Page 198 of Wild Then Wed
“I like you a lot, too,” I repeat, softer this time. “Like, a lot. An insane amount.”
She tilts her head. “You do?”
I nod once. “I do.”
That gets a smile out of her. It’s slightly crooked like she doesn’t quite believe I mean it.
Her lips tip up, and she nods. “I like you an insane amount, too.”
I lean in and press a kiss to her mouth—slow and sure, one that says what I feel even if I still haven’t worked up the nerve to say the real thing out loud yet. I offer her my hand to help her off the vanity, and she takes it. The second she tries to stand, her legs buckle just slightly and I catch her elbow, stifling a laugh.
She narrows her eyes at me. “It’s the heels.”
“Sure it is.”
Her smirk curves. “You’ve just been waiting for the perfect moment to mention your massive dick, haven’t you?”
I lift a brow. “You think it’s massive?”
She scoffs like I’m the most ridiculous person alive. “By the way,” she says as she straightens her dress, smoothing the silk down her thighs, “you took seven minutes.”
I laugh, genuine and low, and reach for the door. “That’s two more than usual—consider yourself spoiled, Peach.”
She rolls her eyes but loops her arm through mine as we head out into the hallway.
And I swear—if every night with her started like that, I would be late to every damn thing for the rest of my life.
And I wouldn’t regret a single second of it.
Chapter 34
WREN
We haven’t even reached the ballroom doors and I’m already regretting not checking the mirror one last time. My lipstick’s been kissed completely off, my hair’s doing something weird near my temple, and my thighs are still trembling from what just happened five minutes ago.
Sawyer’s hand tightens around mine like he can sense the spiral coming. He lifts it to his lips and presses a kiss to my knuckles, slow and grounding. “You look beautiful.”
I blow out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding and try to smile, but my nerves are loud and fidgety. My free hand smooths down the front of my dress for the third time in as many steps. He doesn’t let go, just shifts slightly to run his other hand down my side like he’s trying to iron out the tension, his fingers trailing down my bare back.
I don’t do things like this. Not really. Not ever.
I never went to prom or homecoming in high school. Not because I wasn’t asked, but because the thought of a packed gym full of sweaty teenagers grinding and twerking to Usher and Justin Bieber made me want to crawl out of my skin. That had always been Sage’s or Ridge’s thing. My fun, go-with-the-flowyounger siblings. They could find the pulse of a party in their sleep.
I was the one who stayed home and mucked stalls.
I’ve always been more…structured. Comfortable when I’m in control. And right now, I’m so far out of my element I might black out.
Even now, this doesn’t feel real. The silk on my skin, the violins echoing through the hallway, the weight of Sawyer’s hand in mine.
At this exact moment, I should be tacking up a lesson horse for a group of seventh graders who just discovered what a diagonal is. Or reviewing a sixteen-year-old’s last round on video, helping her prep for a schooling show in Ogden. Or maybe walking the property, checking turnout fences and reworking the feed chart so that the colt in stall five stops kicking at night.
I’d be doing a final walk-through, confirming the gates were latched, that blanket straps weren’t twisted, that the barn cats hadn’t gotten into the grain room again.
My day usually ends with sweat on my back and hay in my bra.
Not…this.
Not in a black silk dress, tryingnotto look like a woman who just got her brains fucked out by her fake husband against a vanity before stepping into polite society.
