Читать книгу Just Say Yes - Mira Lyn Kelly - Страница 17

CHAPTER NINE

“WHAT IN THE HELL do you think you’re doing?” Megan demanded from the far side of the elevator where she stood, hands on hips, eyes boring into him like little embers of hell.

Connor snapped the picture from his phone then slipped the device back into his tux pocket before it ended up incinerated beneath his wife’s fiery glare, or more likely crushed beneath the spike of her sexy glass slipper.

“Documenting our first fight.”

For a moment, all the red-hot rage directed his way turned to utter shock, leaving her sputtering in a way he couldn’t deny he was getting a serious kick out of. But in a blink, she rocketed back to fury, leaning into the space between them, her voice going lethally low. “I can’t believe you did that.”

“Come on, it’s something for the scrapbook. You’ll thank me later.”

“You know good and well I’m not talking about a picture.”

Yeah, he did. The way he knew taking a snap of her when she was this cranked up was probably a move just short of suicide, but like his decision to break his promise to her back in the club, it was one he wouldn’t regret.

“We had a deal,” she hissed, her eyes darting between him and the elevator’s digital display. “But maybe you forgot. Or perhaps our agreement didn’t suit your needs at the time, so you just changed your mind.”

The car slowed, sounding a low chime to alert them they’d arrived at their floor. The doors soundlessly opened and Megan turned forward—her face a mask of calm, belied only by the rapid pulse at her neck. Placing his hand at the small of her back, they stepped out into the main floor.

“Definitely the latter,” he answered quietly at her ear.

A taunt, almost daring her to lose her cool in the midst of all these people. But not Megan. She kept it together, impressing him more and more. Confirming once again how well suited she was to being his wife. Not that he’d make a habit of goading her in public or out of it. He didn’t expect much fighting, but it was important to know how she would handle it.

From there, they walked silently through the hotel, before arriving at their private villa.

He was more than ready to go toe-to-toe with her on this point, regardless of what kind of mad she had on. That scene at the nightclub was beyond unacceptable.

The second they were inside, Megan spun on him. “You promised me.”

He had. But circumstances weren’t what he’d expected, requiring a judgment call, and he’d made one. Firming up his stance, he crossed his arms.

“Did you hear what they said?” he demanded, giving his own mad its head. “I wasn’t going to let those catty, backbiting—”

Her hand cut through the air. “I don’t care what they said. All that matters to me is what you said. Your word. What it’s worth. What I can believe.”

He held her stare, not backing down. “You can believe I took you to be my wife. To honor, respect and protect, for all the days of our life.”

* * *

Megan blinked up at him, suddenly at a loss for words. “Those were our vows?”

“They were mine. And I meant them. I’m not the kind of husband to twiddle my thumbs while my wife is maligned. I would have liked to accommodate you tonight, Megan. I fully intended to. But in a choice between breaking my vow to protect my wife and breaking my vow to protect your cousin’s ‘special day,’ you can bet I’ll be putting you first every time.”

“Oh.” She swallowed past the knot of emotion in her throat, trying to force it back down. Trying not to allow a few simple words the power to leave her vulnerable.

Then after a moment, Connor closed the distance between them, pulling her into his chest. “I’m sorry I had to break my promise to you. But I meant what I said about taking care of you. I won’t stand by while someone hurts you.”

“I could have handled it.” She’d been doing it her whole life.

“Why should you?”

“Gail deserved to have her wedding day.” And more than that, because he’d agreed to let her!

“Yes, but so did you.” Connor caught her face in his hands, tipping it back so she was looking up at him. “Just because you don’t remember doesn’t mean it doesn’t count.”

Everything he said sounded so right. Tempted her to trust. To leap. But the void she was looking out over was simply too great to ignore.

Searching his eyes, she asked the question that was the crux of her fears and reluctance. “What if you change your mind?”

“That’s the point, Megan. I won’t.

“Commitment—” he rubbed the bridge of his nose as he let out a thoughtful sigh “—it’s very important to me. I’m not looking to fill some temporary position, Megan. I want a wife who will stand by me for the duration.” Only, then something in his expression shifted. His eyes went distant for a beat before snapping back to hers. Sharper. More intense. “Maybe if you had more time...”

“You mean date?” she asked, knowing she wouldn’t go along with it. No more waiting around to see whether something panned out. No more false hopes and years of indecision—

“No,” he said with a hard shake of his head, confirming they were in agreement on the no dating. Connor leaned into her space, putting his face before hers so the sincerity in his eyes was front and center. “Understand this, Megan. You’re my wife and I want to keep it that way. But I realize everything hasn’t fallen into place for you the way it did last night and I’m asking for a big leap. Still, I’m confident, with a little time, it will. So I propose a trial period. Give me three months. If you don’t think we suit, I give you a divorce and you return to the life you had planned. In the meantime, we start as we mean to go on. You live with me...as my wife.”

Her throat felt dry, her heart pounding too fast.

It was crazy. What he was suggesting... “You’d introduce me to your friends and business associates? What if I wasn’t happy and wanted to leave?”

“You go. Megan, I’m asking you to give our marriage a shot, not to lock yourself in some prison you can’t get out of. Granted, I don’t believe you’d leave without giving us a chance. Not once you’d made a commitment—one you remember making, that is. Besides, you’re not going to want to leave.”

He made it sound so simple. She’d been so tempted, time and again throughout the day—but the doubts. They simply weighed too much.

“I’ve finally found a way to be happy, Connor. I know you think because love isn’t a factor that this arrangement you’re suggesting comes without risk, but it doesn’t. Not for me. I can’t put my faith in someone else again. And that’s what you’re asking me to do. It—it hurts too much to be let down. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t think the reward would be worth the risk?”

“I don’t know. And maybe that in itself should tell us both something,” she whispered.

“Yeah, it does. It tells me instead of waiting, hoping you’d remember or come around, expecting you to see the big picture when I hadn’t given you all of the pieces, I should have done this.”

And before she could blink, he’d pulled her into a kiss.

Megan was flush to his body. Her hands trapped between them, where they’d come up in a stunted defense that stopped before it really began—stopped at the strange familiarity of this intimacy she couldn’t quite remember—stopped at the foreign heat inexplicably swirling like a whirlpool through her center, pulling deeper, concentrating with every back-and-forth pass of his mouth over hers.

No wonder she’d blocked it out.

Connor’s kiss was even better than she’d imagined. So good, she felt the resistant determination slipping from her body even as she grasped after it. But it was gone, having taken the edge of aggression in the dark depths of Connor’s eyes with it. The hands at her shoulders snaked around her waist and into her hair. The pressure against her lips increased and she opened to him.

Afraid to miss even a second, she couldn’t blink and her eyes remained locked with his, anticipating the taste and texture of him mixed with her own.

Only, rather than take his fill, Connor barely breached her mouth, skimming the inner swell of her bottom lip with a slow, agonizing lick so compelling it temporarily overwhelmed even the instinct to breathe.

Using the hand wound loose in her hair to angle her head, he deepened the kiss. Enticing her into a return of action—the tentative flick of her tongue against his.

It was all the invitation he needed, and hands tightening at her hip and hair, Connor’s low growl of satisfaction slipped through her lips an instant before the firm thrust and retreat of his tongue. The penetrating claim wringing a response too strong, too immediate, too intense to deny. And then she was clutching at him, pressing close even as he pulled her closer still.

It wasn’t enough.

Not for either of them.

Connor grasped her bottom in a firm, kneading caress. Then the back of her thigh, pulling it up along the outside of his leg. Rocking into her so she felt the steely length of him against her belly and the hard press of solid muscle between her legs.

From somewhere in the back of her mind, she was vaguely aware of all the reasons this was such a bad idea...only, she didn’t care.

Couldn’t stop.

Another deep thrust, and then Connor’s devouring mouth moved down to her jaw, her neck. Licking, sucking, pulling at the tender spot until she’d thrown her head back, and her hands restlessly worked between them, grasping at the panels of his shirt. Trying to get a hold enough to rip it open.

“Megan, Megan,” he groaned, the hot wash of his breath as intoxicating as the friction of his lips. “Baby, it’s going to be so good. Tell me you want this.”

“Yes,” she moaned. “Yes, yes, yes, please. I want you.”

His knee pressed higher between her legs, raising her skirt as he rocked the thick slab of his thigh against her intimate flesh in a way that had tendrils of pleasure sliding through her center.

Flicking a teasing lick over the corner of her mouth, he murmured, “Tell me, yes...tell me you’ll be my wife.”

This wasn’t the time for that discussion. This wasn’t the time for talking at all. “Later. Please, we’ll talk more about it later.”

His hips dipped lower, giving her a fleeting taste of the thick ridge of his erection.

Once.

Oh, God...so hot.

Twice.

Her fingers knotted in his hair as liquid heat spilled through her belly.

And then again.

Her breath rushed out on a gasp at the sharp, needy spasm deep within her.

“Tell me you’re coming home with me tomorrow.”

“Connor, please,” she begged, her body on fire.

“You don’t even know how much I like the sound of that,” he whispered against her parted lips. “How much I want to hear it against my ear as I move inside you...pushing in deep...”

A whimper escaped her at the erotic images sliding through her with the rough stroke of his voice.

“...taking you higher and higher...until you shatter in my arms.”

“Yes...” She was about to shatter already.

“Yes, what, Megan?” he asked, trailing his fingertips from the back of her knee to the curve of her bottom and back. “You know what I want to hear.”