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Emma snorted. “Doubtful.”
After being checked in, we were shuffled into the emptied courtroom where the justice of the peace waited. “The Castillo party?” he asked, checking the forms in his hand.
“Yes, sir,” I said. “I’m Angel, and this is my fiancée, Emma Hudson.”Fiancée. Like we’d had some kind of spectacular engagement or something.
The justice of the peace introduced himself as Darrel Waters, and then he beckoned us over so that we could sign the marriage license with our witnesses. After everything was signed, he arranged us so that Emma and I were looking at each other, holding hands. “Could we skip the ‘dearly beloved’ stuff?” I asked him, eyes still trained on Emma. The color was draining from her face; all of that bravado was failing.
Darrel chuckled. “Let’s just do the important bits, shall we?” he asked, good-naturedly. “Do you have the rings?”
I dug my mother’s ring out of my pocket. It was a delicate gold circle, simple but elegant. Omar and Lili were probably too young to remember when it graced her finger, but I wasn’t. No doubt it would look just as beautiful on Emma as it had on her. Maybe the weight of it wouldn’t kill her like it did my mother.
“No ring for you?” Darrel asked.
I shook my head. “Not just yet.” I smiled at him, warming it into something charming. Emma scoffed softly, and I squeezed her hands until I felt the bones rubbing together. I could see her fighting to keep her face neutral, and I eased off, still smiling.
“That’s becoming more and more common,” Darrel said with a sigh. “Young men just don’t appreciate tradition anymore.” He clapped his hands together. “Anyway, let’s get this show started.” He gestured to me. “Do you, Angel Castillo, take this woman, Emma Hudson, to be your lawful wedded wife, to love, honor, and cherish, through sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, for as long as you both shall live?”
I clenched my jaw so tightly that it ached. “I will,” I said.
“Place the ring on Emma’s finger and repeat after me: ‘With this ring, I thee wed.’”
I slipped the delicate band around her left ring finger. “With this ring, I thee wed.”
Emma’s eyes grew wet. I watched her throat work to swallow her emotions. “Now,” Darrel said, turning his smile to her. “Do you, Emma Hudson, take this man, Angel Castillo, to be your lawful wedded husband, to love, honor, and cherish, through sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, for as long as you both shall live?”
She sniffled, clearly miserable despite her doing her best to hide it. “I will.” The words rang out, loud and clear, and sealed our fate. I could practically hear the clattering of a prison door.
“By the power invested in me by the state of Florida, I pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your lovely bride, sir.”
Our gazes met, and for a split-second, I could tell that she didn’t think I would actually kiss her. She wasn’t challenging me to do it; there was just a relieved sort of look on her face, certain that Iwouldn’t. I smiled at her and knew it wasn’t the charming one I’d used on the justice of the peace; it was sharp and mean, and the hitch in her breathing shouldn’t make me smile more, but it did.
It’s just a kiss, I thought.It’s nothing. But when I leaned down and pressed my mouth to hers, I wasn’t expecting a bomb to detonate inside my gut. She was soft, and her lips tasted like some kind of sweetened lip-balm, and I couldn’t stop myself from reaching for her chin and tilting her just right so that I could lick into her mouth.
Emma gasped. Her fingers dug into my forearms, though whether she was anchoring herself to me, I couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t focus on much besides the sweet taste of her mouth — it was the same as her lips. My head swam with the knowledge that she tasted that good.
I could have stood there and kissed her for hours, days even, if it was not for the soft clearing of a throat. I jerked away and glared at my brother, who was looking far too amused. “You have something to say,pendejo?”
“Just a reminder that Padre wants to meet your new bride.”
Fuck. I turned back to Emma, who was looking at me in a dazed kind of way. She was my wife.Mine, my mind whispered darkly. Something dark unfurled in my chest and took up space in my lungs. Nothing had ever been solely mine before, and now I had a wife that was all mine. I reached out and touched her cheek; clarity sparked in her face, but I noticed that she didn’t wrench herself away from me. “Let’s go home.”
CHAPTER6
Angel
Once the papers were completely signed and filed, I led Emma back to the car. This time, she kept her arm in mine as we crossed the street back to where Omar had parked the Range Rover. She was quiet now, almost deflated in a way, but I knew that she wasn’t tamed.
Resigned, maybe, but not tamed.
I opened the door for her myself, and she climbed into the backseat without a look back over her shoulder.This may just work, I thought as I went around to the other side of the car. “What happened in there?” Lili asked, standing with her hand on the passenger door handle.
I glared at her. “I got married,” I said as if she were slow. “You did sign on the witness line, you know.”
She wanted to hit me, I could tell, and I grinned at her. “That was a hell of a kiss,” she said.
It was, but there was no way in hell that I was going to tell her that. Or anyone else, for that matter. “It was nothing,” I told her.
My sister scoffed. “A pretty intense nothing.”
