Page 11 of Merry Little Wedding

“I’m sorry. Fuck.” I rake my hand through my hair. Turning my back on her, I take a deep, ragged breath. I turn back around. She’s still there. She’s still fucking right there. “I didn’t think any of this through. None of it, Rora. I just saw you, and wanted you.”

“You faked aproposal,” Aurora attempts to bite out the words, I can tell, but they’re broke by a sob.

“No,” I say, adamant. Her eyes triple in size when I quickly abolish the distance between us. I don’t think there’s a word I can say to make this better.

I can kiss it better.

Or die the fuck trying.

“That part wasn’t fake.”

I descend on her lips. Aurora gasps into my mouth, and I swallow that sound. Let it permeate me, let it into my veins. Her arm binds around my neck as the kiss deepens. Our tongues caress each other. There’s an urgency between us that is undeniable, that’s inevitable. I need this woman,need, like the air in my lungs.

I can’t stop. I can’t stop kissing her. Nothing about it is fake for me. “You feel my kiss?” I say in a feral growl, gliding my hungry lips up and down and up her neck, to the rim of her ear. “Nothing about kissing you is fake for me,” I say it out loud, andloud. “Nothing.”

“It isn’t fake for me, either, Boone,” Aurora whimpers. Smiling like a fool, I wipe off her tears with the pads of my thumbs.

“I know, honey.” I knew. I fucked up,royally, but I knew. And now she has to know. She’s captured my heart without any effort. Just because she is her. I should be cautious, maybe even alarmed at the rate I’m falling for her. But I’m not. I’m hurdling headlong into love with her.

Aurora frowns. “Do we have to go back in there?”

“Never.” I take her hand in mine, where it fits, where it belongs. Our fingers entwine. “And while we’re confessing things, you should know I can’t keep my hands off of you, baby.”

“I don’t want you to,” Aurora says.

“Good. Let’s go break in our hotel suite, shall we?”

“We shall.”

Fuck, yeah. This incredible woman—she is for me. She’s mine.

Forreal.

Five

Aurora

I can’t stop peeking down at the ring on my finger. It’s giant and sparkly. I knew the guy was wealthy but it’s more than just a perfect ring; it’s a perfect ringfor me. It fits and is perfect.

Is that what he went out for earlier? To pick up a ring?Thering?

Oh dear lord, girl,stoppit. I need to shake such fantasies from my head before they take root. Before I break my own heart. This isn’t real, Aurora. It’s play pretend. Even though wejustsaid all those wonderful things…my heart simplywon’tlet my head believe we aren’t still pretending.

He’s regretful, and horny, is what it is.Allit is.

The elevator doors open. Boone clasps his hand over mine and leads me into the hallway. As we approach our room, I peer back down the hall.

“No one is looking,” I tell him. So that he knows we can drop the act now.

That thought makes my heart constrict, but then opens up wide when he answers in a guttural, growly voice, “Good. I was getting tired of sharing you with an audience.”

Boone’s hand curls around the back of my head as he swipes the keycard. I open my mouth wide for him. He pulls me in, and we step over the threshold, our lips never breaking apart as he kicks the door shut behind us.

The temperature cranks to a thousand degrees. We’re like lustfilled teenagers, a mad rush of ravenous hands, slopping and groping our way toward the bed, leaving a trail of clothes in our wake. We tumble into the bed, yanking the covers down, our bodies writhing and twisting together underneath them. Breaking the connection, Boone leans over, producing a condom out of thin air.

“I’m on the Pill,” I pout.

“You are?”

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