“No shit it’s a dress. But it’s asundress, Auri.” I gestured at her like that would explain the sheer level of destruction happening inside my brain.
Her head tilted, but the mirth in her eyes told me she was aware of how I felt about those damn things. “Do I look okay? Should I change?”
Okay? She looked like my every fantasy, like the climax of a wet dream. As always.
“You look…” I shook my head. “You’re torturing me, is what you’re doing.”
Her lips quirked. “Torture? That’s a bit dramatic.”
“Is it?”
She giggled. “Is it working?”
My gaze dragged down her legs, slow, hungry. Then I stalked toward her. "Tonight’s going to be hell for me, and you know it."
I felt her inhale sharply. Then she smiled. "Good."
My restraint snapped. I grabbed her waist, pinning her against the wall with my body, one hand pressing into the small of her back to keep her hips against mine. "You’re lucky we have dinner plans,” I growled. “Otherwise I’d bend you over the island right now for pretending this is okay.”
She laughed. The wicked, belly-deep kind of laugh that drove me mad. “Plus tard, mon amour.”
“Later? You mean when we’re sleeping under the same roof as your parents?”
“You’ll just have to be quiet.”
“But—”
“Et s'il te plaît,behave,” she hissed before she shrugged out of my hold once more to waltz to the front door. I dropped my head back and took a deep breath.
Christ. Yeah, I was so fucked.
Still, I followed her to the car. And of course she made me drive.
To be fair, she looked like she belonged in that passenger seat. Like she’d been born for the role of smirking passenger princess.
Her pink dress shifted as she crossed her legs, revealing more skin than my blood pressure could handle.
I almost died right there.
I shifted gears, struggling with being turned on and half a second from freaking the fuck out over this.
Auri scrolled on her phone, completely unfazed by the fact that we were about to walk into a lion’s den of marital reveals, no-prenup discussions, and unresolved family tension.
“You’re way too calm,” I said.
She shrugged. “They’re notmyin-laws.”
My eyes widened and I groaned. “Jesus fuck. I just realized I havein-laws.”
“Ouais, you also have a sister and brother-in-law.”
It should’ve been funny. But all it did was make my pulse spike harder.
I’d only ever known my parents as family. Just the three of us. No big family dinners, no uncles or cousins or family friends who lingered too long and hugged too hard. It was us or nothing. And I’d learned to live with that. Thrived in the solitude of it. Until her.
And now I had her. And with her camethem.
Her family. Her legacy. Her last name with roots deep in this countryside, deeper than their grapevines. Her father. Her brother. Her goddamnworld.
