That was hot.
Lex wore tailored suits like Chief. Like Em’s husband. I wanted something different, but as the night had been drawing to a close, the eventuality of a marriage to Lex and being firmly under Chief’s thumb had loomed large.
Then I had a killer idea.
And the wedding chapel in the casino had a no-show. It was fate. I’d found a real working man I was attracted to.
My parents thought I was impulsive. They thought I couldn’t make big decisions on my own. Chief thought I needed to be taken care of, that I needed a man.
Oh, I got me a man.
I refocused on my soon-to-be husband, then focused again when it took too long.
Tate’s brown eyes twinkled as he looked at me, like I was a dripping ice cream cone he wanted to lick from bottom to top. He’d been doing it all night until my insides swirled like the room around me would do if I had another local cider. “Tate is my middle name.”
I let out a theatrical gasp, and then dissolved into laughter. This night kept getting better. Who needed names anyway? “What should I call you?”
“Xander.”
“Xander.” I tested it out. I liked Tate, but Xander was cool too. Simple. Common. Not a name you’d find on a guy on the rowing team at an Ivy League school. Em’s husband rowed. Wait—his name was Carter. Also simple and common. Whatever. Xander was a simple guy and he didn’t know my family was rich. I won. “Okay. Okay. I, Sapphire Jewel, do take Xander Tate to be my lawfully wedded husband.” I’d said it. Oh. My. God. I said it.
I was getting married. And I’d just learned his first name.
Mother was going to faint. Is this one of those responsible decisions you lecture me about, Mother?
I broke into giggles and Xander’s grin widened. Calm down. I took steadying breaths, gazing deep into his warm brown eyes. They centered me. His kind, accepting eyes and his I live life on my own terms attitude were why this was such a good idea an hour ago.
Xander’s everyday life sounded like the one I’d been dreaming of but was too afraid to pursue. I wouldn’t have to be scared with him.
A flush spread through my body. The last thing I felt around him was fear.
“I, Xander Tate, do take Sapphire Jewel”—the way he growled my name made my legs quiver—“to be my lawfully wedded wife.”
The guy at my left—John? Jacob? Jingleheimer Schmidt?—said a few more things I didn’t pay attention to before he pronounced us man and wife. I whooped and flipped the bouquet in the air. The assistant—our witness—didn’t bat an eye.
Vegas, baby.
Tate—Xander captured me in his arms and planted his hot mouth on mine.
That was the first time we’d kissed. To say we’d waited until marriage was the absolute truth.
Take that, Chief. I had a husband. I didn’t have to play nice with Lex tomorrow.
Xander lifted me up, the movement made me dizzy, and it had nothing to do with the drinks we’d had at the casino bar. My thoughts vanished as I pressed against his hard body. I didn’t take after Opal Abbot, my porcelain doll mother. I was five ten. Most guys didn’t try to pick me up.
I opened for him, my husband. He lazily swept his tongue against mine but managed to do it with such authority that I moaned. He claimed me so easily. The theme of the night. Everything around Xander was easy. Talking. Laughing. Telling him my dreams of the future. His encouragement for me to follow them.
Wait until I told Brady. I got married in Vegas!
A throat cleared next to us and I peeled myself off Xander. My feet touched the ground but he didn’t let me go.
I smiled at him, biting my lower lip, and held my left hand out. A ring. It was a factory-produced diamond and not a blood diamond, that was all I cared about. And that Xander had thought to ask? A sign that my impulsive decisions weren’t all terrible.
A niggling thought arose. How could such a simple guy buy a diamond ring, even an engineered one, on a moment’s notice? I brushed it away. He traveled. He had to keep some money in reserve.
My exes had never felt right. They were more Chief’s speed and that meant they were wrong for me. I wasn’t going to be my mother in thirty years.
This fire between Xander and I would only grow. It had to.
“We have another ceremony in ten minutes,” the wedding officiant said. “Stop at the desk and pick up your marriage license. Thank you for trusting us with your happiest day.” He sounded like he’d said it a million times, but I didn’t care.
Xander clamped his big hand around mine and led me out. The license was in a pretty envelope that smelled like my grandmother’s perfume. He folded it and tucked it into his back pocket.
“Your place or mine?”
Brady’s message. He’d be the first to know, and while he was my best friend, he was in our suite with a random hookup. Xander wasn’t random. He couldn’t be. He was the bold decision, the major upheaval in my life. Brady relied on my parents’ support as much as I did. Xander risked all of that. I wasn’t ready to tell my friend. “Yours.”
He tucked me into his side as we left the little chapel hidden in the casino and found a bank of elevators. He pushed the button.
He was in this hotel? Right. Yes, he’d mentioned that. We’d talked about so much other stuff, I’d forgotten. He was from Montana and had grown up ranching. He traveled the world taking pictures and writing pieces on everything from deforestation to sex trafficking. But he was having a hard time breaking into serious photojournalism
