Page 106 of Consort's Glory
Theodore’s lifecould be split into three epochs: before Margot, waiting for Margot, and loving Margot.
The last was, by a wide margin, the most pleasurable.
Theodore watched her step into his suite with a curious tightness in his chest, his eyes glued to the soft line of her back. Her long red hair fell in a mess of waves down her spine, thoroughly mussed by his searching fingers in the nearly thirty minutes it took them to drive back to the Tower and then slip unseen up to his floor. The color stood out in a flash of copper against the cream of her simple wedding gown, the cocktail dress he insisted she buy the night of their date. I promised I’d find her a reason to wear it, he thought, admiring the fitted bodice and a full skirt that brushed her knees. So simple, so lovely.
He felt overdressed in comparison. Stuffy even, next to her simple elegance and all that silky skin.
Goddess, he thought, watching her stride to the wall of windows that faced his large, free-floating bed. Margot was limned in the light bouncing off of the slate gray waves churning below. She’s the most beautiful woman in the world.
She needed nothing. No adornments, no glamours or powders. She needed only to feel comfortable, to lose that knot of tension that kept her rigidly at attention, and Margot became a woman of unmatched loveliness.
And she’s mine.
The woman who made him who he was, who set the course for his life, who held his bloody heart in her capable, compassionate hands — his, finally.
It was almost too much to bear.
Theodore leaned heavily against the closed door of his bedroom, his heart pounding a furious beat in his ears. All of his life came down to this moment and suddenly… suddenly he worried that he wasn’t going to be enough for her.
Anxiety, cold and barbed, wrapped itself around his heart and squeezed.
Now what?
Now that Theodore had her, he wasn’t sure what to do. What if he disappointed her? What if he failed her? What if their plan didn’t work and he couldn’t protect her?
His family would look after her. He knew that. He took comfort in that. But that knowledge didn’t alleviate the immediate concern that he might simply disappoint the woman who was his everything. In the marathon of hard focus and determination that was his journey to get to this very moment, Theodore never considered the practicalities of after.
In an instant, all of the anticipation and aching desire he felt leading up to this moment transformed into brutal anxiety. What if I can’t make this good for her? The shame of that thought, after so much build up, threatened to choke him. He wanted to bring her so much pleasure. He wanted this moment to be something she remembered all their long lives. What if she thinks this is a mistake?
“Hey.”Theodore snapped his eyes up to meet Margot’s concerned frown. She stood by the window, the pads of her fingers pressed lightly against the impenetrable glass. Half-turned to him, she reached out her free hand to beckon him over. “Hey, come here. What’s wrong, baby?”
Baby. Had ever a sovereign allowed someone to call them baby before? He didn’t know and didn’t particularly care. Theodore loved it.
He crossed the room in several long strides. His trembling hand sought hers immediately, and that band of anxiety around his heart eased a little.
Drawing her into his arms so he could bury his face in her sweet-smelling hair, he shakily admitted, “Now that I have everything I’ve ever wanted, I’m… I’m scared I’m going to disappoint you somehow. What if I can’t please you? What if you regret this? I never thought—”
Margot slid her arms under his ceremonial silk-lined cape to run her palms up and down his back. “Shh, it’s okay.” Pulling back a little to look into his eyes, she summed up everything he felt in one short, matter-of-fact sentence. “It’s a lot of pressure, huh?”
Yes. That was it. It was an enormous amount of pressure — pressure he’d pushed on himself for so long, he no longer felt the crushing weight of it. To have that pressure suddenly gone… He felt unmoored, without direction, expecting to know what to do and how to succeed in this infinitely precious thing and failing.
He wanted to be perfect for her. He wanted to take the reins and step into that role he had so far occupied in their most private moments, but the ability to be assertive, to act on the driving need to win her, fled, leaving anxiety to pin him in place.
Theodore wanted her. He wanted to show her how much he loved her now that he finally could, but in that enormous wanting, he was paralyzed.
What if I don’t do it right? What if I hurt her? What does she think of me now, when I was all over her just a few moments ago but now I can barely look at her?
His answer came when Margot stretched onto her tiptoes to circle his neck with her arms. She drew him down into the crook of her neck, whispering, “Baby, it’s okay. There’s no expectation here. I’m just… so happy to be with you.” A small kiss to the pointed tip of his ear. “If you want me to take the lead here, I will. If you just want to lay down and cuddle with me, we will. If you want to— if you want me to bend over the couch over there, I will.”
Fuck. Theodore squeezed his eyes shut against the painfully erotic image, his need and his anxiety tangling. He pressed his branded forehead against the cool skin of her exposed shoulder and sucked in a shuddering breath. The touch of the raw wound to her skin was a sharp bite of pain — bracing, erotic, a reminder that they were bound on every level.
She’s mine. I’m hers. Why is this so hard all of a sudden?
“Gloryhelp me, I want you so much I can hardly breathe,” he choked out. “But I’m terrified of disappointing you now.”
The fingers of one hand tangled in his hair, sending a rush of sparks down his spine. “You are not going to disappoint me. Not in anything. Certainly not in the bedroom, if that’s what’s worrying you. Are you not the man who made me come so hard I saw stars last night?”
He groaned. She wasn’t the only one. When Margot slithered down the bed to lick a hot stripe down his stomach and then lower, until she took as much of him into her mouth as she could, Theodore thought he would never get his brain to work again.
