Page 6 of Yours, Now and Always
I stab a few bobby pins into my hair and call it done.
Spritz perfume. Possibly too much. Now I smell like the lovechild of Chanel No. 5 and bad decisions.
I brush my teeth with the urgency of a woman who just remembered she drank three cups of coffee and is about to kiss the man who owns her collar and half her sanity.
A minute later, I’m staring at myself in the mirror, hands pressed to the counter, breath coming too fast. “You’re gettingmarried,” I tell my reflection. “Right now. Looking like a half-feral indie film heroine.”
I pause. Tilt my head. “But you know what? He wants real. And you’re gonna look fucking iconic doing it.”
Then I open the bedroom door.
Barefoot.
Glowing.
Unapologetically wild.
And absolutely, no-questions-asked ready.
CHAPTER 2
GAGE
I’ve never paced in my life. Not in boardrooms where reputations bled out quietly across the table. Not while outplaying men too arrogant to see the trap. But I’m pacing now. Her living room. Rings in my pocket. Seven minutes past the five she promised, and I know better than to be surprised.
Still, every second without her stretches, daring me to breathe through it.
Then I hear the soft click of her door opening. And I stop moving.
She steps out. Barefoot and flushed.
Her hair’s pinned up like it begged to fall back down.
Her dress clings to her like it knows who she’s coming to.
And her eyes—fuck, her eyes—there’s no panic. No hesitation. Just fire and surrender and certainty.
It hits my chest before my brain catches up:she’s going to undo me.
She walks slowly toward me, looking at me as if she’s waiting for me to speak. But words? They’re fucking gone. Because this woman—this wild, brilliant, chaotic force of a woman—justwalked into the room looking like a goddess who forgot her shoes but remembered how to ruin me.
And I amwrecked.
Utterly.
Permanently.
Willingly.
I am hers.
I finally move, stopping inches from her. She looks up at me with eyes that say she already knows she owns me.
“That was longer than five minutes,” I murmur.
She shrugs, lips curving. “Told you not to count.”
She shrugs like I’m overreacting. And fuck me, I have never wanted anything more in my life than to marry a woman who shrugs at me like that.
