Page 59 of Hunted Temptation
“Yes, Vaughn.”
He chuckles as he shifts forward, sitting up straighter. “That’s formal.”
“I meant yes, I’ll marry you.”
He doesn’t speak, and I make no move toward the bed. We stare at one another. He takes me in, and I do the same while pressing my thighs together, relieving the ache between my legs as I watch him.
I’m not sure how much longer I should stare at him when my primal urge is to run and jump into the bed and crawl into his lap. When I want to fuck him hard and fast, an urge that didn’t exist before I met this man.
Before this man saved me.
“I know you’re too old for me. But I love that about you,” I whisper. “You’re safe, you protect me. What I want is happiness, Vaughn. I want respect and care. One day, I hope it turns into love, because what you’re offering me is more than I could have ever dreamed of.”
He doesn’t say anything immediately. His gaze doesn’t leave mine. He continues to focus on me and nowhere else.
“I can’t promise you a normal life, Elodie. But I can promise you me.”
“That’s all I want,” I whisper.
“Then we get married.”
And that is that.
We get married.
“Then we get married,” I agree.
My lips curve up into a smile, and my feet become unstuck from the floor. I don’t know why they were so insistent on being stuck there, but they were. And now I’m on the move. Vaughn pulls the covers back from the bed, and I crawl inside beside him.
Rubbing my legs together a few times, I turn to face him, lying on my side, my eyes searching his. He shifts down in the bed until his head is lying on the pillow. I watch as he turns his head to the side, his eyes finding mine.
Vaughn’s lips curve up into a smile as he shifts a bit closer, wrapping his arms around me before he tugs me against him. His chest against mine. He dips his chin, and his lips find mine. I expect him to deepen the kiss, but he doesn’t.
I love it when he does this, when he talks against my mouth like this. I love every word he says. I just plain love him. I’m sure that’s a problem in and of itself, since he doesn’t love me back, but he’s going to be my husband. So, love or whatever you want to call it doesn’t matter.
He’s mine.
I’m his.
At least soon, we will be each other's. Forever.
“You’re coming to work with me tomorrow, you can hang with the girls again, maybe work out whatever wedding shit you want.”
I rear back slightly as my eyes widen. “Wedding?” I ask.
“That’s what happens when you get married, right?”
Shaking my head a few times, I sit straight up. I open then close my mouth a few times. I’m not sure what to say or how to say it. I don’t want a wedding. I don’t want any fanfare.
“I don’t want a wedding,” I say. “Just you and me, and that’s all.”
“So a justice of the peace thing?” he asks.
I don’t even know what that means. And I feel like an idiot. Like a young idiot. I’m exactly what he says I am—too young. I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be doing any of it. Maybe I should have just told him no and come up with some different kind of plan. My thoughts disappear when he continues.
“At the courthouse,” he says. “Just you, me, and a judge.”
“Yes,” I exhale. “That’s what I want.”
