Just to Have You (Blackwood & Friends #3)

Epilogue

Epilogue

3 months later

Oliver stepped back, silently admiring the anatomically correct snowman and snowwoman he had spent the past hour creating outside Amy's bookshop. He swiped his gloved hands free of icy particles, dusting his palms on the thighs of his trousers, before settling his hands at his hips.

They weren't the best formed snow people but considering the time he had and the slush with which he had to work with, they were rather impressive considering. His wife would no doubt be inordinately pleased to have such remarkable specimens flanking her storefront.

Speaking of, she was late. Quite unlike Amy to be late for anything, he realised, and tore his gaze away from his lewd creations and surveyed the village square. It was shortly past noon, a stiff breeze chilling the air and making the light snow falling scurry and dance through the currents. As far as he could recall, Amy had only ever been late once before- the day of their wedding- and that had been entirely his fault.

A self-indulgent, wicked smile swept across his face at that memory. He liked to think of himself as the only bridegroom in the history of marriages to climb into his bride's window a mere hour before their morning ceremony. The sight of her in a gown of soft cream, her hair so neatly coiffured and prettily crowned with small white flowers (which must have been of the sturdy variety considering their cold, November wedding day) had suffused him with an intense wave of possessiveness and adoration that simply had to be appeased right then and there. He claimed her against her small writing desk, hiking her skirts high until they gathered at her waist, pressing her back against the wooden surface and spreading her thighs wide, pushing into her until he bottomed out. Her soft sighs and muffled cries of release continued to prevail upon his memory, and when he arrived at Haventry's chapel, also considerably later than he should have been, his hair had been notably tousled from her fingers and his austere black coat was creased.

"You look remarkably relaxed for a man who is about to say his marriage vows," Jason had remarked when Oliver finally sauntered down the aisle of the chapel to stand beside the pulpit.

"You looked as if you were about to expire on the spot before yours," Nate commented wryly, nudging Jason with his brawny elbow.

Jason shot him an annoyed look. "I was anxious. The enormity of the moment can be... overwhelming. After all, I am setting myself up to a lifetime of disappointing the one person I care most about." He raised an eyebrow at the other man. "Besides, Blanche told us all about how she practically had to drag you from the carriage in Scotland because you refused to leave it."

Nate grunted and refused to elaborate on the topic further.

Oliver merely offered a small grin and smoothed some of his mussed hair flat, comforted by the lingering scent of Amy that clung to his attire. "I am marrying my best friend, gentlemen," he told them. "Amy has been subjected to many, if not all, of my failings yet still loves me for them. I doubt I could want to be anywhere else than in this chapel today."

An hour passed and the occupants of the church grew agitated, impatience lingering over many a countenance. It seemed that all Haventry were in attendance that morning, as well as a few notable faces from London, and this ensured the Parish church was thoroughly packed. When Amy did finally make her way down the aisle towards him, on the arm of Lionel Hollingsworth in the absence of her own father, the colour of her cheeks had been heightened in recollection of what she had been doing with him mere moments before. They shared a heated look, a secret smile, and Oliver knew that she was made for him, that he was exactly where he was meant to be.

Presently, he turned back to regard the snow people. They stood about three feet high and were rather filthy, considering the snow that settled froze quickly and then turned into slush when it combined with the dirt on the ground. But he made do, and the snow female could certainly do with a bit of an enlargement in a certain area, and since his wife was in no rush to keep her appointment with him, Oliver made to do just that-