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“You are deranged,” she muttered. “You know that?”
“So I’ve been told.” I shrugged. “And I’m only forty. By all accounts, that should be younger than what you’re used to.”
“Not by much,” she countered. “The oldest guy I ever conned was forty-three, so don’t consider yourself special.”
We had seventeen years between us. It probably was a little deranged that when I thought about her, my cock swelled to a level of discomfort I hadn’t experienced in years. So far, I’d succeeded in redirecting my thoughts from nature to nurture, but it wouldn’t always be so simple. Everything about Gypsy exuded sensuality on a level I hadn’t experienced before. She was the mysterious and exotic creature that all other women aspired to be, and the one who men thought only existed in their dreams. But to me, she could only ever be a temporary responsibility.
Jessica knocked on my door to alert us to the presence of the officiant. Rex had already been given my instructions earlier, and he came prepared. Dressed as casually as possible in jeans and a tee shirt, he shot one look at my bride and arched his brows, letting out a low whistle.
She glared, and I laughed. Rex worked in a drive-through chapel off the Strip, and he was about as classless as they came.
He clapped and rubbed his hands together. “We ready to do this? I have two hookers handcuffed to my bed at home, and I’m paying them by the hour.”
“Really?” Gypsy flayed me with her eyes. “This guy? Could you get any lower?”
I walked around the desk to join her with a smirk. “Only the best for you, baby doll.”
She blew out a breath and tossed her hat on the chair behind us. “This is going to be a long fucking marriage.”
ALTHOUGH I RECOGNIZED REX WAS probably an actual officiant, I also suspected he was intentionally making this ceremony beyond awful. For whatever reason, Lucian seemed hell-bent on making this wedding that he wanted a completely miserable event I would soon hope to forget.
Our half-drunk—and I suspected high as well—officiant stumbled over the words he read from a leather-bound booklet in his hands. If he really did this for a living, God help the poor souls who had to endure this and stamp it into their memories for all of eternity.
“Is he on something?” I asked halfway through the opening statement.
Lucian shot me a dark look and shook his head. Rex was the one to answer.
“High on life, baby. These vows are new to me, believe it or not.”
Lucian shifted at the admission, and I took notice. Did he pick them out? I thought it would be in my best interest to listen carefully if that was the case, and what I heard surprised me.
I expected sleaze, but what Rex recited was more traditional. He talked about honor and obeying, of course, but he also recited lines that were not quite the norm.
“Do you, Lucian, promise to protect her and always do what’s best for her, even if she may not like it?”
I looked at the man who was about to be my husband, and a weird sensation took root in my gut. He had never been anything but dead serious so far, and I suspected the same was true now.
“I do.”
Goose bumps broke out along my arms, and I tried to regain my bearings. Something about that line shook me to my core. I could still remember a time when all I ever wanted was a protector. A dark avenger. Someone who would come and save us from our life. But I wasn’t a little girl anymore, and I’d been saving myself for a long time.
“And do you, Gypsy, promise to listen and trust that Lucian has your best intentions at heart in all matters, large and small?”
I stared into the inky pools of his eyes, wondering what I was missing. It didn’t make sense to me. None of this made any sense. I didn’t want to respond because everything about this was a lie. But I thought of Birdie and what would happen if either of us went to prison. I imagined the devastation I would see in her eyes when the jig was up, and our lives were officially over. That was all the confirmation I needed to spur me on, and I recited the vows back word for word.
The charade continued with promises of honesty and loyalty in the face of struggles yet to come. Every line felt like it was sealing my fate with some form of dark voodoo I’d never be able to escape, but the truth was, I worried that it was Lucian I’d never escape.
There was already an end in sight. Two years, for better or worse. But it felt like so much more than that. It felt like at that moment, I was surrendering myself to some greater force that would change my life forever.
