“Does the Pope work Sundays?”
My heart is racing, my pulse thundering in my ears as I step through the French doors and out into the manicured gardens. Yes, we’re getting married at the Drakos estate. Not just because of the short notice in needing a venue. I mean, who wouldn’t want to get married here?
The assembled crowd—one half from the Drakos side of things, the other from the Barones—turns and stands. Cameras flash. People whisper. My nerves are a fucking mess.
Then I rip my gaze forward and look at my fiancé.
Kratos’ piercing blue eyes capture mine, and instantly, that whining, roaring, screaming anxiety in my head goes quiet.
Vito steps next to me, taking my arm. Momentarily, I pull my gaze away from Kratos to glance at him.
“Did you know?”
My dad smirks. “Hey, all I know is, one day that dress was a train wreck, and the next, some guy took it off my hands and did God-knows-what with it.” He arches a brow, nodding toward the altar where Kratos is looking obscenely good in the sort of tuxedo a linebacker would wear to an ESPN awards ceremony. “And a little birdy told me that ‘some guy’ might just be the guy you’re about to marry.”
I chew on my bottom lip as it retreats between my teeth, my eyes locked with Kratos’.
“I want you to know how proud of you your mom and pop would be, Bumblebee,” Vito says quietly. My eyes blur as I turn and hug him fiercely.
“Thank you,” I whisper. “For everything. Always.”
Then we’re walking down the aisle, every step taking me closer to the man with the piercing blue eyes, and the inky black smoke swirling in his heart.
We stand face to face as the celebrant rattles off his lines. Kratos slips a ring onto my finger, and I do the same to his.
We say “I do”.
And then…
The few times Kratos has kissed me, it’s been the kiss of a man conquering a pair of lips. His kisses are savage and brutal. They devour me.
This time, it’s different. His huge hand cups my face. His eyes lock with mine, a stormy kind of cloudy blue swirling in them. As he leans closer, the hand cupping my face slides into my hair as his other one slips to the small of my back, pulling me to him.
His lips crash to mine, decimating whatever resistance I had left. And this time, he’s not demanding submission. He’s not smashing down my defenses.
It’s not a conquering.
It’s a promise.
As the crowd stands and claps, and I lose myself in his kiss, I realize how very real this has become.
There’s no question that the twisted darkness inside me has already met its match with the vicious blackness inside him.
But it’s more than that.
There’s a small chance I’m falling for the man I just married.
21
BIANCA
The day after the wedding, I move into Kratos’ brownstone in the East Village. I’m keeping my rental apartment and leaving most of my furniture there. But my clothes and personal belongings move with me to his place.
The second and third floors of the four-story building are definitely works-in-progress—livable, but clearly mid-renovation, which Kratos is apparently doing all himself.
Which is impressive. And honestly, kind of hot… But I digress.
The first floor is mostly done. It includes a huge living room, dining room, a gorgeous library, doors to what I can imagine will become a stunning back yard, and a truly massive, professional-grade kitchen.
That part of our tour gives me pause until I remember what Ya-ya said.
“I like to cook,” he rumbles, shrugging his shoulders.
The fourth floor is almost entirely taken up with a sprawling master bedroom and ensuite bathroom, complete, I’m happy to note, with both a huge walk-in shower and a large white marble soaker tub.
When I step back out into the bedroom, my brow creases. There’s a question that’s been on my mind for a few days now, and I’m not quite sure how to ask it.
I mean, we’re married.
We’re physically…intimate, to say the least.
But…
I clear my throat and turn to him. “Where—”
“Here,” he growls.
