I did a little dance at this small victory. Bennett gave a little growl of defeat but then leaned into me as I stepped on my toes, shoeless and inches shorter than my husband—my husband!—and pulled him down to me.

I didn’t care that there were people watching.

I didn’t care that the expectation was that we would give a small kiss now and enjoy many more, deeper kisses later.

Right now, as of this moment, this man was my f**king husband, and I needed to make sure everything felt the same.

I relished the way his arms tightened around me so intensely I lost my breath. I relished the firm press of his mouth on mine, and the parting of his lips, the gentle slide of his tongue across mine . . . once, twice, three times, and the last time just a little deeper until I could feel the vibration of his sounds and practically taste his urgency. His breaths came out shallow and uneven on my tongue and his quiet words—ah, f**k, Chlo, and need to get you alone—finally made me pull away before I started stripping off his tux right here at the altar.

Breathless and grinning like idiots, we turned and faced a lawn-full of guests with hands suspended in the air, prepared to clap but wearing expressions of shock frozen on their faces.

Apparently we’d been a little wild in our first kiss as husband and wife.

“Go on girl, get yours!” George shouted, just as Judith yelled, “Now that’s how you kiss a woman!” breaking the spell and the whole group in front of us broke into roaring applause.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the judge shouted above the mayhem. “It is my pleasure to introduce Bennett and Chloe Ryan!”

Chloe Ryan?

I turned and had just aimed my harshest glare at Bennett and his widening grin when chaos erupted all around us. Sara’s arms swallowed me, and then Julia’s and George’s and Mina’s. I felt my father’s hands on my face and his giant smooch to my cheek. I was hugged by Elliott and Susan in tandem, lifted by Henry and Max in turn, kissed on the cheek by Will, and then I felt Bennett’s smooth, warm hand wrapping around my arm and pulling me with him down the aisle, away from the tight press of the wedding party.

We ran, tripping through the mud, leaving wet footprints all along the patio. Inside, Bennett pulled me into the kitchen, where the caterers stopped what they were doing; the clattering of pots and dishes, the roaring of commands and replies went completely silent as Bennett turned and slammed me into the wall, his mouth on my neck, my jaw, my ears, my lips. He ran a hand up my side, gripping my breast through my wedding dress and I felt him begin to harden against my stomach.

“Tonight,” he growled, returning to my neck. “Tonight I’m going to consummate this marriage so f**king hard you’re going to walk with a limp on that beach in Fiji.”

I burst out laughing, wrapping my arms around him as his mouth slowed and eventually simply kissed a path from my shoulder to my cheek. “Promise?” I asked.

He sighed, kissing my lips once. “Promise. Now, how many hours do I have to play nice with our crazy family before we can leave and I can put my hands all over your naked skin?”

I looked over his shoulder, searching for a kitchen clock, but all I saw was at least twenty faces, all staring wide-eyed and slack-jawed at us. One waiter was so stunned by Bennett’s display that a stack of plates slowly slid from his grasp and shattered on the floor.

Following the deafening crash of porcelain on tile, the kitchen finally returned to motion: people running for brooms and dustpans, the head chef barking out orders again. Bennett and I apologized quietly and ducked out of the kitchen and to the edge of the veranda, watching our guests begin to collect near the disaster of the lawn, taking appetizers from passing waitstaff.

I stretched to reach Bennett’s ear and said, “We just got married. That means you’re legally my manservant now.”

His long fingers dug into my sides, tickling me as he reached with his other hand to grab a flute of champagne from a tray and handed it to me. He took one for himself and quietly clinked my glass. “To us, my wife.”

“To us.”

We watched the wedding party begin to assemble for the photos and Max waved at us to come join them. Sara turned around, laughing at something George said, and I caught a full view of her dress.

Bennett must have seen it at the same time as I did, because I heard him suck in a huge breath. He took my hand and began guiding me to the area where the photographer had set up the tripod.

“About that,” I began.

“Yeah,” he said glumly. “About that.”

“What the f**k happened, Mills?”