She smiles. “That would be as good of a place as any.”
“Wait,” I say.
Concern flashes through Oliver’s gaze as it snaps to me and I realize, with all our false starts, he probably thinks I’ve changed my mind again.
“I just …” I grimace at the tugging sensation in my stitches as I press myself up from the chair. He reaches for me, steadying me on my feet. “I don’t really need that, and … I want to really be here for this, you know?”
He smiles, his gaze blazing into mine. “Yeah, I know.”
“Go ahead,” I say with a nod at the paper in his hand.
He lets go of me with the hand that’s holding the paper, but continues to support me with the other. He studies the paper for a moment, then looks into my eyes. “I know this isn’t how we pictured this,” he starts, then clears his throat. He glances at his paper and shakes his head, shoving it in his pocket. He takes both of my hands, and his gaze becomes so intense I can feel the heat radiating out of it. “You. There’s only one of you and you know how I am when there’s something I want. But this is different. You are different. Somehow, when I wasn’t paying attention, want turned into need, and now I can’t imagine a life without you in it. I don’t know what kind of life that would be, I only know it wouldn’t be the one I was meant to live. I will love you with my whole self every day I’m on this earth. And then, after I’m gone, I’ll love you some more. Before is before. What’s past can’t be changed. But from this moment forward I swear to you, nothing else will eclipse my love for you. Nothing else matters. We matter. This.” He brings my hand up and kisses the backs of my fingers. “Forever.”
Ann Marie smiles and turns to me. “Is there something you wanted to say to Oliver?”
I stand here staring, totally unable to find words. “Wow,” finally slips out, and Ulie giggles.
“I didn’t … have time to prepare or anything, but …” I swallow and lift my eyes back to Oliver’s. “This whole thing is crazy—where we came from and how we got here, to this moment. I know that. But I also wouldn’t change any of it. Well …” I say with a nervous chuckle, looking down at my robe and pressing a hand to my side, ”except maybe the part that put me in the hospital for my wedding.” His hand tightens in mine and I find his gaze again, warm and deep. I let myself sink right into it, bathe in it. Live in it. “I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but that’s the thing. I don’t really want to. Every day with you is an adventure. I want our lives to be that—a shared adventure. I love you. As wrong as that is for so many reasons that are out of our control, I know it’s the most right thing I’ve ever done. So … me. There is only one me, and if you want me, I’m yours. Forever.”
I’m so lost in Oliver that I don’t really hear anything Ann Marie says after that. When she coaxes me to say I do, I do. And then Oliver’s devouring me with a soul kiss that I feel in every cell of my body.
“Look at this, y’all!” Alma shouts, lifting out from under the wheelchair a bag that I didn’t know was there. She produces half a dozen barf pans with string tied through the holes on the rims. As she and Adri tie them to the back of the wheelchair they hatch the plan of a reception in the cafeteria.
Ann Marie signs the marriage certificate, then hands it to Ulie and Grant to sign as witnesses. “I’ll take care of getting this to the county clerk’s office,” she says, shaking each of our hands.
When I look for Polly, I find her sitting in the middle pew, crying into a tissue.
Adri motions Oliver into the wheelchair and he pulls me gently into his lap. Alma wheels us down the hall, making tuba and trombone sounds with her mouth like a New Orleans wedding parade while the barf pans rattle on the floor behind us. By the time we make it to the cafeteria, I’m pressing on my side and laughing so hard I’m sure I’m going to rupture my stitches.
Ulie and Adri go to the counter. Adri’s back a minute later with drink cups for the soda fountain that she hands out.
“Cupcakes all around!” Ulie shouts, holding up a plate with a dozen cupcakes on it. She hands me a cupcake. “Feed your groom!”
I’m still in Oliver’s lap and I turn to look at him. “What do you think, naughty or nice?”
“I’ll take naughty every time, Cheetah,” he says, low in my ear. And the spark in his eyes tightens my groin.
I break the cupcake in half and hand him a chunk. “Same time?”
“One,” he says.
“Two,” I say.
“Three!” Sherm, Ulie, Adri, Chuck, and Alma yell.
Cupcake comes at me, but Oliver stops short of smashing it in my face. I don’t return the favor. “You’re not going to break me,” I say, licking frosting off his lips.
He leans close and his gaze burns into mine. “I’m saving that for later.”
The purr in his voice turns all my insides to lava, and I close my eyes with the rush.
When I open them and look up, Wes is standing in the doorway, watching us.
Oliver’s eyes follow mine and his full lips press into a tight line.
“I’ll be right back,” I say, then take my IV bag and shuffle over to Wes.
“They said I’d find you down here,” he says, his eyes scanning the room occupied by six of his charges. When they land on Oliver, he nods and adds, “Congratulations, by the way.”
“Thank you.”
“I just wanted to tell you, I got word from DOJ earlier. They’re leaving the call as to whether to relocate you or not up to my discretion.”
I know him well enough by now to read his expression. That and the caution in his voice tell me there’s more. “What aren’t you telling me?”
He takes a deep breath then blows it out slowly. “Even if we decide it’s safe here, they want us to separate you and Oliver from the others. They think it would be prudent to send you two back to Omaha.”
I look over my family, among which I now count Adri, Chuck, and Polly. “What do you think?”
He scratches his head as his gaze follows mine. “Honestly … I can see their point.”
My stomach sinks through the floor. When I tried to leave my family behind for Oliver, it nearly killed me. But there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep them safe.
“But …” he continues after a beat. “I think it’s easier having you all in one place.”
I let the smile take over my face as I stretch up and kiss his cheek. “There is no way I can ever repay you for everything you’ve done for us. You’ve been incredible with my family.”
He gives an oh-shucks shrug. “Just doing my job.”
“And you’re amazing at it. Don’t let shooting me make you doubt that. It was my fault.”
He nods, but I can tell he doesn’t believe it. He gazes over the gathered crowd. “You belong together.” His eyes find mine again. “All of you.”
I give his hand a squeeze and head back to my new groom. He settles me gently into his lap in the wheelchair just as Ulie breaks out her phone and snaps a shot. “For your wedding album,” she says with a grin.
“I’ll get one of all of you,” Alma says, reaching for Ulie’s phone.
Everyone arranges themselves around the wheelchair, and Sherm sits on the floor in front of us.
“Wait a minute,” Adri says, looking around. “Where’s Grant?”
I look around the room and don’t find him.
“He was texting someone when we were at the table a little while ago,” Rob says, moving toward the door.
Oliver unlocks the wheels of our chair and starts wheeling us after Rob into the hall. The other side of the hall is a wall of windows looking out over a small grassy area with a fountain, and beyond, the parking lot.
Grant is there, a petite redhead pinned between him and a beat-up maroon Saturn, his hands planted on the roof, one on either side of her shoulders. Despite their proximity, it looks like they’re fighting. After another minute, Grant pushes off the roof of the car. His fists are bunched at his sides and he just stares at her for a long moment
before storming back into the building. When he finds us all standing here, staring at him, he lowers his head and elbows past into the cafeteria. He grabs a cupcake off the plate and drops into a seat, devouring half of it in a single bite.
“What?” he says when we all follow him in and watch him chew.
“Who was that?” I ask.
He gives his head a shake and his eyes spark with the first real sign of life I’ve seen there in months. “Someone I never saw coming.”
We’ve got so much on our plate right now that we don’t need Grant bringing any more down on us, but I know saying that to him would be hypocritical. Because no one has brought this family more angst than me. I glance at Rob, who gives me a meaningful look. We’ll have to ferret out what’s going on with our younger brother at some point, but not right now.
We snap our shots, some of the whole group and others of just the Delgados, then Sherm polishes off the last of the cupcakes.
“Alright, y’all! Party’s over,” Alma says. “Got to get the patient back to her room. She’s got recovering that needs to get done or Doc won’t let her go home tomorrow.”
She wheels me up the hall, the barf pans rattling out a rhythm on the floor behind us and Oliver walking beside me, holding my hand.
“So, where is home?” I ask him.
“It sure as hell isn’t going to be Nebraska,” he answers.
“Rob’s talking about staying here. Wes says we can too. What do you think?”
His eyes flash down at me. “I think maybe the man’s not a total jackass after all.”
“Which one?” I ask with a smile.
“Both.”
Chapter 29
Oliver
I’m not supposed to be here. Visiting hours are long over. But about an hour ago, the nurse came in and removed Lee’s IV from the back of her hand. She slapped a bandage on, then whispered something in her hear. Lee blushed and the nurse hummed “Here Comes the Bride” as she taped a QUARANTINE: DO NOT ENTER sign on the door and closed it.
I guess they’re not going to deprive us of our wedding night.
The TV’s on and I’m in the bed next to Lee on my back, one hand behind my head, the other around her shoulders. She’s on her right side, curled against me. My shirt is open and she’s tracing patterns on my chest. And even though her fingertips only stroke about four square inches of skin, I feel her everywhere all at once. It’s an overpowering sense of rightness that seems to swell out of my chest and envelop both of us, binding us into a single unit with a single life and a single heart.
Her fingertips brush over my skin with the barest of contact and I shudder. I pick up her hand and weave my fingers into hers, bringing it to my mouth and rubbing my lips across the backs of her fingers. “Before, in Chicago … was it always your plan to find some way to hurt me?”
She nods against my shoulder. “The years right after Mama died were really hard. Papa wasn’t shy about tallying up body counts at the dinner table. I know it was a bloodbath on both sides, and with every loss on our side, Papa got angrier. Your family wasn’t human. He said you were the enemy and every single one of you deserved to die. The only frame of reference I had was my father. I believed him.”
“But you didn’t try to kill me.”
There’s a long second where her breath feathers against my skin. “I couldn’t have even if I’d wanted to.”
I can’t help myself. I give her my most devious grin. “Because I turned out to be devastatingly charming and a god in bed.”
“Still modest, I see,” she murmurs with an eye roll.
“Need me to prove it?” I say, rolling her onto her back and pinning her beneath all two hundred twenty pounds of me, knowing she won’t back down from the challenge.
She lifts an eyebrow, challenging me back. “I do.”
I wedge my knees between hers and begin to slide down her body. I pull the tie on her wedding robe loose with my teeth and open it, laying her bare and at my whim. She rewards me with a throaty moan, all sex and desire, when my fingers slick through her folds and sink deep into her core. I withdraw my wet fingers and glide them to the root of her world.
“How many times would you like me to prove it?” I ask when she moans again. “Four? Five?” Before she can answer, I replace my fingers with my tongue, slicking the tip over her clit. She grasps fistfuls of my hair and rolls her hips, giving me more of herself. “Just tell me when to stop.”
I watch her watching me, never breaking eye contact, and it’s so fucking hot, the way her lips part, her skin flushes, and her lids fall to half-mast each time she gasps. She doesn’t tell me to stop and I don’t, leaving four and five in the dust. By the time she yanks me up her body by the hair, I’ve brought her at least five levels down the evolutionary scale.
But I’m not done with her yet.
I open my slacks and sink deep inside her, groaning out my satisfaction. Nothing else in the universe feels like this—like being plugged in. I move slowly, cognizant of her injuries, but getting off on torturing her just a little. I know this is torture because of the desperate little whimpers that leave her parted lips. I know what my Cheetah needs. She likes to be touched softly but fucked hard.
Finally, she can’t stand it anymore. She grabs my ass and pulls me deep inside her. Just where I want to be. Where I want to stay. So I give her what she needs. I sink myself to the root, over and over, knowing just where to find her G-spot. The first time she comes, she bites the pillow to smother her cries. The second time, she doesn’t have the presence of mind, so I devour her moans with my mouth, not wanting even that tiny part of her pleasure to escape me. I want all of her. She owns me and everything she is is mine. She climaxes twice more before I finally give in to my release.
In the hall, something crashes. There’s the squeak of rubber soles on linoleum. Voices, first a low murmur and then a shout to someone farther down the hall. Something metal rattles on a cart as it’s being wheeled past our door.
But we’re in our own cocoon. None of it matters. We lay here tangled in each other, catching our breath, feeling the reality between us and the static charge of our connection.
When she has her breath, she smiles against my neck. “And they say married couples never have sex.”
I lift my head and look down at her, feeling that insatiable need rising up inside me again. “We’re the exception to every other rule. I say we blow the doors off that one too.”
She digs her heels into my ass and I start to move inside her again. This part we have down pat. It’s all the other parts that are going to be a challenge.
But challenges are what keep life interesting.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My most heartfelt thanks goes to my family for their steadfast support, the team at New Leaf Literary, including, but not limited to, my omnipotent uber-agent, Suzie Townsend, and my fabulous editor at Penguin, Jennifer Fisher.
Lisa Desrochers is the USA Today bestselling author of the On the Run series including Outside the Lines, the A Little Too Far series and the YA Personal Demons trilogy. She lives in northern California with her husband, two very busy daughters, and Shini the tarantula. There is never a time that she can be found without a book in her hand, and she adores stories that take her to new places and then take her by surprise.
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