So that had sounded better at the beginning. Then I’d run out of steam and blown it toward the end. Riveting shit right there. I waited for the same dubious expression I usually got after telling people my story ideas.
But she just nodded, her eyes losing focus as she thought about it. “I mean, when you think about it, geography often plays a key role in tourism. When I was in college, we studied the tradeoffs between preserving the land and bringing in money to support it.”
The longer she talked, the higher my brows went. Who was this goddess?
She peeked at the pictures, reluctantly edging closer. “Those are beautiful. The colors are so vibrant.”
I hung on the awe in her voice. “It’s at sunrise.” I had been too jet-lagged to sleep and stressing about the dinner with my family and my inevitable encounter with Grams. I’d figured a place like Red Rock Canyon was a give-me for nice pictures.
“Do you have the photos from Sri Lanka?”
“I have some of the countryside.” They were nothing I’d put in a calendar. The trip had turned out to be fruitless as far as pictures went. Anyone with a phone could take the equivalent of what I’d captured. Unwilling to explain that I took menial jobs to pay for room and board while I traveled the world and failed to make a name for myself, I steered the conversation toward her. “What do you do? Are you from around here?”
Her smile lit up the night better than any of the casinos. “Is anyone really from Vegas?”
I laughed, her quick humor still a surprise after the way she’d confronted me. She was also smart. I was just some guy in a big city asking her a semi-personal question. “Fair.”
“I, um . . . I’m kind of a consultant. On environmental issues.”
“That’s respectable work.” And it explained her defensiveness when she’d thought I was making light of the earth, air, wind, and fire brigade.
“Right. Yes.” Her gaze flickered, hiding an emotion I couldn’t identify. “I’m between jobs at the moment. I was here on business and now I’m not.”
“Long story?”
“Tragically short and predictable, I’m afraid.” She glanced around. “If I’d been paying attention.”
“As a freelancer, I’m almost always between jobs.”
Her grateful smile cut right through my chest. I swept my eyes over the curve of her full cheeks and pointed chin. Her heart-shaped face made her look youthful and innocent. But the keen look in her eyes told me that she wasn’t much younger than me.
“So I take it you’re not from Vegas either?” she asked.
“I grew up around more cattle than people.”
“Space to roam.”
I didn’t miss the wistful note in her voice. She must’ve grown up in a city. I wanted to ask more questions, know everything about her, but I didn’t even know the most basic detail. “What’s your name?”
A faint blush stained her cheeks. “Savvy.”
“Savvy.” The name rolled off my tongue too easily. Her skin glowed, soft and inviting, but she wasn’t mine to touch. “Is it short for something?”
“Yes. How about you?”
Again, fair. She’d given me her name, but I’d given her nothing. My real name was normally innocuous enough, except in certain circles. When I was back in the States, I used it less. I was in Vegas, just some normal guy taking pictures, and for some reason, I didn’t want that image to change in Savvy’s eyes.
I gave her my pseudonym. “Tate. Want to go grab a drink? I have a whole SD card of pictures I could show you.”
Chapter 2
Savvy
“I . . .” I broke into a fit of giggles. The five dollar bouquet of white carnations drooped in my hands as I doubled over. “Ohmigosh. Wait. Wait. I, Sapphire—”
Tate’s adorable brow crinkled and I realized why.
“Didn’t I tell you that my real name is Sapphire?” I leaned forward like it was just him and me, no strangers watching us and waiting for me to finish. “Sapphire Jewel.”
My giggle was too loud, but I was buzzing pretty hard. I wasn’t drunk drunk, but it was a good thing we could walk wherever we needed. Or that he could give me a piggyback ride because my feet hurt.
Maybe I was a little drunk.
To be fair, he would’ve known my full name, but he’d gone to pick out the rings while I’d given the chapel assistant my information. Then, I’d been choosing my flowers when he’d filled out his part of the paperwork. I had to hand it to Las Vegas, getting married here was efficient.
Chief was going to lose his shit.
Tate laughed, and the deep sound rumbled through my belly. Oh God, this man made me hotter as the night went on, and it had nothing to do with the alcohol. His eyes were only a little glassy. How many beers had he drank?
We’d had so much fun talking that I’d kept ordering drinks as an excuse to stay with him longer. He was a humble guy, shy about his photography, but he had no qualms telling me about his travels. He roamed the world, working his way through each country. His jeans were faded because he worked in them.
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 because that wasn’t what his background was in and he had no network yet. He was in town for his brother’s anniversary party and his dear sweet Grams was riding him hard about getting married.
When he’d said that, it had clicked. Getting married would solve my problems and his. The most pressing was Lex. Chief would be livid. He might not want me working for him.
What would I do?
Job hunt with my wandering photographer? How would that work?
My buzz threatened to flatline, but I’d had a day. I’d figure it out later.
The elevator doors opened and we spilled inside. I giggled and buried my face in his shirt. He smelled fresh, like detergent and soap—not the perfumy stuff. Natural soap. Citrus and cedar. Addicting.
The door closed and he crowded me against the wall. We were the only two on board. I stared into his dark eyes, not believing that I was going home with him.
“Mrs. Sapphire Jewel,” he whispered as he brushed a few strands of hair out of my eyes.
I inhaled. Should I change my name? To what? Who cared? It wasn’t Abbot. “I thought I was Mrs. Xander.”
The corner of his mouth kicked up. “I am a king and you are my jewel.”
A shiver raced down my spine. He made me feel special, delicate, and I liked it. The guys I’d dated in high school had wanted to impress Chief more than me. The guys I’d dated in college had known how wealthy my family was, but they’d run when they’d learned I’d been severed from all that wealth until I learned some sort of lesson.
What would Xander do when he found out?
“My room’s close to the elevators,” he growled, sending a shiver down my spine and erasing all doubts. “I’ve been wanting those long legs wrapped around me since I first laid eyes on you. Too much too soon?”
I spread my hands across his broad chest. I couldn’t recall a guy ever telling me that I drove him crazy. “Just right and not nearly soon enough.”
He palmed my ass with both hands, holding me so tight that I wrapped my arms around his neck and hitched my legs up. “Is that what you want?” he murmured.
“Yes,” I breathed. So much. Fire whipped down my body. This was it. We were married. It was our wedding night.
Heat bloomed through me, igniting nerve endings that hadn’t been tended to well enough for more than a few years. Our first kiss had beat out any I’d ever had, wiped their memory from my mind.
What would sleeping with him be like?
I yanked his head down before I could lose my nerve. His lips landed on mine and I was lost in him until the slight jerk of the elevator alerted us that the doors were about to open.
His hands remained on my ass as he spun. I clutched him and giggled. A middle-aged couple passed us and the woman sighed wistfully. “Remember when we used to do that?”
The doors closed and I buried my head in Xander’s neck as his strong, assured strides carried us down the hall.
“We’re never going to quit doing this,” he said in my ear.
“As long as your back can take it.”
“My body will take anything you have to offer.” He stopped at a door in the middle of the hall and wrestled the door open. Inside was nothing like the two-bedroom suite Bernard had booked for me and Brady. Too extravagant for one night for a company that couldn’t afford it. Xander’s room was simple, like him. One room besides the bathroom and one bed. He hadn’t gotten more than he needed.
We spilled into the room, but he stopped to pin me against the wall.
The kiss he gave me was long and deep, melting me more with each second. He released his hands to cup my face, his hips anchoring me so I didn’t slide down. “I’m going to spread you out on the bed and open my wedding present.”
I kicked my heels off. Somehow, I knew the relief paled against the pleasure that was yet to come. Which one of us was getting the present? The marriage fairy had dropped the perfect man on my doorstep. He was everything I’d been looking for. I had the rest of my life to learn about him, starting with tonight.
Xander
I was holding my wife in my arms. My wife. She gazed at me with those deep blue eyes full of wonder. Like I was some sort of dream come true. I’d always been the annoying middle brother, the needy one who’d finally gone off to do his own thing and stopped bothering everyone. I’d traveled the world and there was never anyone waiting for me in all the places I’d been. Any relationships I’d been in hadn’t stood the test of time. Either they hadn’t wanted to travel with me, or I hadn’t been enough of a reason to uproot themselves and leave.
Meeting Savvy while we were both on a trip seemed fitting. We could go anywhere. Together.
I had no attachments, not even to my family. I didn’t even have an address. What I couldn’t do electronically went to the ranch and Dawson let me know if something looked important.
But I had a place now—with Savvy. The woman who’d kept me from failing my family yet again. When she’d announced that we should get married, my brain had hung on the offer. I shouldn’t have married a woman I’d just met, but I didn’t react to her like she was just any woman. And that she’d wanted to get married only two days before I lost something that had been weighing on me for the last year?
Fate. I wasn’t going to question it and I couldn’t wait to learn everything that made my wife tick, starting with her body.
I carried her to the bed. Housekeeping had left the blinds part
ed, giving us enough light without having to turn one on. I wouldn’t care if we were under floodlights, but I wanted her comfortable.
I set her on the bed and she untangled her legs. She bit her plump lower lip as her gaze traveled over me. I was usually dressed casually, to the point of looking aimless, but she’d seen through me. Instead of the loser with no job my dad saw, Savvy saw me as a photographer. She was more excited about my career than anyone in my family.
I took my wallet out, pulled out a condom and set it on the bed. Her gaze followed my every move. We’d have the I’m-clean-are-you-clean-what-about-birth-control talk soon, but tonight was about us exploring and learning each other and I didn’t want to delay. From the way she wiggled her ass, she agreed.
Next, I unbuttoned my shirt. She moved to do the same with her cream blouse.
“No.”
My low command made her stop, uncertainty flickering in her eyes.
“I want to unwrap you myself.”
She rolled up to her knees, putting her at the edge of the bed. “I want to do the same with you.” She stroked her hands over my shoulders, then worked one button at a time. By the time she reached the last one, my dick was throbbing so bad that I was afraid the act of unzipping my pants would make me come.
She pushed the garment off my shoulders and down my arms. The shirt fluttered to the floor. Her lips parted. “Oh my.”
I kept in shape, doing manual labor in exchange for food and lodging on my travels. But growing up hauling hay bales, riding horses, and working cattle hadn’t hurt either.
She spread her hands over my chest, her nails scraping over the chest hair I’d never thought twice about until now. It was enough to cover my pecs with a trail disappearing below my waistband. Was she used to manicured men? I’d never taken a razor to anywhere on my body other than my face, and sometimes even that didn’t get a shave for months.
“You’re so . . . manly,” she breathed, like I was some rare specimen she’d thought was a myth. She poked my biceps. “Those are real muscles.”
“As opposed to . . .”
King's Treasure (Oil Kings Book 3) Page 3
