Chapter 4: The Wedding Night

The elevator doors had barely closed before he kissed me.

My back hit the mirrored wall.

His hands were on my waist, and the beading on my dress pressed small hard dots into my palms.

"Fifty-two floors," Rowan said against my mouth. "You have until the top to tell me no."

"I'm not going to tell you no."

"Say it anyway, if you mean it."

"I mean yes, Rowan."

He made a low sound in his chest.

The elevator opened on a suite with the whole city in its windows.

He walked me backward through the room with his hands working at the buttons down my spine.

There were forty-one.

I felt every one as he undid it.

"Delilah's dress," I said, and laughed shakily.

"Mine," he said. "Right now it's mine."

The gown slid to the floor in a heap of silk.

I stood in my slip and nothing else, size fourteen and shaking, with the lamps of Chicago on my skin.

He looked at me for a long moment.

I started to cross my arms.

"Don't," he said.

His voice had gone rough.

I was twenty-five and he was thirty-one, and no man had ever looked at me like that.

"I watched you carry trays at the engagement dinner. Do you know what I thought about?"

My face burned.

"No," I said.

"This."

He lifted me against him.

I wrapped my legs around his waist, and he carried me to the bed and lowered me onto it.

His tuxedo jacket landed on the carpet.

His shirt followed.

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