#16 Everlasting
He turns at just the right moment.
He doesn't know how he knows, but he does. So attuned to her, innately conscious of her presence, every one of his senses humming with awareness. He turns to her before the first note of music even reaches his ears.
She's a vision.
Haloed by the golden light streaming in through the side windows, surrounded by sparkling speckles of dust, like twinkling fairies flittering around and around, as joyous as this day.
He sounds sappy even to his own ears but he doesn't care one bit.
His eyes roam, take in the thick, caramel waves of her hair that tumble over her shoulders, caress the soft swell of her cleavage and her beautiful collarbones. The alluring play of her muscles as she moves; gentle ripples and waves beneath her porcelain skin. The sparkle in her eyes, gold like the light that floods the room, and the wide, absolutely breathtaking smile that stretches her lips.
His hand flies to his chest, fingers splayed as if to contain the pounding of his heart, his breath stalled in his lungs.
She's never looked as beautiful as this, right here, in this moment.
Her dress hugs her torso as if painted onto her skin, the skirt smoothing down her hips, then falling wide and wider to the floor. The fabric rustles with every measured step she takes, somehow louder to him than the music that accompanies this day, the brush and caress of shimmering silk and crackling lace bringing her closer. Closer and closer.
To him.
Butterflies flap and flurry inside of him, so strong that he can barely contain it; he wants to giggle, laugh out loud at the pure, effervescent joy that wells through him.
Instead he smiles, smiles and smiles, his lips so wide that he feels the stretch of his cheeks and the crinkles grooved into the corners of his eyes.
And then she's by his side and he soaks her in, her familiar scent and the spice of excitement, that spark in her wide eyes and the shimmer of her lips. All of her suffused with happiness that seems to radiate from the inside out.
He folds her slim fingers into his larger ones, presses a barely-there kiss to her cool fingertips. Her lashes lower, a soft sigh escaping her before she looks at him again, her smile alive with joy, and determination, and love.
He can't stop staring at her, this ethereal being, this extraordinary woman standing here with him.
Everything around him disappears, nothing but a blurry backdrop of colors, lights, sounds, words, his sole focus on her. His knees are weak, his heart races, every part of him giddy with excitement and yet humbled by the timeless symmetry, the perfect cadence of this moment, the magnitude of every reverent word, every touch and step and motion. His hands are steadier than he expected, his voice calm; certain.
She smiles at him, bright and delighted and a little mischievous as she cradles his cheek in her palm and murmurs. "Ready for this?"
He leans in closer, his forehead resting against hers while he wraps an arm around her back, drawing her into him. His fingers rest in the subtle arc of her spine, the heat of her skin warming the soft white silk beneath his fingertips.
Everything within him is quiet now, settled; at peace. "I've been ready for you my entire life."
She sighs, like a surge of yearning that wells from deep, deep within her as she closes the final, minuscule breadth of distance, and presses her mouth to his.
He tastes the longing on her lips, tastes her smile and her devotion as he kisses her, tender and reverent. He worships her mouth like he promised to worship her for the rest of their lives. Caresses, sips and tastes, soft so soft, infusing this kiss with the depth of his feelings, the entire world of his love spread before her in this perfect, mellifluous, infinite kiss.
Their first kiss as husband and wife.