as the bond tightened between them, she felt the ties to her old life being cut away, until all that remained was this. Was Attar, and Aden and Sayid. The weight of it, the sadness, the certainty in it, was almost enough to bring her to her knees.
None of this is real. She tried to remind herself, tried to shift her focus back to the reasons behind the wedding. The practicality of it. Tried to stop the vows from echoing in her mind.
The officiant picked a bowl up from a small table that was between Chloe and Sayid. It was filled with honey. He began to speak, loudly and for the guests, while Sayid translated for her ears only. “It is an Attari tradition, for the bride and groom’s first taste of marriage to be sweet, that our life may always be sweet.” He took her hand in his, and dipped her pinkie finger into the honey, then lifted it to his lips, closing his mouth around it, sucking the honey from her skin.
His lips were hot, his tongue slick. The intimate touch sent a shiver through her body. Violent. Unsettling. It left her shaking, aching.
He lowered her hand, then repeated the action with his own finger, extending it to her, touching his fingertip to her lips, requesting entry. She complied, opening her mouth for him.
The sweetness of the honey burst over her tongue first, warm and sticky, a shot of pure sugar. Then it faded, dissolving, giving way to the salt of Sayid’s skin. Without thinking, she slid the tip of her tongue up the side of his finger, taking a taste of him that wasn’t covered up by anything. A pure shot of Sayid that was as intoxicating as any alcohol.
She was almost reluctant to release him, which was as strange as anything that had happened to her since she’d agreed to marry him.
And now they were married. There were cheers from the guests, and blinding flashes from the photographer. Aden was sleeping through it, cradled closely by one of his nannies in the front row.
And then Sayid took her hand, the gesture distant in its way, formal. The way he did it, his forearm pressed against hers, his fingers curved around her hand, spoke of tradition. And yet, her body didn’t seem to have gotten the memo.
A shot of heat fired through her, a sort of bone-deep longing she could scarcely identify. The truth was, she didn’t want to identify it, because she knew what it was.
Because she knew that, no matter how much she wanted to pretend she didn’t like the things he’d said to her yesterday, no matter how much she wanted to deny that the taste of his skin had made her heart beat faster, had made her breasts ache, it didn’t change the fact that she did.
Like any scientific discovery, once something was found, once a hypothesis was introduced, it was impossible to close the lid on it again. It was there. It could never not be there again.
And she was curious by nature. A requirement of her field. She had to know things, had to know not just how they worked but why, and when, and for how long.
But this couldn’t be the same. She couldn’t follow this problem to a solution. Because this wasn’t something she could sit and figure out on her whiteboard. There was no logical equation to Sayid. No set pattern of steps to work with to answer the question of what it would be like to have his lips on hers, to feel all that raw male passion directed at her, poured onto her with no restraint, with no denial on either side.
No. There was no way to figure that out with a whiteboard and a pen.
And the other option was simply not open for consideration.
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