Ella is holding my hand like a lifeline, grinning as we forge an unfamiliar path through the Sanctuary. Her happiness is so electric it’s contagious. I feel heavy with it, overwhelmed by it. I don’t even think my body knows what to do with this much of it.
But seeing her like this—
It’s impossible to describe what it does to me to see her so happy, smiling so wide she can hardly speak. I only know that I never want to do anything to make it stop.
We’re following Kenji and Winston, both of whom were quickly joined by their counterparts, Nazeera and Brendan, while the rest of the crowd follows close behind. I seem to be the only one of us who doesn’t know where we’re going, and Ella still refuses to tell me anything more about our destination.
“Will you at least tell me whether we’re leaving the Sanctuary?” I ask. She smiles up at me. “Yes and no.”
I frown. “Are we going somewhere to see the thing you wanted to show me? Or is this something else?”
Her smile grows bigger. “Yes and no.”
“I see,” I say, squinting into the distance. “So you’re torturing me on purpose.”
“Yes,” she says, poking me in the stomach. “And no.”
I shake my head, laughing a little, and she pokes me in the stomach again.
“Ow,” I say quietly.
Ella beams before wrapping her arms around my waist, hugging me as we walk, not seeming to care at all that she stumbles every few steps. I’m so incomprehensibly happy I seem to have misplaced most of my brain cells. I can hardly gather my thoughts.
After a moment, Ella says, “You know, it’s not much fun to poke you in the stomach. It’s not even possible, really, to poke hard muscle.” She slides her hand up under my shirt, then slowly down my torso. “This whole thing would work much better if you had some body fat.”
I take a steadying breath. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
“I never said I was disappointed,” she says, still smiling. “I love your body.”
Her words conjure a simmering heat somewhere deep inside me. I tense as she draws patterns along my skin, her fingers grazing my navel before moving slowly up again, tracing lines with excruciating care.
I finally cover her hand with my own. “That,” I say, “is very distracting.”
“What is?” She’s not even looking at the path ahead anymore. One of her arms is wrapped around my waist, and the other is tucked unabashedly under my shirt. “This?” She drags her hand across my abs, moving steadily downward. “Is this distracting?”
I inhale. “Yes.”
“What about this?” she says, staring up at me, the picture of innocence as her free hand travels lower, then slips just underneath my waistband. “Is this distracting?”
“Ella.”
“Yes?”
I laugh, but the sound is breathless. Nervous. It’s a struggle to maintain the control necessary to keep my body from announcing to everyone exactly what I would rather be doing right now.
“Do you want me to stop?” she asks. “No.”
She smiles wider. “Good, because—”
“If you two are going to be disgusting on your wedding day,” Kenji says over his shoulder, “could you at least whisper? It’s close quarters in this crowd, okay? No one wants to hear your filthy conversations.”
“Yeah,” Nazeera says, turning to look at us. “No cute talk, either. Cute talk is highly discouraged on any day, but especially on your wedding day.”
Ella’s hand is gone from my body in an instant.
She turns to face them, the moment all but forgotten; I, on the other hand, need a minute. The effect she has on my nerves takes longer to dissipate.
I exhale slowly.
“I’m starting to think you two might be turning into the same person,” Ella says. “And I’m not sure I mean that as a compliment.”
Kenji and Nazeera laugh at that, Kenji drawing an arm around Nazeera’s waist as they walk, pulling her closer. She leans into him, planting a brief kiss at the base of his jaw.
Kenji’s provocations have grown innocuous in recent weeks. His bite is more habit than harmful, as he’s in no position to criticize. He and Nazeera are as inseparable as is possible these days, the two of them ensconced in darkened corners at every available opportunity. To be fair, we’re all lacking in privacy right now; very few people have their own rooms at the moment, which means we’re not the only ones engaging in public displays of affection.
Kenji and Nazeera seem truly happy, though.
I’ve not known Kenji a particularly long time, but Nazeera—I never thought I’d see her like this.
I suppose she might say the same about me.
“You know, technically, you two shouldn’t even be together right now,” Winston says, swiveling to face us. He walks backward as he says, “The bride and groom can’t just hang out together on their wedding day. Tradition frowns upon it.”
“Excellent point,” Brendan adds. “And as they’re both such pure, innocent souls, we wouldn’t want them to risk accidental, indecent skin-to- skin contact.”
“Yeah, I think it might be too late for that,” Kenji says. “Seriously?” Brendan and Nazeera say at the same time.
Brendan laughs, but Nazeera turns sharply around to look at Ella, whose responding blush all but confirms their suspicions.
“Wow,” Nazeera says after a moment, nodding. “Nice. You have interesting priorities.”
“Oh my God,” Ella says, covering her face with her hand. “Sometimes I really hate you guys.”
I decide to change the subject.
“Will we be arriving at this mysterious destination soon?” I ask. “We’ve been walking for so long I’m beginning to wonder whether I’ll need international clearance.”
“Is this guy serious?” Winston calls back, exasperated. “It’s been maybe
five minutes.”
“Sprinting two miles—uphill, in the heat, in a suit—and he doesn’t break a sweat,” Kenji says. “Wouldn’t even let me rest for thirty-seconds. But this—yeah, this is too much for him. Makes sense.”
“Okay, you can ignore them,” Ella says, taking my hand again. “We’re pretty close now.” I feel her enthusiasm building anew, her eyes brightening as she peers ahead.
“So—what changed yesterday?” I ask her. “To make all this happen?” Ella looks up. “What do you mean?”
“Yesterday Nouria told me that, for a number of different reasons, it was basically out of the question for us to have a wedding. But today”—I glance around us, at the mass of people sacrificing hours of their work and life to help organize this event—“those issues no longer seem to be relevant.”
“Oh,” Ella says, and sighs. “Yeah. Yesterday was a mess. I really didn’t want to postpone things, but there were just so many different disasters to deal with. Losing our clothes was one obstacle, but trying to host the wedding at night was proving a logistical nightmare. I realized we could either get married last night and have to compromise on almost everything, or push it by a day, and maybe, just maybe, be able to do it right—”
“A day?” I frown. “Nouria made it seem like it might be months before we could reschedule. She made it sound functionally impossible.”
“Months?” Ella stiffens. “Why would she say that?”
“You must’ve really pissed her off,” Kenji says, his laughter echoing. “Nouria knew Juliette wouldn’t have postponed the wedding that long. She was probably just torturing you.”
“Really.” The revelation makes me scowl. Between her and Sam, I seem to have made two very powerful enemies.
“Hey—I’m sorry she said that to you,” Ella says softly, hugging me from the side as we walk. I wrap my arm around her shoulders, holding her tight against me.
“I think Nouria leaned a little too hard into the cover story,” she says. “I had no idea you thought we might be postponing the wedding that far into the future. I’m only now realizing that yesterday must’ve been pretty rough for you.”
“It wasn’t,” I lie, gently cupping the back of her head, my fingers threading through the silk of her hair. I study her face as she stares up at me,
noticing then how the sun changes her eyes; her irises look more green in the light. Blue in the dark. “It was fine.”
Ella doesn’t buy this.
Her hands graze my hips as she draws away, lingering before she lets go. “I was so busy trying to make everything work that I didn’t even—”
She cuts herself off, her emotions changing without warning. “Hey,” she says. “What’s this?”
“What’s what?”
“This,” she says, gently prodding my pant leg in a manner that would disturb Kenji for weeks. “This box.”
“Oh.”
I come to a sudden and complete stop, heart pounding as the crowd surges around us, several of them calling out congratulations as they pass. Someone sticks a homemade tiara on Ella’s head at one point, which she accepts with a gracious nod before discreetly tugging it out of her hair.
They seem to know better than to touch me.
In the distance, I hear Winston clap his hands. “All right, everyone, we’re basically here. Juliette, will you and Warner pl— Wait, where’s Juliette?”
“I’m back here!”
“Why the hell are you back there?” Kenji cries.
I hear faint grumbling from Winston, more exasperated words from Kenji; all this is followed by soothing sounds made by their partners. The sequence would be comical if I were in any mood to laugh.
Instead, I have turned to stone.
“We’ll be right there!” Ella reassures them. “You can start setting up without us!”
“Set up without you? If I find out this was your plan all along, princess, Nazeera is going to kick your ass.”
“I absolutely won’t,” she calls out cheerfully. “In fact, I fully support the two of you tearing off each other’s clothes, if that’s what you’ve got planned!”
“Oh my God, Nazeera—” “What?”
“Don’t encourage them,” Kenji and Winston shout at the same time. “Why not?” Brendan says. “I think it’s romantic.”
They bicker a bit more while my mind spins. I feel the outline of the box against my leg more acutely than ever, a square spot of heat against my skin.
This is happening out of order.
I manage to comfort myself with the reminder that everything about us has unfolded in an unconventional way; I shouldn’t be too surprised to discover that, here, too, things are not going to plan.
Then again, I didn’t really have a plan.
In an ideal scenario, I would’ve proposed to her with the ring; she should’ve already had it on her finger. Instead, we are now fast approaching our actual wedding and I’ve yet to give it to her. And while it occurs to me that I could find a way to evade her curiosity right now, I’m not sure there’s any point in prolonging it. I have no idea where we’re going. I don’t know what’s going to happen next.
I might not even have time later to do this properly.
I swallow, hard, trying to force back my apprehension. I don’t know why I’m so nervous.
That’s not true.
I know why I’m nervous. I’m worried she’s going to hate it, and I don’t know what I’ll do if she hates it. I suppose I’ll have to return it. I’ll have to marry her without a ring, acknowledging all the while that I am an idiot of astronomical proportions, one who couldn’t even manage to pick out a decent ring for his fiancée.
This imagining inspires in me a wave of dread so severe I close my eyes against the force of it.
“Aaron,” Ella says, and my eyes fly open, bringing me back to the present.
She is smiling at me.
Ella, I realize, already knows what’s in the box.
Somehow, this makes me more nervous. I look around myself, searching for calm, and register a beat too late that we’re all alone. The crowd has dispersed into the distance beyond us, and as I watch them disappear—their bodies growing smaller by the second—I recognize only then that I have no idea where we are.
I take stock of our surroundings: there are paved roads and sidewalks not far away, wilting trees planted at regular intervals. The air smells different—sharper—and the sun seems brighter, unencumbered by dense
woods. I hear that familiar trill of birdsong and search the sky again, trying to orient myself. My mind searches itself for maps, blueprints, old information. This area looks less wild than the Sanctuary, stripped back. I feel quite certain we must be encroaching upon old, unregulated territory, but as we still appear to be within the boundary of Nouria’s protections, that can’t be possible. The lights that delineate our space from the outside world are clearly visible.
“Where are we?” I ask. For a moment, my nerves are forgotten. “This isn’t—”
“We can get to that in just a second,” Ella says, still smiling. She drops the homemade tiara to the ground and steps forward, drawing her hand slowly up my thigh, tracing a faint circle around the impression of the box. “But first, I feel like I have no choice but to make a terrible joke about finding something hard in your pants.”
I drag a hand down my face, vaguely mortified. “Please don’t.”
Ella fights to be serious, biting her lip to keep from smiling. She mimes locking her mouth, tossing the key.
I actually laugh then, after which I sigh, staring for a moment into the distance.
“So. What’s in the box?” she asks, her joy so bright it’s blinding. “Is it for me?”
“Yes.”
When I make no move to procure the object, she frowns. “Can I . . . have it?”
With great reluctance, I tug free the little velvet box from my pocket, clenching it tight for so long she finally reaches for my hand. Gently, she wraps her small fingers around my fist.
“Aaron,” she says. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I take a deep breath. “Nothing is wrong. I just—” I force myself to open my palm to her, heart still pounding. “I really hope you like it.”
She smiles as she takes the box. “I’m sure I’m going to love it.”
“It’s okay if you don’t. You don’t have to love it. If you hate it I can always get you something else—”
“You know, I’m not used to seeing you nervous like this.” She tilts her head at me. “It’s kind of adorable.”
“I feel like an idiot,” I say, trying and failing to smile. “Though I’m glad you find it entertaining.”
She opens the box as I say this, giving me no time to brace myself before she gasps, her eyes widening in astonishment. She covers her mouth with one hand, her emotions so unrestrained I can hardly read them. There’s too much all at once: shock, happiness, confusion—
The effort to say nothing nearly costs me my sanity.
“Where did you get this?” she says, finally dropping her hand away from her face. Carefully, she tugs the engagement ring free from its setting, examining it closely before staring up at me. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“I had it made,” I manage to say, my body still so tense it’s difficult to speak. She hasn’t said whether she likes it, which means the vise around my chest refuses to disengage.
Still, I force myself to retrieve the glittering piece from her, taking her left hand in mine with great care. My own hands are miraculously steady as I slide the ring into place on her fourth finger.
The fit, as I knew it would be, is perfect.
I took the necessary measurements while she was heavily asleep, still recovering in the medical tent.
“You had it made?” Ella is staring at her hand, the ring refracting the light, shattering color everywhere. The center stone is large, but not garishly so, and suits her beautifully.
I think so, anyway.
I watch her as she studies the ring, turning her hand left and right. “How did you get it made?” she asks. “When? I thought there’d be a simple wedding band inside, I didn’t think—”
“There is a wedding band inside. There are two rings.”
She looks up at me then, and I see, for the first time, that her eyes are bright with tears. The sight cuts me straight through the heart but brings with it the hope of relief. It might be the only time in my life I’ve ever been happy to see her cry.
With great trepidation, Ella reopens the velvet box, slowly retrieving from its depths the wedding band.
She holds it up to the sky with a trembling hand, staring at its detail. The brushed gold band resembles a twig, so delicate it looks almost as if it
were forged from thread. It glints in the sun, the two emerald leaves bright against the infinite branch.
She slips it onto her finger, gasping softly when it settles into place. It was designed to fit perfectly against the engagement ring.
“The leaves—are supposed to be—like us,” I say, hearing how stupid it sounds when I say it out loud. How perfectly pedestrian.
I suddenly hate myself.
Still, Ella says nothing, and I can’t hold the question in any longer. “Do you like it? If you don’t like it I can always—”
She snaps the box shut and throws her arms around my neck, hugging me so tight I feel the damp press of her cheek against my jaw. She pulls back to pepper my face with kisses, half laughing as she does, swiping at her tears with shaking hands.
“How can you even ask me that?” she says. “I’ve never owned anything so beautiful in my whole life. I love these rings. I love them so much. And I know you probably didn’t think about this when you had them made— because you wouldn’t—but the emeralds remind me of your eyes. They’re stunning.”
I blink at that, surprised. “My eyes?”
“Yes,” she says quietly, her expression softening. “And you’re right. They are like us. We’ve been growing toward each other from the opposite sides of the same path since the beginning, haven’t we?”
Relief hits me like an opiate.
I pull her into my arms, burying my face in her neck before I kiss her— softly at first—and our slow, searing touches quickly change into something else altogether. Ella is drawing her hand under my shirt again, my skin heating under her touch.
“I love you,” she whispers, kissing my throat, my jaw, my chin, my lips. “And I never want to take these off.” Her words are accompanied by a passion so profound I can hardly breathe around it. I close my eyes as the sensations build and spiral; the cold graze of her rings against my chest striking my skin like a match.
Desire soon shuts down my mind.
When we break apart I’m breathing hard, molten heat coursing through my veins. I’m imagining scenarios far too impractical to execute. Being with Ella this morning was like breaking a dam; I’d been so afraid to touch her while she was in recovery, and then terrified to overwhelm her in the
days after. I’d wanted to make sure she was okay, that she took her time getting back to normal, at her own pace, without anyone crowding her personal space.
But now—
Now that she’s ready—now that my body remembers this—it’s suddenly impossible to get enough.
“I’m so glad you like the rings, love,” I whisper against her mouth. “But I’m going to need to take back the band.”
“What?” she says, pulling away. She stares at her hand, heartbroken in an instant. “Why?”
“Those are the rules.” I’m still smiling when I touch her face, grazing her cheek with my knuckles. “I promise, after I give this ring to you today, I’ll never ask for it back.”
When still she makes no move, I reach, without looking, for the box clenched in her right fist.
She relinquishes the item with great reluctance, sighing as she steps back to slip the wedding band off her finger. I open the recovered box, presenting it to her, and after she settles the ring back into its nest I snap the lid shut, tucking the object safely back into my pocket.
My heart has grown ten sizes in the last several minutes.
“We should probably get going if you want to get this back,” I say, touching her waist, then tugging her close. My lips are at her ear when I whisper: “I’m going to marry you today. And then I’m going to make love to you until you can’t remember your name.”
Ella makes a startled, breathless sound, her hands tightening in my shirt. She pulls me closer and kisses me, nipping my bottom lip before claiming my mouth, touching me now with a new desperation; a hunger still unmet. She presses her body against me, hard and soft soldered together, and I lose myself in it, in the intoxication of knowing just how much she wants this.
Me.
Her mouth is hot and sweet, her limbs heavy with pleasure. She drags her hand down the front of my pants and I make an anguished sound somewhere deep in my chest. I take her face in my hands as she touches me, kissing her deeper, harder, still unable to find relief. She seems to be torturing me on purpose—torturing both of us—knowing there’s nothing we can do here, knowing there are people waiting for us—
“Ella,” I gasp, the word practically a plea as I break away, trying and failing to cool my head, my thoughts. I can’t walk back into a crowd right now, looking like this. I can’t even think straight.
My thoughts are wild.
I want nothing more than to strip her bare. I want to fall to my knees and taste her, make her lose her mind with pleasure. I want her to beg before I make her come, right here, in the middle of nowhere.
“I really don’t think you understand what you do to me, love,” I say, trying to steady myself. “You have no idea how badly I want you. You have no idea what I want to do to you right now.”
My words do not have the intended effect. Ella is not deterred.
Her desire seems to intensify, more in every second. That she could ever want me like this—that I could ever inspire in her the kind of need she inspires in me—
It still seems impossible. And it’s addicting.
“You have no idea,” she says softly, “how you make me feel when you look at me like that.”
I take a deep, unsteady breath when she touches me again, dragging my hands down her body before sliding a hand under her sweater, up the curve of her rib cage. She gasps as I skim the soft, heavy swell of her breasts, her body responding in an instant to my touch.
Her skin here, like everywhere, is like satin.
“God,” I breathe. “I can never get enough of you.”
Ella shakes her head even as she closes her eyes, surrendering to my hands. “Kenji was right,” she says breathlessly. “We can’t be left alone together.”
I kiss her neck slowly, tasting her there until she moans, not enough to leave a mark. She reaches for me then, her own hands grasping for the button of my pants. In my delirium I let it happen, forgetting for a moment where we are or what we need to be doing until I feel her soft fingers wrap around me—a cool hand against my feverish skin—and my head nearly catches fire.
I’m moments away from losing my mind. I want to strip off her sweater.
I want to unhook her bra. I want her to undress in front of me before I— This is madness.
Common sense is returned to me only through a brutal, agonizing reclamation of self-control, just enough for me to place a hand over hers, forcing myself to breathe slowly.
“We can’t do this here,” I say, hating myself even as I say it. “Not here.
Not now.”
She looks around herself then as if emerging from a dream, the real world coming back into focus by degrees. I take advantage of her distraction to put myself to rights, stunned to realize I was only moments away from doing something reckless.
Ella’s disappointment is palpable.
“I need to take you to bed, love,” I say, my voice still rough with desire. “I need hours. Days. Alone with you.”
She nods, her ring catching the light as she reaches for me, collapsing against my chest. “Yes. Please. I really hope you’re not planning on falling asleep tonight.”
I laugh at that, the sound still a bit shaky. “One day we’ll have a proper bed,” I say, kissing her forehead. “And then I doubt I will ever sleep again.”
Ella jerks back suddenly.
Her eyes widen with something like comprehension, then delight. She nearly bounces up and down before taking my hand, and with only a sharp exclamation of excitement, she tugs me forward.
“Wait— Ella—”
“I still have something to show you!” she cries, and breaks off into a run.
I have no choice but to chase after her.
