Chapter 12: The Wedding Night

Cade took me home in his car with the window up and his hand on the gearshift.

He didn't touch me, and he didn't speak, and I watched the city go by without seeing it.

"I never told her where I went," I said at last.

"I know."

"She had me followed. Or she followed me herself."

"Or someone drove past my street and told her." His voice was even. "We'll deal with it. Not tonight."

"Why not tonight?"

"Because tonight you're my wife," he said, "and I want you to have one evening that isn't about them."

He parked in the garage under his house and came around to open my door.

I stood in his hall for the second time that week.

The lamp was on, and the wall where he had held me was only a wall, and the quiet was thick enough to feel.

My whole body knew what it wanted.

"I'm not shaking," I said.

"No."

"I'm not angry either. I'm just tired of being careful."

He looked at me for a long moment with his hands at his sides.

"Tell me what you want, Ciara."

It wasn't a question.

It was an order, softly given, and it went straight through me.

"I want you to take me upstairs," I said, "and I want you to stop being so damn polite."

His reserve shattered.

He lifted me against him and kissed me, and the kiss tasted like coffee and wanting and ten days of holding back.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and bit his lip, and he growled.

He carried me up the stairs, and the door to his bedroom crashed against the wall.

He set me on the edge of the bed and knelt between my knees and pulled my jacket off my shoulders.

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