Dazzling. His eyes glinted in the weird neon light, his hair brushed over his perfect forehead, soft lips against my skin, and then he rubbed my knuckles along his chiseled jawline.
“Villains together will be our brand.” There was something so sweet about his smile that I punched his stomach.
His eyes widened, and he caught my hand in his strong grip. “Hold on, Princess Pink. We’ve got to lay down a few ground rules. Your hands are precious musician’s hands. You aren’t allowed to punch anyone or anything. That’s my job. Why did you hit me, so I can avoid triggering you in the future?”
Why did I? My heart was beating too fast. Bliss was sliding into panic. “You look too sweet. I need you to be tough enough to survive when I get myself under control and break you.” Did I have to do that? Really? Eventually the mirage would wink out, and I’d be left with Philippe and my grandfather. My legacy. Either Haversham would bury me, or I’d take it and make it mine. And I’d do the burying. Villain or victim.Philippe wouldn’t forget about me long term, any more than my grandfather would.
This was only a reprieve from my real life. I needed it so much. My body refused to pull the trigger until I gave it what it needed. Dirk. I needed to feel loved, and safe, and worth more than the assets I could accumulate or the power I could wield.
He raised a brow. “Looks can be deceiving. I promise that I’m fine with you breaking me now and later, as long as it doesn’t hurt you. I’m a fighter, even if I wasn’t a villain, but I don’t think that you were made for breaking or being broken. I’d rather protect you and let you do something more interesting with your energy than simple annihilation. Music, for instance.” He smiled dangerously and opened a side door that led out into an alley where pink Prudence was waiting.
Trixie was sitting on the hood, leaning back and looking up at the stars, if she could see the stars. When she saw me, she whistled. “That’s a big dress. Where are we going?”
“The chapel of love,” Dirk said, opening the passenger door and gesturing me in.
“Sorry,” Trix said, shaking her head. “That skirt will interfere with the driving. Backseat, Dani. Can you climb over the side? Otherwise, some of that stuff might get caught on a lever. Did you say the Chapel of Love? Someone expects you to play music for them in that dress? Las Vegas makes people crazy.”
Dirk’s eyes danced with his amusement. Was he going to tell her that we were eloping? Apparently not. He was leaving that humiliation to me. Well, I had said this is what I wanted. He was just going along with it like a completely insane person. I loved that so much about him.
I cleared my throat and climbed into the back. “We’re getting married.”
She frowned at me, then looked at Dirk, then shrugged. “Okay. Do you need a witness?” Wow. Her reaction was so calm.It’s like it really was normal to elope in Las Vegas. How many times had she been a witness? Trix would make a fabulous witness. She was so stable and strong without needing anyone else to be weak.
I nodded and smiled a little too brightly. “I’d like that.”
“Should I call the girls? Not Jezebel. She’d heckle you during the service.”
“It’s just going to be a drive-thru wedding,” I said hurriedly.
“That’s probably a good idea. Drive-thru is always a good idea. You can get post-wedding food in a drive-thru afterwards, and have a whole drive-thru theme. Dirk, is this legit?”
He climbed into the backseat after me, shifting the acres of tulle so he wasn’t sitting on it, and it rose between us like cresting foam. He took my hand while the softness in his eyes made my stomach flutter. “We are getting married. It’s a spontaneous thing, but it will be a real, legal, binding marriage.”
She grinned and then started the car. “It was inevitable as soon as you saw her pink hair.”
“Pretty much.” He kissed my fingers, and the fluttering in my stomach spread through me, tingling goosebumps that made me slide close to him for warmth and so that I could put my head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around me and held me like that until we pulled into the Chapel of Love’s drive-thru. It felt like I’d stepped into a movie where happy endings were inevitable and every shot had the right lighting. Maybe someone would start singing a love song just for us.
When we got there, there were papers to sign, and a few guys from Nix’s team had cameras ready. A man dressed as Elvis directed our car to the side window where another Elvis impersonator read the classic marriage vows, elbows leaning on the sill with sparkly rhinestones on his bell sleeves.
He didn’t waste any time. “Do you, Daniela Delavigne, take James Russell Jefferson Dirk Prescott, as your husband, to loveand to hold, in sickness and in health, in sunshine and rain, in pleasure and pain, until death do you part?”
Was that last part normal? I glanced at Dirk, drowning in white tulle, but still looking rakish, dangerous, and irresistible at the same time. I’d try to resist him later. “I do.”
His eyes flickered with something, and his hand tightened on mine.
“Do you, James Russell Jefferson Dirk Prescott, take Daniela Delavigne as your wife, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, to worship and protect, until the sun falls from the sky and the world burns? Oh, and until death do you part?” The Elvis’s dark eyebrow flicked, and I really looked at him for the first time.
Blue eyes danced in the chiseled face that was Trixie’s worst nightmare.
She noticed him at the same moment I did.
“I do,” Dirk said, his voice, the pressure of his hand bringing my attention back to him, to the man who was crazy enough to marry a villain.
I smiled at him so hard I felt like my cheeks were going to break. “You’re crazy.”
“About you.” He kissed my hand again.
“By the power vested in me by the state of Nevada…” Horse continued.
