Page 92 of Shiver
I turn a look of disbelief on him. “Really? If your bank account has more than six figures, then I beg to differ.”
He tilts his head, and I roll my eyes when he doesn’t deny it. “Speaking of bank accounts, I’ve already filed to add you to my account. We should receive your card while here.”
I balk at him. “You’re fucking with me.”
His grin is mischievous. My hips give an involuntary jerk against his when he bites my bottom lip. “Not currently, but that’ll change in a few hours.”
“I don’t need—Rake, I didn’t have to have—”
“Hush,” he says and drops his hand to mine. “Let’s go before I decide to skip the family shit and go right to honeymooning.”
The house is, well, enormous. It occurs to me as we’re winding down halls and through open rooms that I know nothing about this man outside of the things that relate to school and his wants.
And maybe, he doesn’t know much about me.
We’re married now. Clearly we skipped like 8,000 steps and just went straight for gold.
Rake stops abruptly, and I almost run into him. He’s staring at an arched door where voices and laughter drift to us. He stares, his face inscrutable.
“Rake?”
He doesn’t answer for a minute before I’m suddenly being pulled away from the room and his family. Through more turns that I don’t have time to keep track of, Rake’s got me pressed against the wall in what I assume is a closet of some kind. It’s dim, the door slightly cracked, allowing daylight to spill in from the windows in the room beyond.
He presses a leg between mine and kisses me hard. Just as I’m beginning to panic that he’s realized he made a mistake and doesn’t want me to be a part of his family, Rake pulls his mouth from mine and sighs.
“The enormity of what I’m doing just hit me,” he says.
“It wasn’t the marriage that did that?” I ask, breathless.
He huffs, a soft puff of his breath. “I’ve always,alwayskept my family life completely separate from anything else. From school. From my friends. Work. Everything. There’s never been a time when the two have come together. Not even briefly.”
I nod, trying to understand what he’s saying.
“You’re the first person I’ve brought home,” he muses. “And it just hit me how this entire thing is going to go down. Silence. Shock. And then a whole lot of overwhelming chatter as they yell at me for marrying you and not inviting them.”
Relief is far too evident as my shoulders sag. Rake picks his head up to look at me with question. “Did I upset you?”
“No.” I shake my head. “Scared myself for a minute.”
He frowns but I distract him, so I don’t have to answer his question.
“You’ve never broughtanyonehome before? Ever?”
Amused, he shakes his head. “I’ve never found the need to keep friends. Rykka is like asthma. He never really goes away, no matter what you do to treat it.” I laugh at the comparison. “And you already know I haven’t been in a relationship before. You’re awfully brave to be my first.”
“First, last, and only,” I tell him.
This makes him smile. A true smile. One of the few I’ve ever seen on his face. “Yes. All that, Egon Aahnu,” he murmurs and kisses my lips. It’s long and hard, his body crushing mine against the wall until I’m almost whining for something deeper.
But he pulls away entirely. His body letting mine go, so I’m panting and glaring at him for getting me hard and horny before meeting his family.
“Ready?” he asks.
I glare harder. “No, jerk. What the hell?”
Rake chuckles and kisses my cheek. His lips brush the shell of my ear, and he whispers, “I love you, husband.”
A shiver races over my body. “Between you saying my new name, Egon Aahnu, and calling me husband, I’m going to fall at your feet as a puddle, Rake.”
