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She bit her lip and leaned forward. She reached for the top of her dress, and I was there in a heartbeat. I nudged Kane out of the way. My arm wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her back. "No, baby," I said low and deep in her ear.
She arched her neck to look back and scowl at me. "I wasn't gonna do it."
"Sure, Rebel. You were just faking it."
She spun around, and her mouth turned down in a frown. "Stop teasing me."
I wrapped my hands behind her back and pulled her close. She pressed her palms to my bare chest at first then pulled them away like she'd touched a hot stove.
"You're cute as fuck right now."
"I wasn't gonna show my boobs." She peeked up at me, checking to see if I believed her, which I didn't.
"No, you weren't because I wouldn't allow it."
Oh, that lit a fire in her eyes. "What if I wanted to do it?"
"I wouldn't allow it," I somewhat repeated.
She tried to back away, but I tugged her close, knocking her off balance so she was forced to brace her weight with her arms on my chest. "Since when do you allow me to do anything?"
"Since I married you."
"That's not real."
"Hush, baby. Your poker face is sucking again." She looked around, confused. No one here thought we were married, but I was just playing with her.
"Do your sister and brother think I'm married to Gavin?" I glanced at Sylvie, who was pretending not to watch us, but I'd seen her staring when I first pulled Wren aside. Julian was fully immersed in the parade and not paying attention to us at all.
"They know the truth. I don't lie to my siblings."
"What's the truth?"
"They know you were Gavin's girl, and I stood in for him at the courthouse. They know he's missing in action, and right about now, I think they know there's something going on with us."
"And you're okay with that?"
"I'm okay with that. I want them to know the truth."
"Is something going on though? Or is it nothing? Because you said you don't feel anything." She glanced at Sylvie and then at Keegan's office bunnies, who were staring at us, not trying to hide it.
"When I'm around you, maybe I do. A little." I lied. Wren had awoken a lot of feelings in me I didn't want to look at or acknowledge.
"Like what?"
"Hmm." Of course, she was going to make me do that, and of course, I didn't have the vocabulary for it. I decided to just tell her the truth as it seemed to work best with her. "Watching you throw beads at Mardi Gras stirred somethin' in me. Made me want to take you all over the world so you could do every stupid tradition known to man. Throw pennies in a fountain, kiss the Blarney Stone, lock a padlock on a bridge, ride a camel, smoke a hookah, pet a giraffe. I could pretty much watch you enjoy anything and die a happy man."
"Why?"
The eternal question. Why? Why this girl? Why this time in my life when I was set in my ways and too old to redeem? "I don't know." I thought back to the day I met her. "Seeing you with Gavin. You were all repressed, locked up under your pearls, frustrated and tearing at your own skin, but I saw it under there. In your eyes when you looked at me. The little rebel inside itching to get out and play. That part of you connected with that part of me cuz I'm all rebel. Ain't no part of me that conforms to someone else's demands, except maybe Vander 'cause he won't give me the gigs I want if I break too manyof his rules."
"You follow the law."
I laughed. "It's a surreal balance. When I'm here living like a civilian, I mostly follow the law. When I'm on a job, laws don't apply. They're paying me to be a criminal. It's sanctioned killing."
"I'd like that opportunity, just once. One sanctioned kill." Shit. She always shocked me when she talked like that.
"Not happening."
