Page 1 of Wed
CHAPTER ONE
Bryon walked into the large hotel suite and smiled as he looked over at his soon-to-be wife. "You can't back out on me now. I warned you that everything was go once we got to Vegas."
Becca laughed. "You fool. As if I could back out. I'm excited to become your wife. I think you're the one who's getting cold feet." She stepped into his arms and kissed him. "Nothing is going to change my mind about becoming your wife."
He buried his face against her long, brown hair and inhaled her scent. She'd always been his safe place. The one place he could go when everything around him was falling apart. Just her scent calmed him. Her touch grounded him, reminding him that not everything in the world was bad. "I love you."
She giggled. "I know. I love you too. I wouldn't be here if I didn't." Becca pulled back and looked up at him. "Tomorrow night, I'm going to walk down that aisle and make this forever."
"It's been forever since the moment we met." He gripped her hand in his, still proud of the small diamond engagement band on her finger. He'd wanted to get her something bigger, but he'd known she'd hate that. Becca wasn't someone to flaunt things. She was simple, and that was one of the many things he loved about her. He could buy her almost anything, yet all she wanted was him. "What are your plans now that we're here?"
"I'm going to take a long, hot shower, then I'm meeting Faith to go do some shopping. Later tonight, we'll meet up with the rest of you for dinner and I'll see how much money I can lose gambling. What are your plans?"
"I don't have any. I guess I'll see what the guys are up to and go from there. I know Xander has an appointment to get a new tattoo from some famous tattoo artist who has a shop around here, and Trenton and Ben talked about going to some museum that is supposed to be filled with haunted items." He shrugged. "I'll decide later when I've talked to them." Bryon led Becca to the large windows that overlooked the city and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her back to his chest as he rested his chin on her shoulder. "It's all I can do not to rush you down to the chapel and marry you right now."
She arched her head back to look at him. "You've waited this long. You'll make it one more day." She tightened her arms around his as he held her. "It's beautiful here."
"I'm not sure I'd use the word beautiful, but it is something to see. It's really grown since I was last here and that wasn't too long ago." He kissed her neck. "I'm holding the most beautiful thing here."
She laughed. "I've already said I'd marry you. You don't have to flatter me."
"Just stating the truth." He thought about how long they'd been together. It was almost hard to remember his life before her. They'd met at the courthouse years ago. He'd been there to follow the case of a sex offender he'd been hunting. Exhausted, he'd stepped outside during a lunch break to get some fresh air and found her sitting on the edge of a planter box, sipping coffee during her break. It had only taken a few minutes of conversation for him to find out she was as passionate about saving children as he was. He'd known almost instantly that she was going to change his life.
At the time, he'd been so focused on taking down pedophiles that he hadn't really been looking for romance, but he somehow knew he couldn't just let her walk away. He'd asked her to dinner. He'd almost fallen in love with her that night, but he'd known his life was too complicated to pursue anything serious. He'd convinced her that night to join his team, which at the time hadn't been anything compared to what it was now. He hadn't even told her much about what they did other than track down pedophiles and collect evidence against them to give to the police. He'd kept the fact they castrated those pedophiles a secret for quite a while after meeting her.
Becca ran her fingers through her hair. It was longer than she'd usually kept it and he liked it that way. She'd almost always kept it short, but he loved that it was now resting on her shoulders. He was careful never to tell her what she should do with it, but he enjoyed being able to run his fingers through it and feel it resting over his chest as he held her at night.
"I'll be gray before too long." She sighed.
"It won't matter. You'll still be the most beautiful woman I've ever met." He kissed the top of her ear. She was in her twenties when they met. Now was pushing forty. God, he should have married her sooner. Why the hell had he waited so long?
A knock on the door ruined their moment and he sighed as he released her. "That's probably our bags." He'd reserved the whole top floor of the hotel for him and his team. It gave them the privacy they all needed but kept them close together. He left Becca near the windows and went to answer the door. He grinned as he pulled it open and saw Xander and Matt standing there.
"Hey, this place is great. Did you see the size of that pool?" Xander walked into the room without being invited. "I feel like a rockstar."
Matt rolled his eyes as he followed Xander in. He paused in front of Bryon. "How's the groom holding up?"
Bryon glanced at Becca and smiled. "I can't marry her fast enough." He shut the door and led Matt farther into the room, not shocked to see Xander already at Becca's side, pointing at something they saw out the window. "Thanks for coming."
"Of course. We wouldn't miss this. It's about time you two got married. You've been together longer than any of us, yet you're the last to marry," Matt said.
"We had other business to worry about." The truth was, he'd always been scared to get married and have something happen to either him or the team that would destroy it. He never knew one day to the next if the team might get arrested or one of them killed. Now that they'd slowed down and weren't hunting every night, he could finally relax a bit and focus on Becca. Not that the team would ever be safe. Their pasts could come back to haunt them at any time, but at least now, he was comfortable settling down.
"Is Faith here yet?" Becca asked.
"Her plane lands in an hour. We offered to pick her up, but she insisted she'd just take a shuttle over," Matt told her.
Faith was Matt's daughter who the team had rescued from a pedophile years before. Being the only other female involved with the team, Becca and Faith had bonded. Bryon had fallen in love with the little girl almost the moment he'd met her. Troubled and haunted by what had been done to her, she'd overcome and grown into a strong, determined woman who was now well on her way to being a doctor. When he questioned if everything they'd done had made any difference in the world, all he had to do was look at Faith.
"Is she staying in your suite?" Becca asked.
"Yeah, she'll be in the second bedroom. She's going to fly back to California with us and spend a few weeks with us before she heads back to get ready for the next semester." Xander walked over and hugged Becca. "How are you holding up?"
"I'm good. Marrying this fool isn't going to change anything. He's been mine since the day we met and everyone knows it." Becca gazed lovingly at Bryon once Xander released her. "I only said I'd marry him so we could all get a free trip to Vegas."
Matt laughed. "Well, thank you for sacrificing yourself so we can lose money all night."
"I have no plans on losing a thing. I'm going to own those tables tonight." Xander ran a hand down his long beard. "We'll leave here rich."
