His wife can help him out in the not glittering department by coming up behind him and wrapping her arms around him to lean on him. There! The glitter is mostly covered up. She's so helpful.

"Well, yes, and I am, but—look, just let me know if I'm tempting literal death, I do have a forever to worry about. And I'm rather attached to having it, fun of risk-seeking or no."

"There is no literal death temptation here. There might be a loss of your by-now-only-technical virginity temptation earlier than planned. And plans are so very important."

"No, no, being overly attached to plans is my job, stop that. You're supposed to be the fun one tempting me to leave all sense behind and do something irresponsible." She nuzzles him. "And no calling attention to my technical virginity, we've met the stated definitional requirements and that's that."

James laughs, then turns a bit to look at her from the side of his eyes. "I love you."

“Good, it’d be terribly inconvenient if you didn’t, at this point.” She keeps her hands above the belt, but she does not keep them still. Hello, abs. “And I love you too, of course.”

"Of course," he says, rolling his eyes but still smiling. "Now, Mrs. Orland, unless you want me to destroy your beautiful dress right here and now, I believe you should go downstairs and get acquainted with the very spacious boat you will be occupying for the next while. I shall join you as soon as we are sufficiently away from land, which should be only a few minutes," he continues, the promise being only confirmed by their continued acceleration. This is one fancy boat.

Yvette giggles, but gives a theatrical sigh at this truly difficult sacrifice, then withdraws her hands.

"Fine, fine, I'll keep my hands to myself and await you below." But apparently not her lips, because she presses a quick kiss to his neck just before retreating out of reach.

"The beautiful dress is expendable, by the way," she says as she goes, "I am not planning to lug around my wedding dress for the rest of eternity. I'd be tempted to keep it for sentiment, but your memory is perfect, so..."

"One would think you want me to tear it off you," he says, growling menacingly with the word 'want' and looking at her with a look that he's........ never given her before.

Suddenly, he's dangerous.

But maybe...

...not in a bad way.

The look gives her pause. Dangerous-but-not-with-any-real-danger is a good look on him. It's distracting, and sends a little pleasant shiver up her spine.

"... Maybe a little," she hedges, eyelashes fluttering. And then the nervous giggles catch up to her and she flees below deck. Having her wedding night with her husband above deck where theoretically anyone could see is. A bit much. It's a bit much.

"Well, I suppose I will find out what you wanted if, when I find you downstairs on the large bed lined with rose petals, you are still wearing the dress, won't I?"

"I suppose you will!"

... Is there a large bed lined with literal rose petals? Actually, upon reflection, that's a silly question. There definitely is. He was being absolutely serious about that and actually did figure out a way to make that happen. Somehow. Yep, there it is, one large bed covered in literal rose petals, James was not exaggerating. She'd wonder why, except for how she knows why, because even if it's a bit much, it's romantic and sweet and silly and will make her giggle - like this, yep, here's her giggle - and of course he'd devote the time and energy into eviscerating some perfectly innocent roses to charm his wife. It's really endearing.

She makes a quick trip to the bathroom, then toes off her heels, lets down her hair, and removes most nonessential jewelry from her person. The engagement and wedding rings are essential, and accordingly stay on. So does the dress.

Not for very long, it doesn't. He returns, and the dress soon finds itself in multiple locations simultaneously and much less useful for dressing or staying in one place without active supervision. The bed fares better, and James has enough self-control that it stays mostly unbroken. Enough self-control, in fact, that Yvette sports no bruises that were not carefully planned and specifically intended.

She surprises him, he delights in her, and they exhaust themselves—to the extent that's a valid description of vampires—and they end in the mostly intact bed, snuggling and already cleaned up, enjoying the sway of the ocean and each other's company.

She loves him so, so much, and the nice thing about having put up with that annoying waiting period is that now they have absolutely nowhere to be except each other's arms. No sneaking around to speak of, no fussing with jobs or parents or friends fretting about getting pregnant out of wedlock. Impossible though that last one might have been, on account of her husband (!) being a vampire.

... right?

It is a little over a week later that Yvette finds herself throwing up over the side of the boat for the second time in two days.

"I blame the wedding," she grumbles miserably, once she's done, "I bet I caught some kind of bug, and I and half of our guests are now all going to be throwing up, and ugh. Being human sucks and I'm going to be so glad when I stop."

He can multitask enough to not need to be at the helm anywhere near as often as a human would, which means he can worriedly fret around her and pet her and then hold back from petting her because he's cold and maybe she shouldn't be around cold things and good thing he brought lots of water and if he has to he will literally swim somewhere to get more, and maybe some medicine, she was a nurse so they brought plenty, but??

"Maybe we should turn you early," he says, biting his lower lip hard enough to leak a little bit of fluid down his own skin.

"Eugh, don't tempt me." He's fretting over her and being self-conscious about touching her. This is terrible; he should stop that. She leans into him for snuggles and finishes off the available water.

"It's fine, it's really just a bit of nausea. I've caught way worse on nursing shifts. If it gets too bad we certainly can, but I do not want to go into three days of agony straight from being sick, that seems like it just extends my misery more than necessary." Pause. "Also it's scary and I'm putting it off a little, even if I really want the end result, and I don't want to make myself do scary things when I'm sick. Blegh." Leaaaaan.

Pet pet pet fret. "Okay. That makes sense. It will suck more than everything you have ever felt combined and multiplied by a hundred and you will not even remember why you thought this felt bad, for what it's worth."

"You know what, love, that really doesn't help," she snorts.

Pet pet fret fret.

"You're sure it's not seasickness? Humans get that, right?"

"I think if it were seasickness it'd have started sooner. But maybe, I guess? I haven't sailed before. I don't feel very ill, just. Kind of generally nauseous and cranky."

"Okay. Makes sense. Do you want anything? More water? Food? Wait, no, food is bad. Soup?"

Yvette giggles. He's fretting so much, it's kind of cute?

"Sure, water and soup. Food's not bad, love, I still need to eat, I just might see it again after. Foods like crackers and bread are less likely to be thrown up again, but honestly everything's a bit of a risk. Fluids are the most important thing to put in me. But really, this is not bad. Twice in two days? Pffffff. Dad once gave me food poisoning, I got to the point where I didn't have anything left to throw up. And yet kept trying. This is much preferable."

"I have not been sick in over a century and I have no memory of what it was like, give me some time!!!!"

And here's a peck on the forehead and he disappears to go find stuff.

"I shouldn't be sick long enough to give you time, because soon I'll be an immortal vampire and I won't know what it's like either, anymore!" she calls after him, amused. Then she trails after him to the boat's interior, to sit down or something.

"Are we anywhere near land, and if we do end up emergency turning me, I can safely hunt sea creatures, right?"