Page 133 of My Big Fat Shifter Wedding

“And that would do it for you, huh?” She was calling my bluff, but what my darling wife was underestimating was what I would do to see her dolled up and all badass like the characters in that movie.

“Why wouldn’t it?” I retorted as I continued wiping dirt off my canoe. A relatively silly exercise to do when I was about to put it in the water, but part of me still couldn’t believe that it was finally complete and lake-worthy. “Michael Sheen was very attractive in that movie.” I was secure enough in my masculinity and my total desire for Olivia to muse that I couldn’t think of a single role where the actor wasn’t handsome.

She scoffed. “I’m not sure I should be encouraging this crack ship pairing. Isn’t his whole thing that his soulmate was killed by the head vampire guy and Selene ends up with a human who was bitten by Lucian and then later by her to make the first hybrid and it’s a huge deal?”

My head snapped back in her direction. “Wait a minute, I thought you said you never watched it! That you had moral reasons for not indulging in vampire propaganda!”

At the time, which had been early in our relationship, I had been certain that she was teasing me, but I’d never seriously brought it up again just in case.

“I… might have read the plot summary on Wikipedia,” she said, her eyes skipping away from me and going over to the lake, where the mid-afternoon sun was spilling golden light over the inviting waters.

However, I knew my wife far too well for that kind of avoidance.

“Olivia,” I said, calmly but firmly.

“What? I got a little curious. It’s not like I watched the movie without you.”

“Olivia,” I repeated, but this time even more firmly.

“I... I...”

“Olivia.”

She hung her head in mock shame, barely looking up at me through her thick lashes. When that didn’t work (although I did almost succumb to that particular brand of kryptonite) she heaved a sigh.

“I’ve been watching shorts of it on TikTok when I’m in the bathroom.”

“Aha! I knew you’d like it!” Sometimes, my darling could be so stubborn about some things, but it was part of her charm.

“Like is a strong word. I didn’t even know what movie I was seeing a one-minute clip from at first. And by the time I realized it, I was already kind of invested!”

“It’s okay, I won’t say I told you so,” I said, although we both knew I was thinking it. “Now, just imagine how much you would have enjoyed it if you saw it in actual movie form and not split up into random clips on TikTok with music playing loudly over it to avoid copyright issues.”

She snorted, but I knew that I definitely had a foot in the door for watching the rest of the movie series. Except for the one from 2016. That… that could stay unwatched.

“Don’t you have a boat to launch?”

Oh right, that was a thing, wasn’t it?

“You’re just trying to distract me from the Underworld talk.”

“Yes, I am,” she said, crossing to the back of the truck we rented to pull out a paddle. “Is it working?”

The way I figured it, I had a choice. I could belabor the point and maybe get a more hopeful answer on that Selene costume, or I could move on like my wife was strongly hinting and finally have the project I’d been working on for multiple years come to full realization.

Also, if I recalled correctly, there was a certain polka-dotted set of clothing items that Olivia had packed that I wouldn’t mind seeing.

“I don’t know,” I hedged, rubbing my beard. “The train of thought is slipping, but it’s not totally off the rails yet. If only there was a beautiful, talented woman clad in my favorite colors to occupy my mind...”

“You’re ridiculous,” she said with a laugh before pulling her tunic top over her head and revealing the exact bathing suit I was thinking of. The two-piece was deep blue with gold polka dots. In our first year together, Olivia had been quite nervous to wear two-pieces, but now she was comfortable in them. “Is this what you wanted?”

“It very much is!”

I strode over to her, and she made no attempt to dodge me as I caught her in my arms and kissed her senseless. Or maybe I was the one getting kissed senseless, because everything else slipped my mind the minute our lips touched.

Eventually, she cleared her throat, raising an eyebrow at the same time as she lifted the paddle between us. Right. I really needed to stop forgetting that. However, it was hard to, considering that Olivia had rented an entire lake cabin to celebrate both my birthday and the maiden voyage of my canoe.

There had still been plenty of adjustments and growing pains with getting used to having a giant family that was also a wolf shifter pack, but my desire for my wife hadn’t waned at all. In fact, if anything, it had grown even stronger and more ravenous, so having our own little getaway where we could soak up the sun and indulge in whatever we wanted to do with each other occupied a lot of space in my brain.