Page 90 of For Pleasure Or Worse

Not so much my parents, for obvious reasons. Really, I longed for that connection with my sisters.

“I’ll never forgive your father for what he did to this pretty little mind.” Mateo tapped my temple. “We got so caught up trying to placate our parents and play nice as if this isn’t the most important day ofourlives. No one else matters, and losing each other in the madness was the one thing we said we wouldn’t do. If you want something different, Tally, we can do that. We can figure this out.”

“The venue is paid for.” I smiled meekly. “The catering is booked, and people have bought flights and suits and blocked out rooms in the resort. It’s happening, Matty. It will still be perfect, I’m not worried about that. I’ll love it because it’s the day I get to marry you. I know I can be a little crazy but I’m not cancel-a-wedding crazy.”

He leaned in and planted a kiss on my forehead. “But you’ll always remember it as the day you settled for because you didn’t get what you really wanted.”

When the smoke cleared, and the ice sculpture melted, we would be back to our regular, reclusive lives like the last six months never even happened. It was a blip in the tapestry.The only thing that would always remain the same was us, and holding onto that would get me through Key West in June.

“All I want is me and you like it’s always been. Like it will always be,” I said.

Mateo scooped up my hands and brought them to the center of his chest. His eyes were dark and dilated. He swallowed hard, and his cheeks dimpled as a thought crossed his mind. “Then marry me. Right now.”

“What?” My short laugh was entirely full of disbelief.

“Marry me,” he said again, a full smile curving across his handsome face. “I don’t need any of that other shit—the flowers, the seagulls, the fucking DJ. I don’t need my parents or the boys or some random officiant with a little binder full of poems he reads to every single couple that comes through. I need you, though, and what’s more me and you than saying fuck everything else?”

Mateo turned us toward the little white chapel and all its dazzling lights that sparkled against the setting purple skies in Las Vegas. Everything else in my mind went blank. My heart pounded like a drum. My stomach flipped. I couldn’t place what was happening inside of me. Anxiety, excitement, rebellion. It was like running and being chased but wanting to be caught for the thrill of it.

My mind was quickly made up. “What will we tell everyone?”

“Nothing.” His teeth caught his bottom lip. “Who needs to know?”

My mouth opened but nothing came out. We could have everything. A secret, intimate, spontaneous nuptial,andalso the wedding everyone was expecting, but onourterms. Already married, and simply there for the party. There was nothing else I wanted in the world more.

“Okay.” I nodded, my voice breathy and rattled. I threaded my fingers through his, squeezing tightly. “Let’s do it.”

Mateo picked me up bridal style, the feathers of my dress ruffling beneath his large, warm hands as they settled on my back and thighs. I crossed my heels at the ankles and threw my head back, laughing. When I came up for air Mateo stole it from me again, kissing me hard, opening his mouth over mine as our tongues swept against one another and my arms latched around his neck.

“Are we doing drive-thru or counter service?” he asked. “We don’t have a car, but I’d let you ride me through it.”

My eyes rolled playfully. “I came here for Elvis, didn’t I?”

“Then Elvis you shall get.”

Mateo walked us across the threshold of the building, and surrounded by pink stained glass and red rose petals in an empty room, I became Natalia Duran.

chapter thirty-three

Mateo

My wife tuckedherself into my side—my fucking wife—as I pushed a strand of her dark hair behind her ear and pulled her warm, smooth thighs against mine in the backseat of the SUV.

“Say it again, Tally.” I kissed her neck gruffly, begging to hear the words tumble from her lips. There was only so much I could do without getting banned from rideshare services indefinitely, and the drive to the nightclub our friends had migrated to was in stop-and-go traffic.

Her skin pebbled beneath my mouth. “I’m your wife.”

The blunt tips of my fingers curled around the inside of her thigh, and she squeaked out a noise that had my eyes cutting to the driver’s in the rearview mirror. He quickly bowed his head. I wanted her to keep saying it, engrain it in my ears, speak it into permanent existence because I still felt like I was dreaming, floating on a cloud.

“Do you think he wants a show?” I asked softly, deliberately brushing my lips along her earlobe. Her head fell back on my shoulder. “Because you’re driving me crazy.”

She clamped her hand over mine as it inched toward the hem of her dress, but not before I felt the heat underneath, and my fingers twitched. “You can wait.”

“I can’t.” I turned her face to me and captured her lips with mine as my slacks tightened at the zipper. Of course wecouldn’t. That didn’t keep me from pushing it, swelling her lips with my teeth, drawing a pretty little mark to the surface of her skin where it would be hidden by her hair. “I want to fuck my wife.”

She ran her fingers up my shaft and I sucked in a breath. “Behave, husband. The night is still young.”

That was the problem. We had to show face for the rest of the night, because the scavenger hunt wasn’t won, and there were people waiting patiently for us to find our way back to them. But I didn’t give a single fuck about any of that at the moment. I wanted to call it quits and drag Natalia back to the villa with her hair wrapped around my fist. On the other hand, it was our only day in Vegas, and Ophelia and Pike had put in a lot to plan this. We owed them our participation.

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