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“This is the dress,” I said as I stared in the mirror. It was the last dress on my list, and I had one other hanging on the maybe bar. It struck me as funny that the first dress I tried on and the last dress were the two that tickled my fancy.
I twirled in the dress, letting it settle around me before I turned to the saleswomen surrounding me.
“This is the one!” I repeated. It fit snug and was exquisite. I could actually wear the sample dress out of the shop with zero alterations, and the shoes that I had been trying the dress on with fit beautifully.
Annabel, my salesgirl, clapped with a broad smile. “Let me get you a veil that will match that dress perfectly,” she said and disappeared.
I turned to the other saleswoman. “This looks better than the other one, right?” I asked, worried that I might have made a mistake between the two. My gaze jumped to the dress hanging against the wall.
“You look lovely in all the dresses, but Angeline looks like it was made just for you. You shine in that dress.”
I’m sure the price may be the reason she was saying that, because the Angeline by WToo was one of the more expensive dresses. But I didn’t have a budget. Damian had said get whatever I wanted, and right now, I wanted this dress with these shoes.
Annabel came back with the veil and slipped it into my hair. She was right—the details in the veil made it a perfect choice and the half length was perfect.
“I’ll take it all. Dress, shoes, veil and corset,” I said, turning and smiling at the two women before returning my gaze to the mirror. “My wedding is on May 5th. Can you get this in that fast?” I asked while I was still studying my profile. While I was paler than I used to be, my Native American heritage made my skin look more natural than I imagined most suffering with the shadow virus dealt with. In other words, I didn’t look like a pasty white vampire.
“Let me check,” Annabel said, and both she and the other sales woman stepped away, leaving me to change into my street clothes. I glanced at the clock and winced. It was a little after nine, and guilt flooded my bones. These two women had stayed much later than they had to in order to help me.
By the time they came back, I was pulling on my cowboy boots.
“Unfortunately, that particular dress can’t be here in less than twelve weeks,” Annabel said, her cheeks bloomed red.
“However, you could buy the sample,” the woman next to Annabel said. “It just came in last week, and you are only the second bride to try it on. I’d be willing to part with it along with the accessories so you can have the dress you were meant to have. I can always order another one for our stock, but even that won’t make it here in time for your wedding day.”
I stood and walked over to the sample, holding the hem to make sure there wasn’t any dirt or snags in the fabric. I wanted this dress. “I’ll take it. Can you store it here until the wedding, or do I need to take it today?”
“We would prefer that you take it, and then the week of the wedding bring it back to be pressed. You have a choice of picking it up on either Friday or the day of the wedding. We close at five both days.”
I bit my lip and sighed. “I can drop it off the Monday before the wedding, but it will be very close to closing time. I don’t usually get out of work until after eight at night, so...” I gave her a shrug.
“If you call that day, I’ll stay an extra fifteen minutes if that helps,” the woman said. “I own the shop, so I don’t mind.”
I smiled. “Are you Emma or Grace?”
“Emma,” she said and took the dress as well as the veil, shoes, and corset to the counter to bag them up.
The dress was tucked into a large garment bag that I hoped would fare well on the flight home.
“Can I have another one of those large shopping bags to fold the garment bag into?” I asked. “I’m meeting my fiancé for dinner and I don’t want him to see the dress.”
Emma packed the garment bag into one of their large shopping bags. “Just make sure to hang it up once you get home, okay?”
“Absolutely. As far as picking up the pressed dress, I’ll probably have a courier pick it up for me. What will they need to be able to pick up the dress?” I asked, wondering about the logistics again. However, if Damian was able to book a venue and all those other things in less than an hour, I should be able to hire a reliable courier to deliver my dress to the Secret Garden.
“As long as the courier shows us a copy of your dress press receipt, and a note authorizing us to release the dress to them, we can let them take it.”
That worked for me. I left the shop with two large bags and a grin, and crossed to the sports bar across the street where Damian had parked his fine ass for the duration of my shopping.
“Hey, sweetheart,” I whispered from behind him.
He glanced over his shoulder and then turned at seeing the bags.
“Success?”
“Oh, yes. That was the perfect dress shop,” I said and caught a kiss. “I was thinking it might be nice to stay at a hotel here in town for the night before the wedding. I’ll need to hire a courier to pick up my dress and if I’m at a hotel, at least I can have it dropped off in the room instead of having it delivered to the venue.”
He bit his lip. “That might not be such a bad idea, but...”
I knew what was coming next and I sighed.
“Our friends might get wind of our whereabouts if we do that,” he said.
He had a point, but as much as I wanted to avoid detection by Lucifer and his henchmen, I wanted our wedding to be special and as normal as I could make it.
“Do you really think two nights will be an issue?”
He shrugged and palmed my cheek. “It could be.”
“I doubt they would put two and two together if we got separate rooms for both nights.”
His hand dropped, and a crease appeared between his eyes, signaling his familiar look of confusion.
“You aren’t seeing me on our wedding day,” I said, and he huffed a laugh. “I’m serious. I’m doing this right, so either we get separate hotel rooms or you stay at the cabin.”
He balked. “I’m not staying that far away from you.”
“Fine, then it’s settled. We’ll stay in a hotel.”
He chewed his lip, visibly annoyed with my backing him into a corner.
“You can get a town car to take me to the venue, and one to take us back to the hotel, too,” I added with a grin.
His dimples appeared. “You’re really going to town with this wedding, aren’t you?”
“It’s the only one I’ll ever have, so you bet your ass.”
He grinned at me and the spark in his eyes meant one of two things—either he was hungry for food, or he was hungry for me. He threw cash on the bar for the whiskey he nursed while I was trying on dresses and took my hand, leading me outside.
* * *
HE DROPPED ME OFF AT the cabin with my bags in tow, and I stepped inside to hang up my dress and other items. He didn’t follow me in, so that spark was more about sustenance than sex.
I stepped outside a moment later, and he glanced at me before he closed his eyes and sniffed the air. I did the same. This winter had provided slim pickings for us, and I was glad for the early break in temperature because the wildlife had started to move around again, giving us more palatable options of food sources.
“Moose,” he said with a grin and pointed to the east.
A moose had more than enough blood to fill us both up. I grinned as well. We broke out in a run and I closed my eyes, willing my transition. When my eyes opened again, I felt the snow under my huge white paws. Damian’s wings beat above me and his shadow moved faster in flight than I did bounding through the snow.
I was the huntress of the two of us. Damian wouldn’t take down a moose because neither hawk nor man wanted to tango with a thirteen-hundred pound menace. But my alter ego was a seven-hundred pound white Siberian tiger. At a full sprint, I could hit fifty miles per hour easily, and the force at which I could hit a moose of average size could knock it over. I just have to watch out for the antlers.
Damian loved to watch me go in for the kill. He said I was a force beyond imagination. To him, it was like an exquisite dance, one he never wanted to be a participant of. After all, I almost took down Lucifer, but the sunrise saved his ass.
I caught the moose off guard, hitting him square in the shoulder with a force of nearly two tons. He teetered and fell to the ground, creating a snow puff, but before he could regain his senses, my teeth sank in, severing his jugular. My reward was a fountain of lifeblood.
The hot liquid poured into my mouth, but instead of lapping it, I let it fill my mouth and swallowed. I could feel the strength building in my bones, replenishing my cells and giving me that heady high.
Damian landed next to me and grabbed the antlers, pulling the head farther to the side so he could get a drink of warm blood. I growled at him without removing my teeth. When I was in my primal form, I didn’t like sharing.
“Deal with it,” he said and leaned in next to me, biting into the fading fountain of life.
When the carcass was drained, I yanked my teeth from the fur and licked my chops. Damian retreated as well, taking the spot next to me, and his hand landed on my head, caressing me behind the ear. My wild cat loved it when he scratched behind my ears, and I leaned into him, almost knocking him on his ass.
“I think it’s time we go satisfy our other appetite,” he said.
I licked the last of the blood from my paws before glancing up at him. Right now, my inner cat had other ideas. I just wanted to run and play in the snow for a little while. When I was in this form, the feline urges took over, and I wasn’t in a position to contradict them. I bounded into the snow before turning and swaying my tail.
He rolled his eyes and then darted straight at me, tackling me into a roll in the snow. This time, he ended up underneath me, and I took the opportunity to mop his face with my tongue until he was laughing and pushing my snout away.
“Enough! If you want to get kinky and lick me all over, let’s go home and you can have at it, but only as my fiancé, not a tiger, okay?”
I chuffed at him and stepped off, letting him get to his feet and pat the snow from his clothing.
“Are you ready to go back now?”
I shook the snow from my fur and gave him a nod.
He took a couple running steps towards our cabin, and then the hawk came out. I ran in the same direction feeling freer than I had ever felt in my life. While the shadow virus had its drawbacks, it also had its benefits, like being able to run at high speeds through Colorado’s frozen mountain terrain.
* * *
HE BEAT ME TO THE CABIN and stood in the doorway as I skidded to a halt. The transition back to human took hold, and after a moment, I stretched upright. I was sure the grin on my face echoed his.
“So, are you going to lick me all over?”
The playful lilt in his voice pulled heat into my cool cheeks, and I stepped inside. “I was thinking we should wait until our wedding night,” I said and braced for his reaction.
He stopped short and stared at me, calculating the days until we said I do in his head. The disappointment showed in every one of his muscles as they slackened in disbelief.
“You honestly want me to keep my sex drive in check for two months?”
“It’s a little under two months,” I said, trying to soften the blow.
“Can we start tomorrow?” he asked, stepping closer.
“That kind of defeats the purpose of let’s wait,” I said, planting my palm on his chest. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to rip his clothes off and take him on the floor right then and there; I just thought the agony of waiting that both of us would deal with would make us almost feral on our wedding night.
He let out a half laugh. “Are you joking right now, or are you serious?”
“I’m serious.”
“Oh,” he muttered, and his hands found solace in his pockets. He looked like a little kid who dropped his ice cream cone in the street. Dejected. Almost destroyed.
“Damian,” I started, and he met my gaze. “I love you and would like nothing more than making love to you right now, but I want our wedding night to be special.”
“Every time I make love to you, its special,” he said, his blue eyes pleading.
I almost caved. “That’s sweet, but I want the buildup, the anticipation. I want to be half out of my mind for you.”
“And you’re not like that now?”
I could tell my explanation wasn’t coming out the right way, and he was getting defensive. “I am. God knows I am, but I want to wait because I want that night to be memorable, and not like every other night we’ve ever shared.” I held my hand up when his jaw tensed. “I am not saying every night has been less than memorable. I’m saying I want our wedding night to impact both of us in ways that a normal night doesn’t. Make sense?”
He blinked and sucked in his bottom lip, chewing on it while he mulled my words over. Instead of standing in the outer cabin, he retreated into the belly of the mountain where our luxury escape stood beneath the bedrock and away from the sunshine.
I followed him in, hanging up my coat and ditching my boots.
He sat on the couch staring at the blank television screen before he finally turned to me.
“I get what you’re saying,” he said.
I took the spot next to him. He was usually the soft and sappy one of the two of us, but even though I could be bad-ass, I was a girl. And I wanted to come as close to my wedding dream as I could. That included abstinence before the wedding.
“Have I been moving too fast?” he asked, and worry lines painted his forehead.
“Neither of us have ever moved slow. But with this, I need to do it right. I need our wedding to be as perfect as your proposal.”
The slow smile that produced his deep dimples appeared, and he leaned in, planting the softest kiss on my forehead.
“It will be,” he whispered and gave my hand a squeeze. “And if I have to keep my desire under wraps until after we wed, then so be it,” he added with a grimace meant to be a grin.
“Thank you,” I said and pecked his cheek.
“Just don’t be surprised if I tear through your dress on our wedding night.”
“You might want to buy the tuxedo, because that may end up in shreds, too,” I said and retreated into the bedroom to keep my own desires in check. I did want to lick every inch of him and wasn’t sure I would be able to abide by my own rules.