The ivy was coiling up our legs, binding us to the bed as the sensations gathered, my sex clutched his, he groaned his pleasure in my ear at the feeling of it, and I could hold back no more.

I climaxed before him.

When it left me, he was still thrusting inside, his hand between my legs now cupping me there, his other arm about me, fingers curled around the side of my neck.

I listened to his quiet grunts in my ear until it overtook him, and his hand moved to under my jaw, pressing my head back, as he shoved his face in my neck and rumbled his climax into my flesh.

I knew it left him when he slid his hand to the middle of my back, pressing me gently down so my cheek was to the bed. And then—so True, all True, but this part only my True—he continued to take me as his fingers glided over my skin at hips, bottom, waist, the small of my back, our vines receding, until he started losing his hardness.

Only then did he pull out, roll me to my back, and settle upon me, lifting the covers up to his hips, but he was my blanket.

His body was hard, but it was warm, and it was the best blanket in the world.

I ran the fingertips of both hands over his beautiful face, his cheekbones, his eyes, his jaw, his lips, his temples and forehead as my eyes watched.

When he was done allowing this, he captured one of my wrists, turned his head, and pressed a hard kiss in my palm.

After he released me, I slid my arms around him, and my husband dropped down and took my mouth in a slow, soft, wet, lovely kiss.

When he finished it, he touched his lips to my nose before he looked into my eyes and asked, “What do you do today?”

“Elena has a gown fitting.”

“Ah,” he said on a grin.

“Have you heard tales of her gown?” I asked, having seen a fitting the day before, and having been shocked to my core at the frothy wonder of it.

Elena was not frothy.

But her wedding gown was a vision.

A vision of beauty.

A vision of hope.

“No, though maybe I have, and I ceased listening due to experiencing profound surprise after I heard she would wear a gown to her wedding. I felt certain she’d wear a Nadirii battle tunic.”

“You’ve seen her in a gown before, True.”

He looked perplexed. “I have?”

I studied him then reminded him. “Yes. At Catrame. That night. Early on when we all had just met. She came down wearing that stunning black gown.”

“Oh. Right. Yes, she was wearing a gown that night.”

She wasn’t wearing a gown that night.

She was wearing a stunning gown that night.

He had been in love with Elena then.

He had…