AN: (this story is just a smidge slow getting started but it earns its rating and maybe just a little better than its rating but I've read other stuff on this site that is as racy or more so here's my Wessa Wedding Night Fic)

Beginning of Forever

Will closed the door. Then he locked it. Then he checked the lock. He considered dragging a dresser in front of that but decided against it. The room was warm, a fire in the grate and the witchlight shone at about half strength making it seem smaller and cozier than it really was. It was a small suite of rooms, larger than either of their individual rooms had been with a private sitting room and a bedroom beyond it. All the furniture was the heavy carved wood that filled the rest of the Institute but it was theirs now. Will took a moment to appreciate that. Theirs. From here on out, things would be theirs.

Tessa had walked toward the big window and pushed back the curtain. She was beautiful. She'd been beautiful since the moment he had met her but the gold of the wedding gown and the way her hair had been swept back and up in a cascade of curls and the way she had looked at him all day was like a spell. She wasn't quite real and hadn't been since he'd approached her at the ceremony. The gold was edged in white lace. Simpler than the style might have called for but more fitting to her for it. There were gold bands wound into her hair that caught the firelight. She turned and sat on the window seat. Perched on the edge. Eyes just a fraction too wide.

"How are you?" he asked her pulling an ottoman over to sit in front of her. She was taller than he was like this and he had to look up at her.

"I want to do it again," she said.

"You're joking," he said, "You can't want to do that whole hellish day again."

"No," she shook her head and said more emphatically, "No." He was glad that she saw it the same way he did. Women weren't supposed to like hearing that their wedding had been hellish. The groom certainly wasn't supposed to declare it.

Her eyes roamed the room, taking it in then taking him in. He reached out and she put her hands in his. He ran a thumb over her knuckles then raised them so that he could kiss her fingers.

"I want to get married again," she said. "I just don't want the rest of those people to be there. I don't think I want anyone to be there. Just us." She squeezed his hands and looked down before whispering, "I didn't realize just how public it was going to be. I didn't realize how many people would be there. I think I'd imagined that it would be about us."

"Instead we got the Clave Politics sideshow," Will said unkindly waving his hand in the direction of the door and the party that they had finally escaped but was still going on somewhere floors below them. Charlotte had taken over hosting duties and told them to leave when she'd seen Will starting to glare and Tessa's face fall into the wide eyed look she was giving him now. "If one more person offers me congratulations, I might throttle them. Even if they genuinely meant it. "

That made Tessa laugh, "Me too."

Will would be taking over the Institute only a few months after the wedding and the Conclave wasn't entirely pleased with a future led by an 18 year old who had been considered a drunk and a bad-natured joke for most of his adolescence. That his fiance had such an odd story and wasn't entirely Nephilim had just added fuel to rumours and dissent. They hadn't so much gotten married as they found themselves throwing a stage show intended to convince the assembled Shadowhunters that they were both respectable and normal. Even more than that, it was a way of proving to the Clave that William Herondale was a mature and capable adult worth following into battle. Charlotte had been helping him set up a series of these shows since his promotion had been announced. That his wedding had been dragged into it was something neither he nor Tessa had been able to convincingly argue against. Though they'd discussed the possibility of elopement and leaving the country as the guest list had ballooned.

The wedding had been held in the ballroom and it had been full of people. Most of them people unknown to either the bride or groom, who had one blood relation between them present. Tessa didn't count the Starkweather cousins though she had been charming and kind to them in the weeks they'd stayed at the Institute before the ceremony.

"Do you think they'll ever accept me?" Tessa asked him, her face very serious.

There had been comments. Comments all evening. Little whispered comments that still managed to make it back to them. Will who had spent years with the Nephilim whispering about his drunkenness, his whoring, his miserable personality, didn't flinch as those rumours crossed the tables again.

But Tessa hadn't truly been exposed to the horrors of the high society that hid behind the Conclave's mask of civility. Tessa's expression tightened at every mention of "warlock" as they moved though the crowds. Will had heard the word "whore" appended to that once but Tessa hadn't. It took every bit of Will's hard earned self control not to wade into them and find the right person to hit. Starting a fight would legitimize it, turn it from a rumour into a a political weapon. Charlotte told him that. Gideon reminded him. Even his father, during that afternoon when he'd first brought Tessa to his family, had told him much the same thing. So he hadn't. He hadn't so much as snapped a retort.

That every time he felt the anger rise he still expected to feel Jem's hand close on his arm did not improve his mood. He'd found himself looking up and scanning the crowd for those familiar silver eyes when he needed someone to understand. Not just to tell him why it was a bad idea but to truly understand why breaking that woman's nose was so enticing.

"You saved them all when you destroyed Mortmain," Will said to Tessa. Jem would have understood that anyone who said things to her that made her look at him like this should have had something broken. He sat up straighter so that he could cup her face between his hands. "You are strong and brave and kind and a better person than all of them. They'll come to see it. I promise." He kissed her. Gently. Not the public kisses of the wedding and the reception but a real kiss. She leaned into it and he stood, pulling her up with him so that he could wrap his arms around her. "I don't care about them," he murmured into her mouth.

"You should," she said back through the kiss.

"Not tonight," he said.

"No, not tonight," she agreed mouth still against his.

"I'm going to take you to bed now," he said.

"Good," she said kissing across his jaw and down his neck. He swung her up into his arms. The corset and the billows of skirt made it uncomfortable for both of them. She wrapped her arms around his neck and they laughed their way into the bedroom.

They'd chosen this suite of rooms for this chamber. Charlotte and Henry had offered to move out of the larger suite on the main floor early so that they could have it but they'd declined. This room had high ceilings and built in bookshelves along one wall though they were empty right now. It also had a balcony which looked out over the courtyard and the gates. The bed was huge. Large enough for five people and raised up on a platform that Will almost stumbled on because by that point Tessa's dress had already snagged on the door frame and they were laughing too hard.

It might have been that they'd almost fallen but it was more likely the stress of the day and the comments and the planning that had come before it. Whatever it was, when Will laid her down on the bed and leaned over her, they were both still giggling. It felt right to Will that they would start here. Start with laughter.

"We're going to build our entire lives on this moment," he said.

"Don't make this stressful too," Tessa said but she was still grinning.

"It isn't, I don't mean it to be stressful, this moment is already perfect," he said. "We're going to build our entire lives on laughter and love and us, together. We're a we now. You and me. Forever. Forget the rest of them."

She twisted her fingers into his shirt and pulled him down to kiss. He wore black ceremonial gear with runes picked out in gold along the edges. It was designed for wedding ceremonies and the top buttons could be undone easily so the bride could draw the marriage rune over his heart. She pushed him back so that she could open those buttons and smooth her hand over it. She'd drawn it. Her first rune drawn in ceremony, not lessons, not practice. She always smiled when she finished a rune. She had said once that it was as though the magic of the Grey Book was telling her that yes, yes she really was one of them.

Her hand was narrow against him and she tapped out his heartbeat with her fingers. He put his hand on the same place on her though the mark he'd drawn hadn't stayed. Like all runes ever laid on her, it had vanished into her skin like ink sinking into water. The crowd had gasped audibly when it had happened. It was the point that the day had started to go downhill. She smiled at him now. Softer. Not a silly grin but something warmer. Something that made him forget that anyone had gasped at them or made little comments under their breaths.

Hands to hearts, he leaned into her and kissed again. She slid her hand lower and started to undo the rest of this buttons. He tossed the jacket away. He wore nothing below it and she let her hands wander over him. Slowly. Stroking scars, tracing runes, outlining lines of muscle. He leaned over her, sitting on the edge of the bed and propped up by extended arms. She ran her hands down his arms.

Her fingers were cool but her skin was soft and the expression on her face, like he was some sort of revelation, melted his heart. He held himself still for her. It wasn't easy but if she wanted to go slow, they would go slow. It took her a long time but her fingers finally found the gray mark on his chest and traced it as she had traced others but her eyes found his face as she did.

"He should have been here," Will said. Not sure if he meant at the wedding itself or in his place at the wedding. He didn't let himself dwell on it.

"They're not going to let him out of the City at all for another year," Tessa said and Will could hear his own anger when he'd heard that news in her voice.

"I know," Will said. Her hand was still covering the rune when he said, "You didn't wear it."

They both knew what he was talking about. They'd discussed it weeks before. She hadn't taken the jade pendant off since Jem had given it to her. Will had told her to wear it for the wedding but she hadn't. She'd worn just a gold chain at her throat, no pendant at all. No angel, no jade.

"There was already so much talk. Sophie recommended against it. Jem and I, it was public enough that people knew," she said. "I carried it but not where they could see it." She pulled it out, on it's own chain. A circle of stone against her palm. It had been tucked low in the dress against her skin and when Will took it from her the stone was warm enough that it felt to him like a piece of her.

"Sit up," he said moving back. She did, watching him carefully. Her face serious. Not wary, not quite, but as though she weren't sure what his reaction was going to be. He climbed up on the bed behind her and removed the plain necklace, dropping the chain off the bed onto the floor and reclasping her pendant in its place. Did she wish it wasn't him here with her? He wondered as his hands settled on her shoulders, warm skin and a scratchy edging of lace against his palms.

"Is this dress comfortable?" he asked because he needed to say something that wasn't that last thought.

"God, no," she said, "Did you want to try it on?"

"If it means taking it off of you, yes, I'll wear it," he said. She leaned back into him and looked up at him. The green at her throat made her more Tessa somehow. Less a shimmering bride and more his Tessa. Complicated, strange and maybe a little sad but full of humour and compassion. The look in her eyes left no doubt that she wanted him there. He pressed a kiss to her upturned forehead.

"You won't like it," she teased with her head tilted back against his bare chest. Her hair was falling down now though it had lasted through endless dances and rounds of congratulations. The strands trailed over his stomach when she moved her head.

"Perhaps not," he admitted. "How about we take it off of you and no one wears it? Or we could go see if that long lost great uncle of mine has finished drinking his way through the wine cellar and talk him into wearing it out of here."

"That would not help your reputation as a mad drunk yourself," she told him as she twisted so that she was kneeling, facing him in a cascade of white and gold.

"Maybe I want to go back to being a mad drunk," he said.

"A mad drunk in a wedding dress?" she asked.

"I always said that I would be a radiant bride," he said with all the grandiosity he could manage while shirtless and flushed then he pursed his lips and said, "Though I don't know that I'd be able to hold a candle to you."

"If you want it off, you're going to have to start with the buttons down the back. I can't reach them myself." she said climbing off the bed. Standing beside the bed, orange firelight flickering and white witchlight glowing over his bare skin, he attempted to undo the tiny pearl buttons. He could feel her gaze on him. She resisted actually laughing at him but he could feel suppressed humour in her body. A vibration of almost laughter. She was touching his shoulders, brushing fingers over his skin and that was too much of a distraction to fight with clothing.

His frustration flared.

He leaned up and put his lips against her ear and whispered, "I'll buy you another one," and then grabbed the fabric and pulled. Hard. Tessa yelped and had to grab the poster of the bed to keep from falling as the dress split with a hiss of tearing silk. The pearls ticked as they rained to the floor and rolled away. They would be finding them for years, behind furniture or in the little gaps in the floorboards.

She spun around to look at him, incredulous. He grinned back and pulled the now ruined dress up over her head and dropped it in a heap. The silk where the buttons were attached was shredded. She tried to imagine explaining it to the new maid but Will kissed her and those thoughts fled as he pulled her close. She wore enough undergarments that she was still very nearly dressed but he was working on that.

"Don't you dare ruin this corset too," she muttered to him and he begrudgingly unlaced it properly and then threw it at the empty book shelf as she collapsed back onto the bed taking her first unrestricted breath in hours.

"Why is there so much of this?" Will asked holding up something white with lace edging that he figured was a petticoat.

"Because I am a proper lady," Tessa told him in her best Jessamine impersonation, down to the fake accent. It was not a good impersonation.

"Can't you be a proper lady in less white linen?" he asked. She raised her hips so that he could pull off the last of the skirts. "How is there more under that? How did you move or breathe all day? I have seen you run in a dress. How did you run in a dress like this?"

She laughed at him and pulled the shift off as he finally loosened the tie on the drawers. She lay back on the top of the covers with nothing on. He stood over her as the humour warred with nerves across her face. They'd been bare together only once and there had never been a moment like this. It had been faster, more desperate need, less gentle exploration.

He lay down beside her on his stomach and studied her face, ignoring the rest of her. That his mind was thinking about the exact curves of everything below her jaw line was hidden by his smile. When her expression relaxed into an answering smile, he leaned over and kissed her cheek, then her neck, then her bare shoulder. She rolled towards him and returned the pattern, cheek, throat, shoulder. Bolder, he picked a new path, throat, chest, right over her invisible rune, stomach. The red marks where the clothing had pinched were fading back into the smooth pale porcelain of her skin. She followed the reverse, lips against his stomach, over his heart, just below his ear.

They passed this game back and forth until Tessa climbed up into his lap and wrapped her arms around him and kissed him deeply. The feeling of all of her against him made him forget his own name. Her body was softer than his. There was strength in her but it wasn't enough to overpower the sensation he had that she was breakable and precious and he needed to be careful and gentle with her like this.

Tessa, on the other hand, was through with careful and gentle. Her hands were on the button of his pants. He had to lift her to get them off. As she settled back into his lap, her bare legs over his, he felt her stomach muscles contract where she pressed against the length of him. He hands tightened on her waist as he tried to think around the feeling of her skin against so much of him. What do I do next? His imagination failed him completely.

"Let me go," she told him, her voice different. Deeper or darker or somehow more in a way that he couldn't articulate. He let go of her and looked up at her. He wondered as she ran her fingers through his hair how much of the amazement and the love and the desire beating their way through his chest was written on his face. When was the last time he'd been at a loss for words? How did he tell her?

"I love you," he said but it was a paltry stand in for what he was feeling at that moment.

"That's good," she said. "Because you're stuck with me, now." She rolled off of him and he felt a little like his skin was being doused in cold water where it was no longer against hers. She climbed up the bed and slid under the turned down covers. Her smile was an invitation but she crooked a finger at him just to make sure that he got the message.

He didn't slide in beside her. He slid in above her. She gathered him close and his heart eased to have her close again. Her arms around him and the teasing gone, she said, "I love you too, Will. I love you more everyday. I thought I loved you when I told you I would marry you but I didn't know how much I would love you now."

He'd said something like that to her once. It felt like a lifetime ago.

He shifted her below him and watched her face as he found the right place. He had hurt her the first time. She had promised him it wasn't bad but the look of surprise and pain on her face when it had happened had burned itself into a place at the back of his mind and he didn't think he'd ever get it out. He had hurt her without knowing exactly what he was doing. He didn't really know much more now but he wasn't going to do it twice.

When her body resisted him, too tight or too nervous, he pulled away. Her eyes opened and she said his name. He murmured, "Hush," and reached down with his hand and found the same place. She gasped and he swallowed hard trying to find a corner of his mind that was calm enough to tell him what to do.

"Does that hurt?" he asked gently, a finger finding the opening and sliding in. Not as large as his last attempt, this time there was no resistance. Her body closed around him. She shook her head and he pushed it in farther which made her eyes fall shut. Back and forth, a version of the rhythm they'd found that first time and it made her squirm a little. He could feel that resistance when he tried to slide in two fingers instead. Her lips were against his ear as she cuddled close to him and said, "Don't stop. You're not hurting me." He pushed both in and her body made room for him. She murmured appreciatively against his shoulder, not really words just little happy noises.

"Is this good?" he asked her as he experimented with rhythms. His own body was throbbing for him to stop dawdling but he could feel every change in her breathing and shift in her muscles like this and he liked it too much to stop. She nodded an answer to his question so he asked another, "Faster or slower?"

"Faster?" she suggested her voice breathy. She twisted her hips under his hand as he sped up and then slowed back down. Her body wasn't resisting him any more and she was both hotter and wetter than she had been when he'd started. He pushed in as far as his fingers could reach, cupping her with his palm. She jerked a little as he hit a part of the folds above the opening and she ground her hips down against his hand with a gasp that was less controlled than any sound he had ever heard her make. He met the motion by rubbing his palm across her, searching for that point that would bring that gasp again. Everything was slick and warm.

"Will," she murmured. Her upper body was twisted into him so that her head rested in the crook of his neck.

"Higher or lower?" he asked her.

"Higher," she told him and ducked her head a little tighter against his chest. He knew, knew from conversations and kisses that she did this when she blushed, when he'd embarrassed her. When she said the next part her voice was so soft that if she wasn't pressed into him, he wouldn't have been able to hear it, "Harder."

He used his fingers, sliding out of her and moving higher until she gasped again. He rubbed gently first and she squirmed against him. He slid his free hand around her to hold her hips in place before doing as she requested and rubbing harder.

"Oh god," she gasped out her fingers tightening in his hair and her breath coming in pants against his neck as she repeated his name like a prayer or a promise. It happened suddenly. Neither of them knew how to read the signs before her body tensed in his arms and muscles spasmed across her stomach. Her back arched, she pushed her hips into his hand. She was moaning then sharply she pushed his hand away, her fingers clumsy on his wrist. She shook against him and he drew her close. Shocked. The violence of her reaction left him speechless again. He ran his hand up and down her back like his mother had done when he'd been very small and in need of comfort.

"I'm sorry," he said into her hair which was still half up in it's fancy pile of curls.

"Don't," she said. "Don't be sorry. I don't know exactly what that was but it wasn't bad. It really wasn't. Please Will, don't apologize. It surprised me. That's all."

"Are you hurt?" he asked.

"No," she said. "No," she was calming, her body close to his, her skin no longer shivering at his touch. "I think that might have been incredible." She smiled up at him, curled close, eyes half closed. He kissed her lips gently. She lay her head against the pillow and played with his hair. It had been cut for the wedding and it wasn't long enough for her to wind her fingers through the strands the way she liked. He wondered how long he could get away with growing it as Head of the Institute. Were there restrictions on that? As the last of the shivering left her she was more relaxed than he could remember her being in weeks and he started to believe that maybe that had been incredible.

He started unwinding her hair, tossing pins and bands and the little white flowers over the edge of the bed so that they wouldn't get lost in the covers. As he worked on this project she started to run her hands over his chest and then lower. He wasn't as hard as he had been, the shock of her reaction had taken something out of it. Her hand touching him there brought it back almost immediately. She explored, watching his face much as he had watched hers. She was too gentle to bring him anywhere near the release he wanted but there was something about that that was thrilling all on its own. He abandoned freeing her hair and just plunged his hands into it, holding on as her fingers moved over him.

They lay on their sides, just a little apart though her feet were tangled with his somewhere in the blankets. He reached down and gathered her hands, holding them in his and taking a few steadying breaths. He felt jumpy and needy and each glancing contact of her palm or tracing finger was making it worse. Her expression was a question that he answered in his gentlest voice, "I liked it, but if you want to," there was a pause as he searched for a vocabulary that he hadn't known he didn't have, "do it properly, I need a moment," he said. He ran the vocabulary he did have, most of it gleaned from dock workers and drunks in taverns and decided there wasn't a syllable of it that he was willing to use in the same room as her.

"Take a moment then," she said kissing his hands where they wrapped around hers. "Because I do want to do it properly."

"I can't decide which I like better," he told her in a low voice. "You when you're blushing and tentative or you when you're bold and demanding."

"I'm not demanding," she argued with pursed lips and an adorable little scowl.

"You could be," he said. "I'd do anything you asked me to."

"I'll remember that," she said as she leaned up to kiss him hard and fast through a smile. He let her hands go and tilted her face up to kiss her slower and deeper. He pushed closer and she responded by rolling onto her back and drawing him down with her.

This time, coming together was as easy as breathing. She groaned as she pulled him closer or maybe he had made that sound, he wasn't sure. Her body had to adjust to make room for him but he moved slowly, a little deeper and a little deeper each time. There was no resistance, she didn't wince and though her mouth fell open, there was no pain on her face. He watched her to know when he went too fast or too deep before she was ready. The lines between them were already blurring. He moved against her slowly at first as the jumpy feeling in his skin changed form, stretching and curling into mounting heat and pressure somewhere in his stomach.

"Faster or slower?" he asked her and his voice sounded rough.

"Faster," she said and he let instinct lead as the rhythm between them changed. There was a little of that desperation and need in it but it felt different than it had all those months ago. The first time had been drenched in guilt and grief and fear. The love had shone through and pulled them together in spite of it all but this was different. There was no fear here and the guilt and the grief had molded themselves into a sadness shared. A sadness wrapped around the same missing piece in two different lives.

With that thought he slowed again, wrenching control back from his instincts. He wrapped his hand around her necklace and used it to pull her face towards him. He was probably too rough when he did it. Her head jerked a little but he caught her neck to steady her as he kissed her mouth. The pendant caught against her skin by his palm. Understanding him, in a way he imagined no one else ever would, her hand found that spot on his shoulder where the silvered rune lay as she kissed him back hard. The same missing piece.

The intensity changed. Harder now, not just faster. Her hips pushing into him as he thrust hard and even. Her forehead creased a little which each thrust that pushed her back. He found himself watching it. Her eyes shut, her lips parted and her reactions written across her face. When he got too close, when that pressure started to build to a point that felt unbearable, he stopped.

"Do you want to do it again?" he asked in that same rough voice. He pulled away far enough that their bodies separated and it felt like losing a piece of himself.

"It?" she asked looking confused and as unfulfilled as he felt, "Are we finished?"

"I'm not finished," he said grinning at her. "This isn't finished. I meant to say the thing where I made you scream. Do you want to do that again?" Her eyes were wide, nervous, but it wasn't the nervousness that came from fear, it was a nervousness born of anticipation.

"Yes," she said flushing but not looking away from him, "Now?"

He answered her with a nod before he reentered her sliding as far into her as he could, which pulled a gasp out of her. He held her face with one hand, keeping her looking at him. The other hand ran down the skin of her breasts and stomach and found that point between them where he disappeared inside her. He thrust gently again as he felt around looking for the right spot again.

"Lower," she told him and he watched her eyes squeeze shut and her mouth open just a fraction wider when he found the right spot. He grinned and stayed slow until she said nearly incoherent, "You can, I want, Will, please, harder."

When her back arched this time and her fingers dug into his back, hard enough to hurt, he knew what was coming. He moved his hand away and pulled her body close but he didn't stop moving against her. This time when the pressure started to build, he let it. She shook around him as he let his attempts at keeping control fall away. The little murmured prayer was back, his name and the phrase, "yes please," repeated where her mouth pressed against his cheek or his neck or his hair.

One of his hands was on her hip, the other tangled in her hair, neither near that place. He didn't understand this reaction or where it came from but he could feel the same tension running through her muscles as the time before. When her head fell back this time, she actually did scream as she clung to him. Her body tightened around him hard enough that it almost hurt and his release crashed through him as her's crested. Fingers tightening, muscles spasming, faces close enough that they were breathing the same air.

If there was any doubt before that it was the same thing happening to both of them, it was blown away in that shared moment.

He collapsed on top of her and rolled to the side, afraid he would crush her. Her eyes were unfocused as they followed him. She was flushed and sweating and breathing like she'd been running for her life. He touched her face and they shared a smile.

"Do you regret it yet?" he asked her grinning.

"Regret what?" she asked blinking slowly at him.

"Marrying me," he said. "You just signed up to spend every night with me for a lifetime."

"William," she said rolling towards him, propping herself up on an elbow and looking down at him. "I think I could get used to that."

"We should practice, frequently," he said. He hooked his finger into her necklace again and pulled her down to kiss and then down against his side where she nestled in and put her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes.

Her voice was sleepy but serious when she said, "I will never regret marrying you. I am unimaginably lucky to have you. I love you so much."

"I love you too," he said. She was already asleep when he stroked her cheek and said, "I'm the lucky one, Tess. I hope I can be even half the man you deserve."

Laying together, Will imagined he could see his lifetime stretched out in front of him. Every day of the rest of his life would start with her beside him. A lifetime started right here.

AN2: Assuming I am right that this is acceptable for an M rating - this is a continuing series that is all fluffy sex scenes - I've currently got 3 more chapters to post. If I am wrong and this isn't acceptable for an M rating then I suppose it will be taken down and disappear and you'll have to go find the rest on AO3. (Thanks for reading either way!)