One by one, a group of girls dressed in white dresses—none of which were my mother’s—walked out of the church with thick veils over their heads.
Found her.
It was the shape of her body, how it moved when she walked down the steps. None of the girls grabbed onto the railings but her, because I knew her. She was cautious, she was careful, she was my Adelaide.
“Nervous, huh?” Umaima sounded pleased like she accomplished a difficult task, but it wasn’t. This was so fucking easy.
In a horizontal line, the girls aligned themselves.
People huddled around in a large circle to watch.
Adelaide paused before taking her spot at one end.
“All you have to do,” Umaima pushed me forward. “Is find your wife.”
Everyone gave their opinions of where they thought she was.
I think it’s the girl in the middle.
No, she’s too tall. It has to be the one next to her.
It took me less than five seconds to walk towards her.
Leaning down at level with her ears, “I found you.”
I’ll always find you.
Her chest heaved with the breaths she took, “You did.”
She moved to take her veil off, but I stoppedher. “Let me.”
With careful hands that were really trembling, I unveiled her.
Her hair ran down her back, free of everything as she stared up at me.
Lips still red as sin, but cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling.
There was no such concept of resisting whenever Adelaide was in front of me. I pressed a kiss on the space her neck met her shoulder. A trembling breath poured out of her, “People are looking.”
“Let them look,” I kissed the same area—sucking the skin into my mouth. Her hands found the lapels of my jacket, tightening around the fabric like she didn’t know whether to push me away or pull me closer.
From the way she gasped, I bet the fucking latter.
“How’d you,” she swallowed a gasp. “Um, find me?”
Small kisses up her neck, I stopped at her ear and bit the lobe. Low enough for no one but her, “Even if none of my senses worked and my entirety was bathed in darkness, I’d still find you.”
Pulling away, she glanced at me with lust-filled eyes. Her eyes darted down to my lips and mine to hers. She wetted the bottom one, completely oblivious to how hard I was in front of all these fucking people. “I’d love to fuck you,” I said because apparently, I had no fucking self-control.
Her mouth parted. “Christian, you don’t mean that.”
Eyes hardened. “You wanna bet on that?”
She took a step back.
I meant it. I did. We got married, everything was going fucking perfectly, but I couldn’t focus on anyone but her.This friendship nonsense fucked with my head. We weren’t friends and now that we’re married, we’d never be friends.
It’d take some convincing, considering how she kept pushing me away.
