They shook hands, before Firefly turned his attention back to me, pulling me deeper into his embrace, big as the southern sky. His arms held me tighter than before, solid like oak.
My heart swelled. He'd sounded so serious, so loving. He'd surprised me for the millionth time today, and I wasn't going to be able to handle any more.
Preacher man shuffled awkwardly behind us, coughing into his hand. “I'll keep the papers in my office, just in case anybody decides to change their mind.”
“No need,” Firefly told him.
For just a split second, I regretted the fact that we weren't going through with it. Then he shook me awake, cupping my chin in his hand, and tilting my face up to meet his eyes.
“Darlin', you look at me, and listen good. Far as you and everybody else knows, we're hitched. I announced it at the Heel because the Torches have got spies all over town. They need to know you're mine. They need to get pissed about it, so they'll roll right into the hell we've planned for 'em.”
“Firefly, I –“
“I ain't done yet,” he growled, moving his face closer to mine, until I could feel his hot breath on my lips. “I meant every fuckin' thing I said back there. Everything I told you tonight. I want you to be mine, dammit, but not like this. This wedding's on hold. Doesn't change the fact that I'm making you my old lady tonight.”
My heart stopped. I gasped. His hand snaked down my back, grabbed my ass, and jerked me into him, turning me into a buttery, knee-shaking mess.
“You've got about twenty minutes to decide how you wanna wear my ink. We're going to get you branded. Right now.” He brushed his lips against mine, teasing me until it hurt. “This is the place to take God as my witness for everything I'm telling you next. Make no mistake, Cora, you are mine. Get used to it. There's no taking it back. Second my name goes on your skin, I own your sweet ass, plus every other inch of you, darlin'. Mine tonight, 'til the end of fuckin' time.”
Oh, God. His words hit me like dark biker poetry, rough and conflicted as everything I felt for him, igniting a hundred more raw emotions.
I wasn't looking at a man anymore, or feeling him. He was a human tornado, conquering me with his eyes, telling me with nothing more than a long, hard glance that this was real. All of it.
Just like a raging storm, he'd pick me up, fling me around, and fuck me with those huge, feral muscles until I was bruised and dripping wet.
Love? Hate? I didn't know the meaning anymore.
That wicked, mysterious place where they met was Firefly incarnate, and he vowed to make me feel every mad inch of him.#p#分页标题#e#
I actually bit my bottom lip as he took my hand and spun me around, pulling me toward the church doors.
Skin whispered a few words to the preacher man, something about how he'd better not breathe a word of this to anybody. Nothing except the lie we'd all been told to say.
We were married.
Back on Firefly's bike, I hugged him tighter, breathing the warm night air hanging down over the city from the Great Smokies.
No, I hadn't been ready for a flash wedding ceremony. Daddy wanted something beautiful for me, long ago, and I did, too. But I wasn't fighting him on the old lady thing.
A delicious tingle pulled at my nipples, firing between my legs. Whenever I thought about him owning me with ink before he claimed my ass, I shuddered, and held on tighter.
We tore through the backstreets, his bike kicking up puddles of rain settling on the streets. My heart raced faster, and that savage pulse between my legs quickened when I saw the glowing red sign.
SKULL'S INK, it said in neon, with a smaller sign beneath it. NO F*CKIN' CRYBABIES ALLOWED!
“Last stop before we hit my sis' place,” he said, drinking me in with his eyes. “Let's make the most of it. Fuck if these fingers aren't itching like hell to put my name all over you.”
“Don't know about all over me,” I said, sticking out my tongue. “One spot. That's all I need to make it official, right?”
“Yeah, darlin',” he said. “That's the goal. Long as I see my name stamped on your ass, you're getting fucked 'til you can't even walk. Promise.”
Holy Shit. I shivered, the anticipation building like a fever.
We walked into the deserted shop. I'd expected an artist to come out and do the work, some freaky man with dark shapes scrawled on him from head to toe.
“Sit down,” Firefly said, gesturing to the nearest bench in the back. He jerked on the lamp overhead, aiming it.
“No way. You're a tattoo artist too?”
He just smiled, laying out his tools. “Pants off, babe. We'll talk it over as we go. You'll be more relaxed than usual because you've already had my hands all over your ass.”