Page 18 of Her Wedding Night

“I’m not fucking chicken sh?—”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Gabriel’s voice booms down the staircase, preceding the first view of long legs clad in captain’s whites.

I guess he found a spare uniform in the captain’s quarters.

He’s pulling on a jacket and he has a hat tugged low over his eyes, and he stops a few steps short of the deck we’re on. He’s obscuring himself, I realize. But nobody is really looking at him except me.

They all see the uniform and don’t notice that he’s taller, younger, and fitter than the guy who was captaining this boat an hour ago.

“Just a misunderstanding,” Gilly says easily. He puts his hand behind his back, hiding the gun.

But that doesn’t make me feel any better. I will Gabriel not to come any closer, even though I desperately want him to pull some angel shit and smite them all.

Can angels smite frat boys? Probably not. Also, he’s not an angel. He’s someone who’s not right in the head.

“It’s good the captain is here,” Ethan says wildly. He grins. “Let’s do this for real.”

“Do what for real?” That’s Hannah. She gasps. “Oh myGod, Ethan. The outfit wasn’t just a joke?”

I glance down at myself. “What?”

Ethan takes my hands. “I know your virginity is important to you, Lucy.” His eyes are bright. Wild.

A tremor ripples through my belly. “That’s none of your business,” I whisper.

“I told myself I wasn’t gonna take it, you know. I just wanted to get you comfortable with the idea of being mine. I’d have made you feel so good. But now we can make it real.”

“Make. What. Real?” That’s Gabriel.

No, no, no…

Ethan twists us around, so he’s got me in front of him, and he’s presenting me to them all. “I promise in front of you all that I won’t take Lucy’s virginity until she's my wife.”

This time, I say it out loud. “No.”

He kisses the side of my face, making my skin crawl. “Shhh. Be a good girl.”

I gag. I can’t help it. It’s not hot at all when he says it.

He groans. “I’m doing this wrong.”

“Yeah, you think?”

Forrest laughs at my outburst, which makes the girls giggle, too.

Ethan glares at them all. “Shut up!”

Gilly rolls his eyes. “No, man. I think it’s you who needs to shut up.” Then he swings the gun back into view and points it right at Ethan. Which is basically pointing it also at me, and I can’t help it. I start to cry.

“Take. Her. Fucking. Virginity.”

Ethan shoves me to the ground and lunges at Gilly.

Sobbing, I cover my head as a gunshot snaps in the air, startlingly loud.

It’s followed by a series of curses and a lot of fighting as bodies smash into furniture.

“You fucking shot me,” Ethan finally snaps, his voice cutting through the chaos.

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