A Virgin for His Prize(60)
It always made the experience hotter and more intense for him.
She looked nervous, too. And happy. And so completely focused on him, he actually started forward to join her rather than wait for her to come to him.
The titters that washed through their guests barely registered.
He only stayed in place because Viktor had grabbed his arm. “Don’t worry, she’s coming to you, Maxika.”
Even the diminutive use of his name was not enough to make him turn from the vision of his bride to glare at his best man and only friend.
Romi’s smile was blinding as she reached him. She leaned forward and whispered. “A little eager there, Maxika?”
Oh, hell. His mother had a lot to answer for. That name was never going to leave him. He just knew it.
“Very eager to make you mine,” he replied, making no effort to keep his own voice down.
Even the priest cracked a smile at that.
The wedding went by in a blur. Everything except the promises.
He soaked in every word of Romi’s vows, pulling them deep into his soul.
She seemed to be doing the same and when he ended his vows with a “No expiration date,” she started to cry.
Thank goodness he got to kiss her then. He hated to see the woman cry. Even if it was in happiness.
Romi danced in Max’s arms at their wedding reception.
Madison had gone all out and the ballroom at Parean Hall was decked out in white linen, the fixtures polished to a golden shine, the marble floor pristine. The accent décor and centerpieces were beautiful and every single one of them reminded Romi that she and her gray-eyed man had promised one another fidelity, honor, and to cherish the other. With no expiration date.
Her dad looked more peaceful and happy than she could ever remember. He’d even brought Mrs. K to the reception. Romi had invited the housekeeper as a guest, but her dad didn’t have to be her escort.
That was all on him and she was proud of him for making the effort.
Jeremy Archer was there, but he was keeping a wide berth of pretty much everyone who mattered in his life.
Romi took pity on him and told her dad to go make nice. They’d been friends for years. Jeremy Archer wasn’t perfect, or even nice, but he was a human being and his estrangement with his daughter clearly hurt him.
“You are too softhearted,” Maxwell said.
Romi smiled up at him, not worried in the least. “You think?”
“Does he deserve your consideration?”
“Do any of us deserve the second chances we are given?”
Max’s smile melted her to her toes. “Perhaps not, lyubimaya.”
“What does that mean?” He’d never used it with her.
“I will tell you some day.”
“But not today?”
He shook his head, the expression in his dark gaze flashing briefly with a vulnerability she could not push against.
She tipped her head back and waited. His kiss came less than a second later.
“Later,” she whispered as he pulled his mouth away.
He kissed her a second time and promised against her lips, “Later.”
They spent that night glamping, sleeping in a tent at one of the luxury camping resorts that had sprung up around the country. Their accommodations would have made any pasha proud.
In the morning, at the unholy hour of 5:00 a.m., because apparently they had a takeoff slot at six-thirty—though she had no idea where they were going—she asked with a yawn, “So, we spent our wedding night in a tent because why?”
Not that it hadn’t been amazing, but even glamping wasn’t something she would expect her Corporate Tsar to aspire to.
He smiled enigmatically. “We were practicing for the next two weeks.”
“Practicing what?”
But he refused to answer. They spent the private plane ride talking, making love and sleeping cuddled side by side in the leather seats of his private plane.
She started to get a glimpse when the door of the plane opened to reveal the private airfield on Haiti. They joined a group from a worldwide charity that built houses and spent the next two weeks building homes for people who wouldn’t have them otherwise.
Watching him pour concrete in a pair of designer jeans and long-sleeved Calvin Klein T-shirt, his head protected from the sun by a San Francisco Giants gimme cap, she realized that even if he never said words of love, and she was starting to suspect lyubimaya meant something in that regard, her heart was safe with this man.
And it always would be.
What other man in Max’s position would give his new wife a honeymoon that required him to get dirty, sweaty and exhausted every single day and not one of them from really athletic sex?
Okay, so they had their own tent and bodyguards in the one right next to them, but that was hardly the privacy most men dreamt of for their honeymoon.