It’s gaudy and smells like cigarette smoke in here, but I don’t care.
Dakota opts for no flowers but picks out a veil that clips into her hair and drapes down to her shoulders.
“You never dreamed of having a big wedding?” We wait at the back of the chapel for the couple in front of us to finish their ceremony.
“No.” Her voice is quiet. “When my mom died, I struggled to picture a wedding day without her there with me, you know?”
“I do in a weird sort of way. Can you imagine what my dad would say if I called him and told him to hop in his jet for a Vegas elopement?”
She cups my cheek. “It’s his loss. You’re a good man.”
When it’s our turn, Dakota and I walk up to the front and stand looking at one another as the guy talks about love and marriage. I’m only half listening because I’m lost in her. She’s gorgeous. The black dress of my dreams and that white veil clipped into her red hair. Her cheeks are flushed, and she smiles at me so big that my heart thumps loudly in my chest.
Mine. One word that sums up exactly how I feel about her. Mine, not because I want to keep her all to myself (though for the rest of the night that’s exactly what I plan to do), but because there’s no piece of her that I don’t want to know. I want all her words and every inch of her body. Her thoughts, her dreams, all her fantasies. I want to know them, and I want to make them come true for her.
The man stops talking and looks at me. Oh, right, that’s my cue.
“I do.” I wink at my bride.
He starts in on his spiel again, this time facing Dakota. I hold my breath. This is it. It didn’t occur to me until right now that this summer might not have been as epic for her as it has been for me. Maybe she doesn’t want to be mine and everything that comes with it.
“I do,” she says and bites her lip like she’s trying to keep herself from laughing.
I kiss her before the guy finishes pronouncing us husband and wife, then pick her up and carry her out of the chapel to recessional music.
Outside underneath the lights of Vegas, I place her feet on the ground. My chest feels so full staring at her and seeing her mirror back everything I’m feeling in her expression.
I lean down and whisper, “So much better than a threesome.”
She throws her arms around my neck and kisses me. Neither of us seems to be able to stop. We’re a smiling, giggling, kissing spectacle as we hurry back to the hotel.
“Oh my god, did we just do that for real?” she asks when we get into the room, and she sees herself in the mirror.
“Yep, wifey.” I drop a kiss on her shoulder.
“Husband.” Her fingers work the buttons on my shirt, and she slides it off my shoulders. I hold still as she undresses me at a slow, torturous pace. She runs her fingernails down my stomach and cups my balls. They’re heavy with lust, and my dick leaks as she starts to get on her knees.
“Uh-uh,” I say. “Turn around and place your hands on the window.”
Her eyes spark with desire. She does as I command, and I make her wait, popping the champagne and bringing the bottle with me.
“Open,” I say as I get close. Her perfect red lips part. I take a long drink and then spit it into her mouth. It drips down her face and onto her cleavage.
I push up her dress until the black material bunches at her waist and drop to my knees to place a kiss on her ass while I work down her panties. I cover myself with a condom and stand tall.
“Can I borrow your wedding ring, wifey?”
She giggles and pulls the hair tie off her ring finger.
I place the tie around her wrists, smiling at the red rubber band. “Hands together on the window.”
A fucking hair tie as a wedding band. Yeah, she’s definitely going to need something a little flashier, but it was the perfect solution at the moment and fits us somehow. That little hair tie has seen some things.
She moans as I push inside of her from behind.
“All mine.” I nip at her neck around the lacy veil, enjoying the feel of its cheap, scratchy material as I pump in and out of her.
It may have been a drunken decision, but it feels like the best one I’ve ever made.
I wake with a champagne hangover and a smile on my face. Dakota is wrapped around me, her red hair fanning out on my chest. Her dress never made it all the way off. Neither did her shoes. We were a fucking mess last night.
I grab my phone to check the time and then snap a picture of her long legs tangled up with mine and her hand, complete with new finger accessory, in view on my chest.
She stirs with a cute little groan.
“Wakey, wakey, wifey.” I place a kiss on the crown of her head. “Gotta leave for the airport soon.”
She curls into my chest.
“Oh, my head is pounding.” Her voice is husky with sleep. “What the hell did we do last night?”
“Just the usual.” I slip from bed and grab some Tylenol and water for her as she sits up. “Drank our asses off, almost had a threesome, and then decided to get hitched instead.”
I kiss her and drop both medicine and water on the bed in front of her. Her lips don’t move under mine, and when I stand tall she’s staring at me with a weird expression.
“Did you say got hitched?”
I point at her head, and she runs a hand over the veil as if she can’t believe what she’s feeling. She gasps audibly, rushes to her feet, and goes to the mirror.
“You don’t remember?” I sit on the edge of the bed as I pull my T-shirt over my head.
“I remember drinking Rumple Minze, then dancing, and standing in line at another club…” She trails off, rubbing the lace of the veil as she studies the floor. “I wanted to bring that girl back for a threesome, and then…” She looks at her finger and the red rubber band on it and squeezes her eyes shut.
“Oh my gosh, Johnny.” She pulls the veil from her hair. “How are you not freaking out.”
I shrug because I don’t know how to answer that. I knew she’d been drinking, but I guess I didn’t realize how drunk she was. I was drunk, but I knew what I was doing. I’d do it all again, too.
“Last night was incredible. I wouldn’t change any of it.”
“You want to be married to me? We aren’t even together. I mean not really. This was supposed to be a summer fling.”
“I told you last night. I want you to be mine.”
“I think we skipped a few steps. I could be your girlfriend, for starters.”
“Girlfriend, wife.” I shrug.
“Seriously, Maverick. What are we going to do? You are a professional hockey player who has assets to protect, and I’m…. Oh god, my internship.”
“Breathe, baby.” I rub her shoulders. “I’m not worried about my assets. You wouldn’t even let me buy you a real ring last night. I doubt you’re going to clear out my bank account when I’m not looking. And this actually helps your internship. They can’t fire you if you’re married to a player.”
She kneads her forehead with two fingers. “I know this is hard for you to understand, but I need them to believe I’m the right person for the job because of my work and not because I tricked some hot hockey guy into letting me work his endorsement and then married him to keep my job.”
“You and I both know that isn’t how it went down.”
“But that’s what they’ll think.”
“I’ve never cared much what other people think.”
Her eyes fall closed again, and her chest rises and falls with a deep breath. “We should keep this between us until we figure out what to do.”
“All right.” Little bit of a kick in the gut to see her second-guess being with me. “When we get back, we’ll figure it out together, okay? Let me bask in my newlywed glow a little longer.”
“I can’t believe you’d want to be married to me.” She melts in my arms, and I hold on tight.
“Easily the best decision I ever made.”
We get back Sunday afternoon and l
ie around the rest of the night. Monday morning, Dakota is up with the sun, lacing her sneakers and taking Charli for a run. She hasn’t said anything else about our Vegas wedding, but I know she’s still spinning.
I’m making her smoothie when she walks through the front door, sweaty and red-faced. She lets Charli off the leash, and my girls move toward me.
“For you.” I hand her a glass and then set Charli’s food bowl on the floor. “And for you.”
“Thanks.” She sets it on the counter. “I need to catch my breath first. I’m out of shape. It hurts.”
“When you ran track, what distance did you do?”
“The eight hundred was my best event. High school state record.”
I grin. “How come you quit?”
She shrugs, picks up the glass, and moves into the living room to sit in the leather recliner. Avoiding. Interesting. I always assumed she quit because being a college athlete is a lot of fucking work.
“Kota.” I sit across from her on the couch and kick up my feet on the coffee table. “Wifey.”
She glares at the last endearment.
“Come on, tell me. I’ve never heard you talk about it, but you obviously still love to run. Was it too much with school? Bad coach?”
She meets my gaze on my last guess.
“Bad coach?” I repeat.
“Good coach, bad human.”
I raise my brows, waiting for her to elaborate.
She sighs. “If I tell you, you have to promise to never mention it again. Ever.”
Charli trots in and lies at her feet.
“We’ll see.” I’m not promising anything until I know the details.
“When I was in high school, I had a close relationship with my track coach.”
Adrenaline starts coursing through me. I don’t know where this is going, but I already know I’m going to be pissed.
“He was good to me. He stayed late and came in on weekends to help me improve. He was young, in his midthirties, and all the girls thought he was hot. We called him Coach Hottie. God, we were so young and naive.” She stares into her lap.
I stay quiet, grinding down on my molars.
“One night after the last track meet of my senior year, he asked me to come to his office. Up until the very minute it started, I convinced myself that any romantic vibes I was getting from him were just my overactive teenage brain. Once he started undressing me, I don’t know; I can’t explain it. I was horrified and realized how stupid I’d been.”
My jaw feels like glass, and rage like I’ve never felt before builds in my chest. “The fucker raped you?”
“No.” Her voice hardens. “I stopped him before it went that far, but I was so ashamed. I totally flirted with him and was inappropriate, so I don’t blame him for thinking I wanted him, but you have to believe me when I say I never thought it would go anywhere.” Tears fill her eyes. “After my mom died, I was lost for a while. I didn’t even realize how lost I was until that very moment when I was confronted with how far I’d go to feel that type of attention from someone. Anyone. He made me feel special. I thought that he saw something in me. I was an okay runner at best when I started. Without him, I’m not sure I ever would have won any races. He even helped me get into Valley. My dad didn’t know anything about applying for colleges or financial aid, and he was still a mess too.”
“Of course I believe you. What happened was not your fault.”
“I know.” Her voice is too quiet, and she still doesn’t look at me.
“Bullshit.”
“Okay, fine, I’m working on it. I know that he was wrong, but what I did wasn’t right either.”
“And so you quit because you didn’t feel like you earned it?” I’m starting to get a feel for Dakota, who she is inside, why she’s so adamant that she prove herself with the Wildcats internship, and her desire to always be on an even playing field with her peers.
“I know it doesn’t make sense. I won those medals fair and square. I trained my ass off, but would I have done all of that if he hadn’t taken a special interest in me? And did he only do that because he wanted to sleep with me? I’m so embarrassed that I let it go that far. I didn’t want anything that he’d been a part of or that reminded me of how dumb I’d been. I thought when I got to Valley, I could put it behind me, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I didn’t deserve any of it.”
I sit with her in the chair, pulling her into my lap and smoothing a hand down her ponytail. She’s still slick with sweat and sticks to my bare chest. “I’m so sorry, baby.”
“Thank you.”
“I want to kill him. I hate that you quit something you love. I don’t even have to know you broke the state record to know you deserved it. You give your all to everything.”
“It turned out okay. I stopped running altogether for a while, then when I realized that just made me more miserable, I picked it back up. I still run almost every day, or I did until recently. I can’t seem to pry myself out of bed as easily these days.” Her lips tip into a half smile.
A memory floats back to me. “That was the prick we ran into when we were out running by your dad’s house.” I clench my hand into a fist.
“Yeah, that’s the first time I’d seen him since I graduated. They’ve been trying to get me to come back and be inducted into the Hall of Fame, and I just can’t bring myself to do it. I don’t want to face him.”
“As your husband, I will happily drive to Kansas and beat him with my hockey stick.”
“As my slam piece, I’m going to need you to play it a little cooler.”
“I’d run through hell and back for you, wifey.”
“I know.” She cups my cheek. “How about showering with me instead?”
34
Dakota
I’m assigned to tours at the arena with Reese for our second to last week at the Wildcats. We’re a good pair—him with tons of history about the team and me with experience leading groups. It’s good to be away from my desk, and I have very little time to overthink everything going on.
Namely, I am Mrs. Johnny Maverick. How weird is that? I haven’t told a soul. Not even Reagan.
Johnny plays it off like it’s no big deal. He asked me to give it a week and think about it, but what’s there to think about? We’ve been messing around for a month. We haven’t even said I love you, and he wants to be married?
I think a threesome might have been a saner choice. What’s the worst way that could have gone?
On Friday, Rhett and Sienna come to stay with us.
“It’s so good to see you.” I hug my friend.
“I can’t believe you’ve been this close all summer, and I’m just now seeing you.” She’s positively glowing. She’s so happy.
“We’re going to make up for it tonight.” I glance at Rhett. “Girls’ night.”
“Always stealing my girl away.”
“You’ve had her all to yourself for weeks.”
He smiles and looks at Sienna with hearts in his eyes. I love their love.
“Go drop off your stuff. I can’t wait to catch up,” I tell her.
She and Rhett take their stuff to my room, where they’re staying for the weekend. We were going to have them stay in Johnny’s room, but mine is cleaner since it’s used less. I guess we did only need one bed this summer.
My guy lies on the pink couch, something he only does when he’s trying to get my attention, and holds his arms out for me to join him. “Maybe you should repurpose this couch into a throw pillow or something.”
“I have to get ready. I’m taking Sienna to Wild’s, and I want to get there before it’s too busy to find a table.”
“That’s where I was going to take Rauthruss,” Johnny says, still wiggling around on the couch, trying to get comfortable.
“Called it.” I walk over to him, and he takes my hand in his, closing his eyes and smiling.
“Are you going to tell Sienna about…” He runs his thumb over the hair tie on my ring finger. Hi
s dark eyes open while he waits for my answer.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Probably not. I don’t want everyone to get in the middle of it when we haven’t even figured it out ourselves. Are you going to tell Rhett?”
“Not if you don’t want me to.”
“But you want to?”
“Yeah.” He shrugs. “It’s pretty epic news.”
He’s so all in with this, and I don’t understand it.
“You can tell him, but make him swear he will not tell Adam. If Reagan finds out from someone that isn’t me, she will show up here and beat me to death with a shoe.”
He chuckles. “She’d have to get through me.”
“Please. You’re the biggest softy ever.” I let him tug me down onto the couch with him. “She’d fake tears, and you’d be a goner.”
“I’m no softy,” he says, rolling his hips into me to show me how not soft he is.
Sienna and I walk to Wild’s, linking arms and chatting a mile a minute.
“Are you loving Minnesota?” she asks as we slide into a table with our drinks.
“I am, actually.”
“I’m so glad. Now you can move here, and I’ll have a friend.”
“A friend you haven’t seen in almost two months even though she’s been forty-five minutes away.”
“I know. I’m sorry. We have been so busy at the rink and…” She smiles. “Just hanging out at the new apartment.”
“How’s living together?”
“Amazing.” She gets that dreamy look on her face. They’re so in love.
“I’m happy for you.”
“Thanks.” She leans forward with her elbows on the table. “Now. I’ve waited an appropriate amount of time before harassing you for details, but spill! What is going on with you and Maverick?”
My eyes fall to the red rubber band looped around my finger, and I curl my hand so it’s out of view. “We’re hanging out.”
“Is it still just for the summer, or are you thinking it could be more serious?”
Wild Love (Campus Nights Book 4) Page 22
