Page 353 of Ashes of Sin and Stardust

“Why not?”

“Leverage,” she said, as obnoxiously as possible, and wiggled her eyebrows.

“Oh for fuck’s sake.”

It took an hour ofarguing back and forth, but we did eventually agree that if Alice still wanted to get married afterfourmonths, we’d elope, take care of the financial stuff like the house and her inheritance, and plan a real wedding for a year later. Mostly because I didn’t have it in me to just straight-up say “no.”

Had I planned to one day convince Alice to marry me? Absolutely. But I hadn’t even wanted to mention it offhand or as a joke, since Woodrow had basically forced her hand on her first marriage. I’d decided to wait to bring it up until we’d had some time away from the court case. In my heart and mind, we were as committed to each other as it was possible to be, regardless of a piece of paper.

Was I thrilled? Completely.

Did I still think this was a terrible, irresponsible idea to jump into marriage so fast? Yes.

Was I going to do it anyway?

Hell yes I was.

Marrying Alice didn’t give her leverage; it gavemeleverage. It meant that no matter what happened between us, even if our dynamic fell apart, I would be able to take care of her in some way, shape, or form. It struck me that our relationship had become more important to me than our dynamic. Somehow we’d gotten to the point where our dynamic was hanging on by a thread, but somehow we were closer than ever before. And... I was weirdly okay with it.

Plus... well. There was the sex, which I desperately wanted, despite how often I’d shut her down.

I was still a little pissed that she’d basically bratted me into marrying her though, and I intended to do something about that when the time was right.

She didn’t want to stay at the house, so we got a hotel room. Alice was impressed and flabbergasted at the luxury of the place, and I had room service brought up.

She sat on the bed, looking around in excitement and bouncing slightly. I made her a fruity sweet drink from the mini-bar and poured myself a glass of my favorite wine. I sat beside her and she smiled up at me, her face full of excitement.

“What?”

“We did it. It’s done, it’s over, and we didn’t kill anyone.” She lifted her hand for a high-five.

I chuckled and gave her a little high five. “It was a close call there for a while.”

“I’m glad we didn’t.”

I barked out a single laugh, not commenting that part of me regretted that Woodrow was still breathing.

Then Alice smiled up at me and said, “So where are you taking me?”

“Well... we’re going home tomorrow. Then I thought we would drive Rachel back to North Carolina and spend a few days out there.”

“Oh, Rachel went back with Jake and Alex. I think they left right away. And I would love to go to Cullowhee. Butwhat is the surprise?”

“It’s asurprise, I can’t tell you.”

“Sir... please?” She gave me the sweetest puppy-dog eyes and bit her perfect, plump bottom lip. Climbing closer to me, she wrapped her arms around my forearm and rested her chin against my shoulder.

“Hm,” I smirked, sipping my wine. “Convince me.”

She did her damndest, begging sweetly and kissing my neck and even putting herself down on the floor in front of me. I caved when she ended up on the floor at my feet with tears in her eyes, hugging my legs and grinding her pussy on my foot.

“Get up here, you hot mess.” I set my wine glass on the end table and opened my arms to her. She scrambled up onto the bed eagerly, her cheeks flushed. “You know, any other day, I would have let you beg yourself silly and then still denied you, but... that was just so damn cute, and we’ve had such a long few months.”

I pulled her into my lap, lifting her dress up off her hips and feeling her warmth against me. She grinned wickedly. “You liked it?”

“Do I like that you turn into a complete whore for me?” I scoffed. “Fuck yes I do.” I squeezed her thighs and her ass. The anxiety from the past few weeks became a distant memory.

“Are you going to tell me the surprise?”

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