Restored (The Walsh Series Book 5) (10 page)

The tea alone was a lot to handle. That shit smelled dreadful.

"Sweetheart?" I called, glancing around our room.

A long row of brick arches ran north to south, and we'd fashioned them into alcoves for bookshelves, makeshift closets, and open-air dressing rooms. I found Tiel at the far end, seated on the floor with her back to the brick and her knees tucked to her chest. A tiny plume of peacock feathers was woven into her hair with narrow braids, and she held her dress to her chest, the zipper gaping open at the back. Her hands were painted with swirling designs in ultra-fine henna. Ellie must have initiated that for she was the only person who fully understood Tiel's need to embrace certain elements of her father's Indian roots.

"It's almost time," I said. "Everything's in place, everyone is here—"

"Everyone?" she repeated, her head tilting up to look at me. Her eyes were filled with sad hope. "Everyone, but not…"

I'd sent Vikram the date and location on the off chance he had any balls whatsoever, but my email received no response. He'd stopped messaging Tiel about her mother's broken-heartedness, too, and that was for the best.

I couldn't imagine any member of her family making an appearance tonight, and as she blinked up at me, her bottom lip trapped between her teeth, my heart hurt for her.

"This is about you and me, Sunshine. Nothing else matters," I said, dropping down beside her. "You have me and I have you, and we're everything we need."

"My parents aren't coming to my wedding," she whispered. She was gazing at the floor, her eyes distant and her voice broken. "My father isn't going to walk me down the aisle and my mother isn't going to straighten my dress, and—and
they're not coming
for me. They're not coming for me, and I still don't understand what I did wrong. What did I do, Sam?"

"Don't ever say that. You shine too bright for them, Tiel, and they don't understand you. Don't ever say you're not enough." I brought my arms around her and pulled her into my lap, but she was already shuddering with sobs. "I want to give you everything, anything. My family, my name, my children,
my everything
. Take it all. Take
me
, and let
me
give you everything they couldn't."

She cried into my chest for long, aching minutes, and the only thing I could do was hold her.

"I want all of that, but what if…" Her voice trailed off as she ran a finger up and down my lapels, that bottom lip white against the pressure of her teeth. "What if something happened to you? You're all I have left, and this is serious now. What if something terrible happened? How would I…what would I—"

"Stop," I said, squeezing her close to me as she sniffled. "Stop, sweetheart. Nothing is happening to either of us."

"No, but what if you're walking down the street some day and get swallowed by a sinkhole, or one of your properties comes crashing down around you, or if you got sick and I lost you, and maybe we shouldn't do this. I love us right now. I don't want to lose us. I
can't
lose us."

"Is that what you're worried about? Us changing?" I asked.

She shook her head. "I'm worried about everything, Sam. What happens if we're not the same anymore? If everything changes and you decide you don't want me anymore?"

"This," I said, pressing my palm to her heart, "isn't changing."

"Don't make this about my tits," she said, an anxious laugh catching in her throat. "They're going to get old and saggy. They'll be less entertaining, and you won't love them anymore."

"I will love them always. I will love
you
always." I ran the backs of my fingers along her collarbone. "We don't have to do this if you don't want to. We can go down there, enjoy the music, have some drinks, and—"

"I need to know this won't change anything because I can't do this and then watch it fall apart. I can't be left behind again. I am alone in this world, Sam. I have Ellie, and you, and that's it. I'm afraid I won't survive if you left me."

My arms went around her again, crushing her as a wave of warmth spread out from my chest, down my limbs, around us. I loved this woman harder than I could comprehend. "I regret that this seems to be new information, but nothing will ever keep me from you. Do you believe that?"

Her head bobbed against my chest. "Maybe. Sort of." She looked up, shrugging. "People don't like hanging on to me, Sam. There's a long list of people who have left me, and I'm scared you'll realize I'm not enough of something. I just don't understand why you want
me
."

"And I don't understand why you want
me
, but let's take the next two weeks and work out some lists. Maybe bullet points starting with
I'm a better man because of you
and ending with
I won't imagine my life without you right here, always, and I'm not fucking leaving you
. And something about you being the funniest, sweetest, most beautiful band geek I will ever have the privilege of loving in the middle."

A small smile blossomed on her lips. "My list would start with
you understand me even when I don't understand myself
, and end with
you showed me how to love myself and never complain about reminding me when I forget
. And something about you wearing a red fucking tuxedo to our wedding, and looking like a hot piece of something very nice doing it."

I leaned down to meet her eyes. "Then come with me now. Come be my wife."

I
t was a dark
, unholy hour when the party finally started winding down, and that was only one of the reasons I was pleased as fucking pie that I got a room for us at the Four Seasons on Boylston. It seemed frivolous to spend this much on a Public-Garden-view suite when I owned a fully decent firehouse on the other side of town but…but we got
married
tonight.

Something—
everything
—about that demanded opulence.

And a guarantee that little brothers wouldn't be barreling in with random questions about the whereabouts of his swim fins, or whether anyone wanted an omelet while the stove was hot.

"This is so fancy," Tiel whispered, squeezing my hand in the elevator.

She glanced at the bellman and back to me, a goofy, slightly drunken grin on her face. The peacock feathers that were once artfully woven into her hair were listing at an odd angle, and her eye makeup was smudged, but all I could see was perfection. I mean, we were both fucked up three ways to Thursday, but this—this night, us, right now—was the start of something good. Something perfect, in its own wildly imperfect ways.

I brought my hand to her face, my palm cupping her cheek while a tight part of me breathed a sigh of contentment as she leaned into me. Edging forward, I pressed my lips to hers for a quick, soft kiss. "You're fancy," I said against her lips. "This dress is gorgeous. And really fucking hot."

The elevator came to a stop, and we followed the bellman down the silent hallway. He was probably bursting with questions. It wasn't as though many people checked in during the earliest hours of Christmas morning, and far fewer showed up in red tuxedos or peacock-inspired dresses with miles of crinoline puffing up the skirts.

So I put fifty dollars in his hand, asked him to hang the Do Not Disturb sign, and engaged the dead bolt and chain. When I turned back to my bride—
my wife
—she was gazing out at the Garden, her hands braced on the windowsill and her ankles crossed. Shrugging out of my jacket, I smiled, and let the deliciously loose, liquid sensation that belonged to a tangled mess of love, affection, and peace fill my chest and simultaneously ease one form of tension and stoke an entirely different one.

I draped the jacket over the sofa's arm and toed off my shoes, my eyes never leaving Tiel. I walked toward her, wondering what she was thinking as she stared at the grounds below. Her head was cocked to the side, her foot shook in a lazy rhythm, and what did I do right in this life to deserve her?

I didn't know, and I was more than half certain I didn't deserve her at all.

The only reasonable solution to that conundrum was fucking her against the window.

Bow tie, cufflinks, shirt, belt, glucose monitor: off.

Trousers: unbuttoned.

"It's ridiculous to expect a white Christmas," she murmured, inclining her head toward me but not looking over her shoulder. "There's never snow this early. It's always January and February, but there's this huge anticipation for it. All this snowy excitement, as if snow makes a Christmas more valid or something, but when you think about it, it's summer in the southern hemisphere. They don't have white Christmases. It's an irrational expectation propagated by western civilization, right?"

"I'm sure we can blame Dickens for that. We'll get to it when we're back from our honeymoon," I said, my hands resting on her hips. "Did you have a good night, my love?"

"Mmm," she sighed, leaning against me. "It was incredible."

I shifted her hair over her shoulder and dropped my lips to her neck as I unzipped her dress.

I was waiting for some qualification: incredible except for her family's absence; incredible for a thrown-together, last-minute wedding; incredible if we pretended that Lauren didn't drink her weight in shots and challenge the bar boys to arm wrestling contests; incredible aside from the fact that Nick was seen throwing Erin over his shoulder and carting her from the firehouse shortly before we departed.

"Really, really incredible," she said. She reached back and roped her arm around my neck. "I can't believe we did it. We pulled it off. We're married now, Sam. Like…
married
."

"Having second thoughts?" I asked. I drew the dress down her body, helping her step out of the dark teal silk with subtle hints of gold and silver woven into the delicate lace overlay. It left her in bright pink panties, a matching bra, some off-kilter peacock feathers, and the diamonds I put on her finger.

She threw a sharp glance over her shoulder, shaking her head. "Of course not," she said, her brows furrowed. "Do you think it will be different? Will
we
be different?"

"Give me your panties, and we'll find out," I said.

I wasn't ripping these. No, some things were worth saving, and wedding day panties were one of them.

I locked my gaze on her eyes while she shimmied out of her bra and panties. It was the only safe spot. If I looked at her tits, I'd want my tongue on them. If I looked at her legs, I'd want them wrapped around my waist. If I looked at her ass, well…things would get out of hand quickly.

She placed her underwear in my outstretched hand, and I gestured for her to face the window again. I tucked the fabric into my pocket for later, dropped my trousers and boxers, and gripped my cock. I jerked slowly, letting the head slide over her ass and into the warm, waiting heaven between her legs, but I didn't thrust forward. Not yet.

Part of me wanted
everything
to be different, and it made me feel like a motherfucking caveman.

I liked it.

I wanted my cock to literally rise to the challenge of consummating this marriage and claiming this woman as my wife. I wanted her pussy to hum with the knowledge that it was all mine now. Really, truly mine, and not simply because we loved each other or shared a bed, but because we'd made promises, commitments, vows—and not just the ones we'd shared in front of our friends and family tonight.

But another part of me, the part I knew Tiel was grappling with, wanted everything to stay exactly the same. We'd worked our asses off to find
us
and make
us
work, and now that we were finally getting good at
us
, changing it up came with a dose of terror.

"I love you," Tiel said. Her hips rocked back, and I slid against her slippery skin. "Nothing will change that. I love you. My filthy pervert. My best friend. My husband."

I crowded her up against the window, her breasts pressed to the glass, my hand sliding down her leg to grip the back of her knee and my mouth on her neck, and I was so deep inside her I couldn't discern what was mine and what was hers, and I didn't need to because it was
ours
. We were an
us
now, a
we
, and there was no point at which she stopped and I began. I bit and sucked and swore and
thrust thrust thrust
. I covered her mouth with my hand when she tripped into that high, screaming wail that I coveted like my personal g-spot merit badge.

Tiel arched away from the window as she came, and she took me with her.

Staring out at the Garden, we lingered there, panting, sweat cooling on our skin, touching. When the shudders and shocks subsided, Tiel led me to bed, plied me with a bottle of orange juice, and reconnected my glucose monitor. She ran her hands through my hair, over my shoulders and chest, and checked the device every few minutes until the numbers started climbing back into normal territory.

I nestled my head between her breasts, dragging my tongue over her skin and loving the taste of her. My wife.

"So…" Tiel scraped her nails over my scalp. "Should we talk about Nick and Erin now, or is that a conversation for another time?"

"Oh, hell no," I said, sighing against her chest. "I'm going to lick your tits and enjoy my life, and not get involved in any of that. Good plan?"

"Great plan," she agreed. "Happy Christmas, my husband."

Happy. There was that word again….but now?

Now I knew happy's story.

I married happy.

I lived happy.

I owned happy.

"Happy
everything
, my wife."

J
anuary

I
didn't know where
the term
honeymoon
came from, or what it meant before it was converted into the modern day model of tropical bliss and sex under gauzy mosquito nets, but our honeymoon didn't fit that characterization.

On the one hand, that made sense for us. Spending a week day drunk and lazing on the beach in Hawaii or me flattened on the deck of a sailboat while Sam fished off the coast of Cozumel wasn't in our cards. No, that wouldn't do. We weren't getting in line for the standard-issue honeymoon when the wedding was Mumford & Sons-meets-Van Morrison.

But then again, after thirty-six hours in the air, three flights, and one particularly thorough customs inspection upon arriving in Australia, the standard-issue honeymoon sounded just fine, thank you. There was also a late visit from my period—nope, still not pregnant—and freak thunderstorms and flash floods that left the city of Melbourne rain-soaked and cold for days.

Instead of sunset walks along the shore or some frisky underwater groping, we listened to downpours and hail battering our hotel while the power flickered on and off. Oh, and we were on each other's very last nerves.

Cranky old married couple status achieved.

Melbourne itself was amazing—our bitching and bickering owed nothing to this beautiful city. But everything was soggy and we were beyond exhausted, and the combination of my cramps and Sam's more-erratic-than-usual blood glucose meant we were too wrung out for more than room service and
The Lord of the Rings
trilogy.

When the sun appeared on our fourth day in Melbourne, we dragged ourselves out of our Federation Square hotel. We were going to see the sights, eat the food, and enjoy the culture, damn it.

The Montalto Vineyard and Olive Grove was nearly two hours away, but the quiet ride down the Mornington Peninsula gave us time to drink in the scenery as it morphed from city to suburb to rural.

As the highways thinned and the trees thickened, I found myself filled with frustration over everything and anything. This wasn't
me
. I didn't travel halfway around the world to nap. I didn't argue with my husband about plot holes in
The Return of the King
. I didn't whine about Australia's slight variations in bagel baking. I didn't celebrate pulling off the greatest surprise in Walsh family party history by grousing about puddles and rain clouds. And I didn't let something like not getting pregnant this month ruin my one and only honeymoon.

That goddamn tea. I should've known the old traditions weren't working on me.

When we arrived at Montalto, we were treated to an extensive tour of the property, starting with the vines and ending with the cellar door and production areas. Sam photographed everything and asked questions as if he was preparing for a quiz at the end. Always studious, my Sam.

"Do you want to eat?" I asked, hooking my thumb over my shoulder in the direction of the winery's restaurant when the tour guide departed. "Or do you want to see the sculpture garden first?"

"Neither," he snapped. He made quick study of the cellar, and pulled me down a shadowy row of racked barrels. We stopped at the far end, and Sam crowded up against me, backing me against the rack. "You've been somewhere else all day, and you've barely said a word. I want you to tell me what the fuck is wrong."

"Nothing," I said, and it sounded hollow even to me. "Let's sample some of that wine, then lunch, then the sculpture garden."

Sam braced his hands on either side of my shoulders. "Are you happy that we're here? That we did this?" he asked. "Getting married?"

"Yes,
of course
," I said resolutely. "Happy isn't even the right word. I'm overjoyed, and I wanted this to be perfect.
Everything
, perfect. But I'm annoyed with myself because things haven't been perfect, and I've let that bother me but we're
here
, in this awesome place, and that's all that matters. And…" I looked up from the precious patch of skin at Sam's open collar to meet his eyes. "Are you having regrets?"

His hands fell to my shoulders and spun me around, and he was hiking my long, gauzy skirt up to my waist. "Fuck, no," he growled.

Sam's foot pushed at mine, widening my stance as he rocked against me. He was hot and hard through his trousers, one hand cupping me over my panties while the other roughly palmed my breast. His breath was coming in heavy puffs, like a bull growing impatient with his matador, and that impatience was multiplying by the minute.

I gasped when his hands fisted around my panties and the snarl of ripping fabric rang out, but I wasn't surprised that he tore them. I would have been more surprised if he merely edged them to the side, or took some other, less primitive approach.

"I fucking love you, Tiel," he said. The force of his unzipping had his loosened belt clanking against my bare backside, and I arched away from the cool slap of metal.

"Oh, fuck," I cried, a gasp taking hold of my words and carrying them away as he thrust inside me.

Sam's hand shifted from my breast up to my neck in warning.
Be quiet or I'll keep you quiet.

"Oh, my God," I said, turning my face into his arm to muffle the noise. "Your cock feels huge."

"That's because you haven't had it all week." His palm settled over my mouth and he shifted to speak into my ear. "This is going to be fast, my love. Hold on."

His hips snapped as he drove into me again, and with the all-over pleasure came relief. This was the kind of sex that brought tears to my eyes. Not because it was profound or beautiful—although I was sure it'd be hot as fuck to stumble upon some angry sex in a winery—but because it uncapped all the tensions mounting between us and let them spill over until they ran dry. This kind of sex took everything I had and boiled it down to grunts, thrusts, moans.

Then he eased back, nearly pulling out, and lingered
right there
. His hand was splayed low on my belly, his finger offering only a hint of pressure on my clit, and this state of desperate, aching need sent those tears spilling over. "Please don't," I sobbed. "Please don't leave me."

"As if I could," he said around a groan.

Panicking at the loss, I layered my hand over his and pressed back. My body bowed at the heavy drag of him inside me, and I was right there, liquefying under his touch.

"I need— I need—" I hiccupped against the hand covering my mouth.

He drove into me, the force propelling me forward until I was clinging to a wine barrel for support.

"Ah, fuck, Tiel," he said, his mouth on my neck and hips bucking, wild and erratic. He groaned into my skin as he came, and then he shifted, his hips still undulating as he wrapped his arms around my torso and jerked me as close as any two people could get while half-dressed and fully fucking in a dark wine cellar. "I know, sweetheart, I know."

The thunderous punch of my orgasm was rolling through my body, all heady aftershocks and emotional tidal waves, when he brought his head to my shoulder and stilled while his cock pulsed inside me.

"Sam," I murmured. I couldn't find any of the words I wanted right now, but more than that, I required the safety of his arms and the bonds of his embrace. He nodded—he felt it, too, and he needed it as much as I did. "I love you, too."

"We should probably buy a case of wine," he said, laughing as he glanced around. "Maybe two."

Sam rained kisses along my neck, ear, and jaw as he pulled out, and the absence left me whimpering. "Your cock really did feel huge."

Dropping to his knees, Sam brought my shredded panties between my legs and gently wiped away the evidence of his release. "My poor, pervy girl." He pressed a kiss to my core before standing, righting his royal blue trousers, and tucking my undies in his pocket.

I pointed to his pocket. "That wasn't very nice."

"Oh?" he asked, a grin pulling at his lips. "I thought it was outstanding."

Rolling my eyes, I shifted my skirt back into place but the damp spots had me cringing. "You know what I'm talking about." I waved at my clothes. "When you rip my undies at home, I can get another pair. But we're
here
, and now I'm a mess. I'm all—you know—
wet
, and I have to walk around like this for the rest of the day."

"Let that serve as a reminder that you need to talk to me," he said, and fire was back in his eyes. "Total honesty, my wife."

I ran my fingers through my hair and adjusted my clothes again, nodding. "And that goes quite well with food," I said when I finally met his eyes. "And wine. We should sample some of it before you buy a case. Or two."

We spent the remainder of our time Down Under exploring the local arts scene—my heart was overflowing with live music—and incredible eateries. The entire city pulsed with a culture so vibrant and diverse that we were gobbling up every garden, gallery, and artsy laneway by the armful.

Sam went hog-wild for the Flinders Street Station clocks, and had full-on architecture boners every time we turned down a new street or discovered another gorgeous park. One afternoon, Sam was so enamored with one nineteenth-century home that he insisted we ask the owner for a tour. He turned on all the Sam Walsh charm, complete with enough incendiary smiles to melt bricks…and panties.

The little old lady who answered the door not only invited us in, but also served us lunch and dragged out a scrapbook tracing the home's history back nearly two hundred years.

Sam was in architect heaven, and he was sharing that heaven with me.

It was all I
needed
, but there were a few more things I
wanted
.