Page 99 of Winning Bid

I hit the shower, style my hair, and get dressed. I look good, but something still feels missing. It’s June. Has to be. Looking at myself in the full-length mirror, I realize I’m standing to the side of the view because I usually stand there with her.

I am so addicted to that woman.

When I get to the courthouse, I breathlessly search the crowd for her, and somehow, when I see her, she takes away the little breath that I have.

June Devlin is utterly stunning.

My heart stutters in my chest at the sight of her, and it’s all I can do not to get choked up. When she meets me, I can’t hold back the hoarseness in my voice. “You look incredible.”

She smiles shyly. “I know.”

I laugh, cutting the tension. She giggles, too. But that fades away when I whisper in her ear, “I cannot wait to tear that beautiful dress off of you.”

She gasps, faking a shock. “Mr. West, don’t you dare! I love this dress!”

“I love how fragile it looks. Perfect for ripping with my teeth.”

“You’re so bad!”

“And I’m all yours.”

She sighs happily. “No backing out, then?”

“Hell no. You?”

She shakes her head, still smiling. “You’ll have to pry me off of you if you want to be free of me.”

I’m still not sure if she knows how much it means to me when she says things like that.

We wait in the courthouse chapel’s anteroom alongside a few other nervous couples. Some wear street clothes, while others are dressed up like us. It’s interesting to see what other people are wearing or how they’re treating today. I’m surprised to see an elderly couple looking just as nervous as the rest of us. But it’s clear they’re here to get married, too—they keep giggling at each other and making silly faces to entertain one another. I hope me and June are like them at that age.

This is nothing like the weddings my cousins threw. Big ornate affairs that were more business and performance than romance. I’d hated each and every one of them. So synthetic. It was fine for them—they liked the artifice and having the family’s focus on them like that. But it made me uncomfortable to think that was what would be expected of me. To put on a show like some kind of trained animal … just no. In my opinion, a wedding should be for the people getting married. Not everyone else.

One couple in the anteroom seems to not even like each other, but the moment they’re called, their lovey-dovey side comes out.

June whispers, “Green card?”

“Unsure. Maybe.”

She laces her fingers with mine. “Did you write your vows?”

“Shit. I knew there was something I forgot to do?—"

“Anderson!”

I smirk and shake my head. “That’s what you get for even asking such a thing, young lady.”

She smirks up at me. “Oh, be that way.”

“Did you write yours?”

“I am not justifying that question with a response.”

I tip my head against hers. “So you forgot, huh?”

She laughs and girl-punches my shoulder. “Just for that, I’m going with the bog standard vows. Nothing fancy. Nothing personal.”

“Liar.”

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