetness of his expression and the perfect timing of this question, I bit my lip to keep from laughing out loud. Bennett slid his amused eyes to me and then back to the man before us.

“No, Judge. I apologize . . . my wife-to-be and I got a little carried away with our greeting.” He tilted his head and murmured, “Neither the first nor the last time, actually.”

“At least we know what we’re getting into,” I said, and beside me Sara laughed. I handed her my bouquet and turned to face Bennett as he took hold of my hands.

And once I was up there with him, I wanted to savor every second. The judge read through his opening readings about love, and marriage. I absorbed every word, somehow, while still being completely lost in the intensity of Bennett’s expression.

As I recited my vows, I felt him shift closer, relished the warm hum of his skin pressed to mine where our hands met.

When it was his turn, I watched his lips as he repeated every single vow:

I promise to be your lover and friend . . .

Your ally in conflict and your accomplice in mischief . . .

Your greatest fan and your toughest adversary . . .

His eyes twinkled and he tickled the palm of my hand with the pad of his thumb when he said this, and then, very slowly, he looked down at my mouth and licked his lips.

The bastard.

His eyes darkened and his voice lower when he repeated, I promise to be faithful, loyal, and put your needs above all others . . . this is my vow to you, Chloe, my only lover and my equal in all things.

Suddenly my dress felt cinched too tight. The breeze off the water seemed too weak.

The officiant turned to me and asked, “Chloe, do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband? To honor and cherish him, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish always?”

The first time I tried to push the words out, they got stuck beneath the weight of emotion in my throat. Finally, I managed, “I do.”

He turned and asked Bennett the same thing, and without hesitation, Bennett’s deep voice easily carried the two life-altering syllables: “I do.”

We each turned, he to Henry, and I to Sara, to retrieve our wedding rings. And as the judge spoke to us about the meaning of the rings, and I slid Bennett’s onto his finger, the only thing I could feel was the brilliance of Bennett’s smile as he stared down at it.

Damn, that ring looked good on his finger. This man was officially mine. If I couldn’t get my face tattooed on his arm, this ring would be a nice consolation prize. I moved my fingertip over his, feeling the smooth metal on his skin, but he pulled back a little, resisting my touch as his eyes went wide, just as my finger made contact with an enormous scratch in the platinum.

I pulled his hand up to look closer. What the fuck? Was there an actual dent in his wedding ring?

When I looked up at his face again, he shook his head slightly. “It’s okay,” he whispered.

“What the hell is this?” I asked under my breath.

“I’ll explain later,” he hissed.

I felt the fire in my gaze and he barely contained his laugh as the judge called out, “If there is anyone present who has reason to oppose the marriage of this man to this woman, please speak now or forever hold your peace.”

The guests grew completely quiet, and I stood, staring up at Bennett for a beat until the loud, deafening blast of a ship’s horn ripped through the silence. I clapped my hands over my ears, and the entire wedding party jumped and ducked in surprise. Several people screamed. The sound seemed to linger, reverberating across the sand and up over the lawn before being swallowed by the hulking mass of the hotel.

“Well,” Bennett said, smiling, “I guess we couldn’t move forward without the universe at least giving us a fair warning.”

At that, everyone erupted into laughter and applause, and with an enormous smile, the judge proclaimed, “Very well then. By the power vested in me by the state of California, I now pronounce you husband and wife. Chloe, you may kiss your groom.”

I did a little dance at this small victory. Bennett gave a little growl of defeat but then leaned into me as I stepped on my toes, shoeless and inches shorter than my husband—my husband!—and pulled him down to me.

I didn’t care that there were people watching.

I didn’t care that the expectation was that we would give a small kiss now and enjoy many more, deeper kisses later.

Right now, as of this moment, this man was my fucking husband, and I needed to make sure everything felt the same.

I relished the way his arms tightened around me so intensely I lost my breath. I relished the firm press of his mouth on mine, and the parting of his lips, the gentle slide of his tongue across mine . . . once, twice, three times, and the last time just a little deeper until I could feel the vibration of his sounds and practically taste his urgency. His breaths came out shallow and uneven on my tongue and his quiet words—ah, fuck, Chlo, and need to get you alone—finally made me pull away before I started stripping off his tux right here at the altar.

Breathless and grinning like idiots, we turned and faced a lawn-full of guests with hands suspended in the air, prepared to clap but wearing expressions of shock frozen on their faces.

Apparently we’d been a little wild in our first kiss as husband and wife.

“Go on girl, get yours!” George shouted, just as Judith yelled, “Now that’s how you kiss a woman!” breaking the spell and the whole group in front of us broke into roaring applause.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the judge shouted above the mayhem. “It is my pleasure to introduce Bennett and Chloe Ryan!”

Chloe Ryan?

I turned and had just aimed my harshest glare at Bennett and his widening grin when chaos erupted all around us. Sara’s arms swallowed me, and then Julia’s and George’s and Mina’s. I felt my father’s hands on my face and his giant smooch to my cheek. I was hugged by Elliott and Susan in tandem, lifted by Henry and Max in turn, kissed on the cheek by Will, and then I felt Bennett’s smooth, warm hand wrapping around my arm and pulling me with him down the aisle, away from the tight press of the wedding party.

We ran, tripping through the mud, leaving wet footprints all along the patio. Inside, Bennett pulled me into the kitchen, where the caterers stopped what they were doing; the clattering of pots and dishes, the roaring of commands and replies went completely silent as Bennett turned and slammed me into the wall, his mouth on my neck, my jaw, my ears, my lips. He ran a hand up my side, gripping my breast through my wedding dress and I felt him begin to harden against my stomach.

“Tonight,” he growled, returning to my neck. “Tonight I’m going to consummate this marriage so fucking hard you’re going to walk with a limp on that beach in Fiji.”

I burst out laughing, wrapping my arms around him as his mouth slowed and eventually simply kissed a path from my shoulder to my cheek. “Promise?” I asked.

He sighed, kissing my lips once. “Promise. Now, how many hours do I have to play nice with our crazy family before we can leave and I can put my hands all over your naked skin?”

I looked over his shoulder, searching for a kitchen clock, but all I saw was at least twenty faces, all staring wide-eyed and slack-jawed at us. One waiter was so stunned by Bennett’s display that a stack of plates slowly slid from his grasp and shattered on the floor.

Following the deafening crash of porcelain on tile, the kitchen finally returned to motion: people running for brooms and dustpans, the head chef barking out orders again. Bennett and I apologized quietly and ducked out of the kitchen and to the edge of the veranda, watching our guests begin to collect near the disaster of the lawn, taking appetizers from passing waitstaff.

I stretched to reach Bennett’s ear and said, “We just got married. That means you’re legally my manservant now.”

His long fingers dug into my sides, tickling me as he reached with his other hand to grab a flute of champagne from a tray and handed it to me. He took one for himself and quietly clinked my glass. “To us, my wife.”

“To us.”

We watched the wedding party begin to assemble for the photos and Max waved at us to come join them. Sara turned around, laughing at something George said, and I caught a full view of her dress.

Bennett must have seen it at the same time as I did, because I heard him suck in a huge breath. He took my hand and began guiding me to the area where the photographer had set up the tripod.

“About that,” I began.

“Yeah,” he said glumly. “About that.”

“What the fuck happened, Mills?”

He slid his eyes to me at the use of my last name and said, “Apparently the van door was open when we left the cleaners.” He smiled at the straggler guests heading to the patio for cocktails, and maneuvered me on the outskirts of the crowd to avoid getting stopped every three feet on our way to the photographer. “And before you ask, Will tripped and dropped my wedding ring in the parking lot when he was trying to show me how good a job they did polishing it. I’m about two seconds from pulling you into the bathroom and forcing you onto your knees, so if you blow up at me or flip out about the dress or ring or the flooded lawn now, you will only convince me you need a dick in your mouth, and you’ll completely derail the agenda for our wedding day: pictures, dancing, food, dancing, cake, long hard fucking. Watch what you say next, Ryan.”

When we returned to the party, music pulsed from large speakers on the veranda and I felt high, drunk, outright giddy from the day and the man at my side. He never let go of my hand, but even if he’d tried I wouldn’t let him. I loved the sharp press of his (dented) wedding ring between my fingers, and the way he kept lifting my hand to kiss it but really it seemed like he just wanted to make sure his ring was still there.