Page 61 of Runaway Bride’s Husband

Oh, hell.

Maggie looked up at me and I could practically hear the gears turning in her head. She was about to make a joke, probably about the graveyard, but I looked back at her and saw that same happiness on her face from before.

Suddenly, I couldn’t stand the thought of letting one awkward moment put a dent in the first genuinely good day she’d had in weeks, so I turned, leaned down, and kissed her. It was supposed to be a peck, but the moment my mouth touched hers, my brain evaporated, turning a harmless press of one set of lips into another from something we could laugh about after into a kiss I’d never forget.

Maggie went still, but not even a full second later, she kissed me back, one of her hands sliding up my chest to rest against my heart. Her soft lips moved with mine, the scent of her faint, but so intoxicating that I felt drunk.

For one stupid minute, I forgot about Henry, and Daniel, and that we weren’t actually rehearsing for our wedding. In fact, I forgot about everything but what it felt like to have her body flush against me, my mouth devouring hers like I was branding her as mine.

But she’s not.

The unwelcome reminder finally burrowed itself into whatever part of my brain was still functioning, and immediately, I pulled away. Maggie’s cheeks were bright pink, but her eyes were dark and fixed on my mouth.

My pulse kicked hard against my veins. The urge to kiss her again was so overwhelming that I rolled with it. One of my hands was already on the move, slowly reaching for her hip when Henry clapped his hands.

“Oh, I just love love, you know?”

I jerked back like I’d been caught shoplifting while Maggie blinked like she’d only just come crashing back to earth. As she turned back to Henry, I took a few steps closer to the wall and pretended to be inspecting the craftsmanship, but in reality, I was desperately trying to hide a much bigger problem than the fact that it was suddenly comically obvious just how much I wanted a woman I was never even supposed to have touched in the first place.

CHAPTER 26

MAGGIE

After spending much longer at the estate than we’d planned, it was pretty late when we pulled up to the closest hotel we’d been able to find on Ryan’s navigation app. While he talked about why it was better to sleep over than trying to drive all the way back to the city in the dark, I just stared out the window, still thinking about that kiss.

For his part, Ryan already seemed to have forgotten about it. As soon as we’d broken apart, he’d marched away and started babbling about the logistics of covering the wall in flowers, and by the time he and Henry had ironed out his concerns, it had been like it hadn’t happened at all.

He hadn’t mentioned it or even looked at me in a way that made me wonder if that was what he was thinking about. Back to being all business, he’d taken the lead with Henry, evidently intent on making sure that if he was going to try throwing the most elaborately outlandish wedding in history, there would actually be vendors available to help.

Eventually, when we’d climbed into the car, finally alone again, I’d thought he might bring it up, but nope. He’d been too busy listing the dangers of driving on a dark road after sunset.

“I think they’re closed,” he said as he parked in a spot I’d assumed was near the front desk. “Google said they were open, but that doesn’t look like a hotel that’s accepting guests to me.”

I blinked myself out of my thoughts and realized he was right. No light streamed out from inside, every window completely dark. When I turned to actually look around the parking lot, I realized the same was true for it. Every spot around us was totally empty.

“Maybe it’s haunted,” I suggested lamely, unable to help myself from stealing a quick glance at his lips.

Gosh, the things those lips did to me.

Honestly, I’d never felt anything like it. Ryan kissed like a man on a mission from Venus herself. Like his only aim was to make a girl feel like she was the only woman in the world—and to melt her panties at the same time.

Every other time I’d been kissed, there had always been some measure of hesitation, but not him. The guy had kissed me like he knew exactly what he wanted and left me with zero doubts that I was it.

Obviously, that wasn’t true. It must just be the way he always kissed, but dear lord above, I would love to be the woman who got to kiss him for the rest of her life. But he hadn’t just known, so clearly, I wasn’t that woman, and besides, he wasn’t who my dad had chosen for me either.

“Not everything is haunted, Maggie,” he said, and my gaze snapped back up to his.

I sighed. “Maybe not everything, but this hotel sure looks like it is.”

“Should I at least try to call them before we head home?”

I glanced back at the dark building. “You can try, but I doubt there’s anyone in there.”

“Yeah.” He followed my gaze with his own and dropped his head back against the seat. “I guess it’s a sign we should make the drive back to the city.”

“Or,” I said quickly, just as his shoulder tensed to shove the car back into gear. “We could go to the cottage. It’s only about thirty minutes away.”

Ryan’s gaze slowly returned to mine, with a silver shimmer in it from the moonlight filtering into the car. “I’m not particularly eager to actually break in, you know.”