Page 26 of Hidden Obsession

“You don’t go out.” I winced, unable to stop myself from pointing out.

“I go to your gym.” His argument was flimsy. I shrugged.

“In the middle of the fucking night, man, when other mole people are there,” I responded.

“That isn’t true,” Lucas said. Vic shook his head.

“I go out.”

“No, you don’t,” the four of us said at the same time, and we all started to laugh.

“I just mean, maybe you falling for someone would be good for you. Make you more… human and less like the computers you hack.”

“I’m not like my computers.”

“No, he’s more like a robot,” Jonas mumbled. I snorted.

“Whatever… I just think—“ Victor kept talking, giving the reasons why Tray finding love would be better, but I couldn’t focus.

Not when my girl dressed in a pretty rust-orange dress started to walk towards me.

“Shit, he’s not even listening to me.”

“Maryanne, can you please ask my brother to pay more attention,” Vic whined.

“Shut the fuck up, Vic,” I muttered, taking her hand in mine and lifting it up to my lips. “You look beautiful today.” She blushed again and leaned in closer. My head dipped down to hear whatever she wanted to ask.

“Dance with me?” Her sweet request made my cock harden beneath the black slacks of the tux I’d been forced to wear as one of my brother’s groomsmen.

I walked my girl out to the middle of the dance floor just as a slow song started to play, something sultry I recognized from the last shift she’d worked at the Velvet Leopard. Her last official shift now that she was enrolled full time at the local college.

“Would you want this?” I asked, looking around at the formal ballroom filled to the brim with Kitty’s favorite flowers.

“What do you mean?”

“When we get married. You want it like this?” I asked.

“This formal? Would you want that?” she asked. I grinned at her, leaning close enough so my lips brushed the shell of her ear.

“You don’t answer daddy with another question, little flower. Unless you want a good spanking later,” I warned and felt her shudder and watched as the skin of her bare shoulder flared to life with gooseflesh.

“I don’t think so. It’s beautiful and it works for them, but I think I would want something a little more… intimate.”

“Intimate, huh? How intimate?” I felt her smile against my face.

“Elope?” She pulled away, and I masked any expression that might give me away. “I wouldn’t want my mom to feel guilty about not being able to help pay for things, and honestly? With you and me… I like keeping things about us just… between us. Is that selfish?”

“God, no, baby girl. We could do that.” Shit, she could have told me she wanted a five-hundred-guest wedding on the moon and I would have figured out a way to make it happen.

“Elopement,” I said out loud and smiled.

I could see that, too.

“A courthouse or… on a mountain. Maybe stay at a cabin for a honeymoon for a couple of days,” she suggested, her eyes dreamy.

“That’s doable,” I promised.

“But I would want a pretty dress.”