She looks…unreal.
Not in a fragile way, spun-glass way. Jade isn’t breakable and she looks like a beautiful gift I was never meant to have.
But I took her anyway.
The very moment I saw her, she was mine.
“You need to sit down, man?” Colt jokes. Or maybe it isn’t a joke because our team’s designated medic is probably picking up on the fact that I haven’t taken a breath in far too long.
“Stuff it,” I mutter, grinning.
I go back to devouring my fiancée with my eyes. Lapping up the way the fabric skims her body.
Tasteful, sexy. Utterly feminine and yet somehow not delicate.
The perfect balance of her grace and strength.
The distance closes, her gaze holding mine, hands tight around a bouquet of pink roses. The same kind I got her the very first time I bought something for her.
She’s choosingme.
My hands flex at my sides before I can stop the instinctive reaction she causes. Every part of me wants to move to close the distance.
Pull her in. Feel her and make this real in the only way my body understands.
Until I can’t take it any more and I close the gap and sweep my wife-to-be off of her feet and carry her to the floral arch.
“Ryker,” she pokes my chest. “I was supposed to?—”
“I couldn’t wait.” I steal a kiss as I settle her to her feet. Close. Where she belongs.
God help me. The way she looks up at me is more powerful than any weapon on earth.
“Hey, sweetheart,” I manage with gravel hanging in my vocal cords.
Jesus, I smudged her lipstick. But I know how to fix that. I cradle her cheek and brush the errant shimmer away from her upper lip.
She melts. “Honey, you’re not following the rules.”
“Fuck the rules.”
It’s a good thing Scout got set up to officiate the wedding because he merely snorts and I can only imagine what a minister would have thought.
I chuckle at her adorable expression. “This crew knows we might not be polished, but you can count on us being honest.”
“That you are, have been from the first moment we met when you told me you weren’t leaving until I told you what was going on.”
I step in, wrapping my arm around her back. The roses release a puff of sugary scent from being crushed.
“I knew you were mine.”
“Are we having a wedding?” Scout says with a chuckle. “Because I’ve got stuff to say.”
Scout’s wife, Aria, makes the throat slitting sign to him from the small group of friends gathered around.
“Get on with it,” I tell Scout as I wink at Jade. “I’ve waited long enough for her to be my wife.”
I drop my gaze for half a second to her mouth, to the soft curve of it, the memory of what it feels like under mine when she’s unraveling. Parted, whimpering my name.
