Trying to keep calm, I do the only thing that comes to mind and pull her into me tighter, my arms locked around her. She responds in kind, her arms reaching around me so we’re in a full-on swaying embrace. The closeness is foreign but gives me a small crackle of excitement deep inside me.
I chance a look over Molly’s shoulder and sure enough… that fuck Riley is scrutinizing us over the rim of his glass; staring hard at our every move. “God dammit, what am I doing wrong, here?” I grumble. “He’s still watching us, and he’s not buying it for shit.”
Molly’s quiet for a moment, still swaying along with me until the song starts to fade out. “We’ll figure it out,” she finally says.
I straighten up to look at her. “How do you figure?”
She raises a shoulder. “What choice do we have?”
As if everyone in the room has decided to reinforce her point, a faint tinkling of glasses sounds before erupting into a voluminous clinking all around us.
I haven’t been to many weddings, but I know what this means. I gaze at Molly, who has soft eyes and a resigned smirk.She tilts her chin up to signal the go ahead, and I bring my mouth down on hers.
In the judge’s chambers, I was focused on making our kiss appropriate but believable. With the prying eyes of half the town and that intrusive fuck Riley on us, I’m intent ononlythe believable part. Palming the back of Molly’s hair, I let my fingers get lost in the silky tresses and let our lips skim each other at first. Hers are smooth like rose petals, and I press for more.
The tinkling glasses give way to applause and cheers, and my mouth opens against Molly’s, taking the kiss deeper. I vaguely register my brothers whooping at me to“get some”but their voices vanish when our tongues touch, and something deep inside me awakens. The first gentle flames of a reverent fire kindle to life as Molly’s arms wind around my neck, and I pull her tighter against me.
This is not what I was expecting and sure as hell not just a few hours in. The kiss goes on longer than I expected as my mouth can’t seem to get enough of hers. The background noise dins out, and the abrupt sound of a few throats clearing is what finally gets my attention.
When Molly and I carefully and slowly pull apart, I see it in her eyes too. We both thought we knew what we were jumping into with this marriage. In reality, neither of us had a clue.
14
MOLLY
I’ve gathered enough about Wolf in the short time I’ve known him to understand that this isn’t about feelings or romance for him. And I definitely told myself it wasn’t about that for me.
This kiss, however, has me rethinking that conviction completely. The song ends, and onlookers coo at our shared moment as Wolf and I continue to hold each other. Something needs to break the trance as I fight the urge to touch my lips and see if it really happened or to rise on my toes and kiss him again. Because in this very heartbeat, I would crawl through hot coals to be lost in another kiss with him, and that can’t happen—not here and not now when neither of us has a grasp on what’s going on. Thankfully, guests are carrying on with their own interactions.
With my peripheral vision, I catch sight of someone approaching. The tall, dark, and rugged man is the brother who likes muffins. Similar to Wolf, he’s dressed up but only so much in dark slacks and a blue shirt that’s not buttoned all the way to the top. “Wolf, mind if I have a dance with your bride?”
The hard look Wolf gives his brother before silently stalking off doesn’t come as a complete surprise. He’s such an enigma when other people are around, like he’s doing his best to fade into obscurity.
Forest reaches out to bring me into a respectful dance space, and while we’re not square in the middle of everyone, several heads still swivel my way.
Great…
“You know, I knew our marriage would come as a surprise to a number of people, but I thought the news would make its way around the area in increments, not all at once.” I voice my agitation out loud for the sake of filling the space between us.
“Sorry, that’s kind of our fault.” Forest looks around sheepishly before centering his brown eyes back on me. “Our housekeeper Dana—she means well, I promise,” he explains and the tenderness in his voice speaks to how beloved a family member Dana must be, blood or not. “When she heard what was happening, she was too excited for Wolf to keep it to herself. Unfortunately, when she was at the salon…” His eyes roll with a sense of contempt, and I feel myself joining him in that feeling.
“Why is it such a big deal, anyway? I mean other than the regular big deal of people getting married?”
“It’s Wolf,” he supplies, like that should answer my question.
It’s no secret that Wolf can be a closed-off grump, but other than that, what would be so interesting? “What do you mean?”
He lets out a sigh through his nose as he looks to the sky. Clearly, he’s trying to find the right words. “He’s just always been…offbeat. He’s been independent from the start. Like when he and the others were small, he was always perfectly content to play or explore on his own. He didn’t need anyone else to entertain him.”
“I think you mean didn’twantthat,” I amend his analysis. “At least when it comes to present day Wolf.”
He lets out a chuckle. “It’s definitely turned into that. He was just never interested. Hawk and River—and sometimes me—would hassle him about it. We never understood it. For me, it was a case of wanting to spend time and get to know my brother. For the other two, I think they were just little shits who couldn’t accept their brother being different from them.”
“So you’re the oldest?”
He nods. “By nine years for the twins. They were supposed to be it, and then River was anoops.”
I feel a small smile softly light up my face. “I would’ve loved to have siblings,” I convey.
