by Vicki Tharp
This was sex. This was an arrangement. Not a real marriage. She didn’t know why he kept trying to make it feel like one. “I don’t want him knowing beforehand. I don’t think there’s any way he could stop us, but I’d rather go ahead and get married, then tell him.”
“I think it’s a bad idea. What if he wants to be there, what if—”
It was her turn to shut him up with a kiss. Gramps would want to be there for her real wedding, but what she and Levi had planned wasn’t anything like that. And she didn’t want to have an argument with her grandfather before getting married.
Before either one of them could take the kiss any deeper, Gramps came into the den and cleared his throat. They stopped kissing, but Levi left his hand on her hip.
“Don’t you look dapper,” Olivia said. “Trying to break hearts tonight?”
Gramps pulled the good truck keys off the key holder by the door, the scent of his Aqua Velva aftershave heavy on his skin. Olivia shifted out of the way to let him by.
“Possibly. What about you kids?”
“We’ve got nothing special planned.” Levi dropped the screwdriver into the toolbox. “Thought we’d hang around the house. I promised Clementine she could have a pony ride on Chunk after her nap.”
Gramps shook his head. “You two need to learn to live a little. You need to get out. Kick up your heels. Do something crazy.”
Olivia laughed, though it came out strangled. “We’ll think about it.”
A little more than an hour and a half later, Olivia, Levi, and Clementine stood outside the office of the Justice of the Peace waiting for their turn to marry.
“You remembered the rings, right?” Olivia couldn’t get past the feeling that there was something they were forgetting. When you go to get married in a civil ceremony a few short days after making the decision, it wasn’t like there was a whole lot of planning involved. Hell, they didn’t even have a cake.
Levi patted the front pocket of his best pair of starched and pressed Wranglers. “I’ve got them, don’t worry.”
He’d wanted to wear his suit, but she’d suggested jeans, a western shirt, and a sport coat since the nicest dress she owned was a white sundress that hit her mid-thigh. She’d paired the dress with her high-heeled cowgirl boots that she’d kept in a box at the top of her closet for special occasions. She’d figured this qualified.
After all, it wasn’t every day a girl got fake married.
“And the marriage license?” Really, why hadn’t she thought of this before they’d left the house?
He held open his sport coat, allowing her to see their paperwork peeking out of his inside pocket. He had Clementine in his other arm, her sleepy head against his chest. They’d had to wake her up early from her nap to get her dressed in time for the ceremony.
Stepping closer, Levi rubbed a hand up and down the goosebumps on her arm. “It’s not too late to back out. No hard feelings.”
Nothing like trying to be talked out of marriage by your fiancé. Olivia blinked a few times, driving back the tears. Could she really go through with this farce and not fall the rest of the way for this man?
Before she could answer, the Justice of the Peace’s door opened, and a woman said, “Mr. Banks, Ms. Marsh? The judge can see you now.”
Olivia smiled as brightly as she could. “Showtime.”
The JP’s office was larger than a standard office. It had four chairs aligned two by two on either side of a narrow aisle with barely enough room for the three of them to stand before the judge.
“Will anyone else be joining us?” the JP asked.
The JP wasn’t the man she’d expected. Then she’d remembered the elections that past fall. He must have been appointed by the new mayor. The best thing? She didn’t know him. Even better, her grandfather probably didn’t know him either.
Olivia blew out a breath, and part of the tension between her shoulder blades eased. She had every intention of telling her grandfather about their marriage—it wasn’t like it was something they could hide forever—but she didn’t want to have to try to rush home and tell him about it before one of her grandfather’s old cronies tattled on her.
“No one else is coming,” Levi said.
“Have you written your own vows or...”
Like what? To love and to cherish until the custody issue is settled?
“No,” Olivia said. “Just say... you know... whatever it is you say.”
She glanced at Levi for confirmation. He nodded, though the guilt was clear on his face. He mouthed, “I’m sorry,” as if the thought of them writing their own vows hadn’t occurred to him.
Olivia offered him a shaky smile. She hadn’t thought of it either. She might have taken it as a bad sign, that they weren’t meant to last, but this marriage already came stamped with an expiration date.
The JP asked them to join hands. They faced each other, and Levi took her left hand in his right. They couldn’t join their other hands because he was holding Clementine.
The JP’s voice was no more than a drone in the background. She wasn’t paying a bit of attention to anything he said because she was focused on the man and child in front of her—at the way his daughter snuggled beneath his chin, at the way he pressed soft kisses to the top of Clementine’s head seemingly without being conscious of it.
As bad as this would be for her heart when the farce ended, she had to do this for them.
Levi squeezed her hand. “That’s your cue.”
“What?”
Levi grinned. “Say ‘I do,’ Marsh.”
“I do.”
The JP said other stuff and then Levi, too, said, “I do.” His voice came out gruff, his smile sheepish. She hadn’t expected the emotion.
He gazed down at her, surely not with love, but appreciation, affection, and a whole lot of lust.
“You may kiss your bride.”
Levi wrapped their joined hands around his back, drawing her in, his kiss warm and gentle yet detached as if he were going through the motions the way they had been for the past ten minutes.
Then he pulled away a fraction before coming back for another. This time, when their lips touched, she heard the groan, felt the need licking around the edges, the desire—leashed and bound—struggling to break free.
Her hand went to his belt buckle before she realized what she was doing. The JP cleared his throat, and Olivia tried to pull away. Levi stopped her with an arm around her neck and whispered in her ear, “I love that you’ve done this for me. For us. Thank you.”
His sincerity, his sentiment made her chest tight and the emotion bubble up and catch in her throat. However wrong this was, it also felt so right. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and set her free. She swiped at the errant tear before anyone could notice.
“A kiss for the camera,” the JP’s assistant said.
They turned to find the woman at the end of the short aisle with a Polaroid camera in her hand. The kissing and hugging had jostled Clementine awake. Levi switched Clementine to his other arm, so she’d be between them, then they each pressed a kiss on each side of his daughter’s cheek as the camera clicked and whirred.
The lady pulled the photo free and waved it around to help it air dry. She handed it to Levi, and the three of them watched their image appear out of nowhere.
Kind of like their marriage.
* * *
Levi came down the hallway after putting Clementine down for the night. “I’m really sorry about dinner.”
Olivia sat at the kitchen table with a stack of bills, the ranch’s checkbook, and a bowl of melting chocolate ice cream she’d hardly touched.
She hadn’t even heard him.
He pulled up a chair and snatched the pen from her hand.
“Hey, I was using that.”
“Olivia Banks.” He liked the way that sounded a little too much. “You’re not paying bills on our wedding night.”
“It’s not a real—”
He made a sound to shut her u
p, that same sound he always used on Chunk when his gelding tried to kick at his stall. “If you say this isn’t a real marriage one more time, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” At least she was smiling now, her emotions had been up and down since they’d said their “I do’s.”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll think of something though.” Then he slid the marriage certificate across the table to her. The one signed by them, the JP, and the JP’s assistant, who’d acted as their witness. “This is as real as it gets, Liv. You’re my wife. I’m your husband. Period.”
“Until we’re not.”
“If this is going to work, if we’re going to show a united front for the home evaluation and the custody hearing, if we want to prove that we can provide a stable environment for Clementine, we have to be able to sell this marriage to the town, to the court evaluators, to everyone. And to do that, we have to believe in it ourselves.”
She blew out a breath and sat back. “Which means we have to live it every day. Like we’re really newlyweds, like we’re really, hopelessly, madly, insanely, in love.”
He picked up her hand and kissed her palm. “Now you’re talking, Mrs. Banks.”
He scooted his chair out farther and dragged her onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her waist. “I really am sorry about dinner.”
“It was fine. Pizza is never a bad choice.”
“Not for beer night with the boys, but for your wedding night? No way. I should have stopped in at the grocery store and bought Clementine a snack to hold her over until we could get real food.”
“I appreciate the thought, but she wouldn’t have been able to sit still that long at The Bistro, the line was out the door, and their service is slow. It would have taken an hour to be seated.”
“We really don’t deserve you, but on behalf of my daughter and I, I’m so infinitely glad you’re ours.”
Olivia hugged his head to her chest, and with his nose buried in her cleavage, suddenly he didn’t feel so bad any more. She’d pulled her hair back into a ponytail after they’d arrived home, but she still wore the same dress she’d worn to the JP, and he couldn’t wait to get her out of it.
He skimmed his hand beneath the hem of her dress, and up her thigh. She tilted his head up, working her kisses along his jawline until she came to the pounding pulse beneath his jaw. She shifted, her ass pressing against his erection.
He hooked a finger into the front of her dress. The material stretched, and he pulled the fabric down lower, exposing a nipple to the play of his thumb as he nipped and sucked the curve of her breast. Her back arched and she guided his mouth to her nipple.
“Mmmm,” she muttered, the sound so low, so deep, it resonated in his body, heating his veins. “I think this marriage needs to be consummated. You know, for appearance’s sake.”
He scooped her up into his arms. “I like the way you think, woman.”
They’d almost made it to the hallway before Olivia said, “Wait, wait, go back.”
Levi stopped. “You’re kidding me, right?”
She had one arm around his neck, but she made a paddling motion with her free hand like he was a canoe and she could muscle her way back to the kitchen.
He returned to the table, and she reached out and grabbed the bowl of ice cream. When he lifted a questioning brow at her, she said, “Trust me, you’re going to like this.”
Levi wasn’t convinced but he was game for whatever. He bypassed her room with the partially opened door and took Olivia to the guest room. She shoved the door closed with her foot.
“You put Clementine in my room?”
He set Olivia on her feet and the bowl of melty ice cream on the nightstand. “This bed’s bigger.”
And he planned to use every extra square inch of it.
By his calculation, it was his turn to sit on the bed and watch her strip. He sat up against the headboard and used the same words she’d used on him a few days before. “You first.”
She grinned, the kind of devious grin people get when they are up to no good. It tantalized and delightfully terrified him at the same time. He kicked off his boots and scooted farther up the bed.
Toeing out of her boots, she hiked her dress up to her hips and slowly worked her panties down her legs, allowing only teasing glimpses of her sex.
She shot her panties at him like a slingshot, and he caught them, the crotch damp in his hand. “You need to hurry.”
Instead of stripping off her dress, she reached over and turned off the bedside lamp, pitching them into near darkness. In the corner of the room where Clementine’s cot had been, the night light remained on, its faint amber glow barely enough light to see Olivia’s silhouette.
“Why’d you do that?”
“Just wait.” Olivia shimmied out of the dress, a maddening inch or two out of reach.
“I need to get my hands on you.”
“Ah, ah, ah. Hands behind your head.”
He groused but did what she’d asked, his dick knocking hard at his zipper.
“Do you have a condom on you?”
“Nightstand,” he said, proud of himself that he’d remembered to move the rubbers into the room after he’d put Clementine to bed.
She retrieved one from the drawer and opened the packet. Levi loved how she got one ready before they got started. He’d had many friends who’d taken unnecessary chances and gone without because they didn’t want to take those extra seconds to put one on in the heat of the moment.
Hell, he’d been one of those idiots with Mae.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, she slid his jeans and underwear to his knees, restricting his movement, then she went for his shirt and worked her hands between the snaps and yanked. The snaps gave with a wave of pop, pop, pop, pop.
“Oh, yeah,” she said. The slow swipe of her tongue through his belly button made his dick dance.
He clasped his hands behind his head. His fingertips tingled with the need to touch her. She ran her hands up his chest and then tucked the tails of his shirt behind him.
“I can’t move. You’ve got me hog tied.” Which, to his surprise, only made him harder and the need to bury himself inside her that much greater.
“That’s the point.” She nipped at his chin. “You ready?”
There was only one correct response for that. “Oh, hell, yeah.”
She climbed onto the bed, straddling his hips, trapping his cock flat against his abdomen beneath her. Then she leaned across him, reaching for the ice cream bowl.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
The swish of the spoon as she stirred the soupy ice cream in the bowl provided his answer. Starting high on his chest, she ever so slowly dripped the chocolate onto his chest using long, broad strokes like an abstract artist. She scooped up more, aiming for one of his nipples.
Drip.
Drip.
Drop.
His nipples pebbled beneath the cold. Goosebumps flashed across his chest, down his arms, and shot up to the top of his skull. Then the tortuous trail of chocolate continued down his sternum, filling his belly button. He’d never be able to eat ice cream again without getting a hard-on.
The mental image of what was to come, of her tongue licking her way down his body, slurping up the ice cream, eased a groan from deep within. He ground up against her, her wetness soaking him.
Then she sat up straighter and dropped one final dollop on the head of his cock. He couldn’t keep his hands behind his head any longer. He expected her to complain, but she only laughed.
Gripping her hips, he ground against her, loving the friction, the pressure, and the slick slide of their bodies together.
She replaced the bowl on the nightstand. “Oops. I guess I’d better clean up my mess.”
When she went to start at his chest, he said, “You need to start lower.”
She scooted back, her weight on his thighs, and licked his dick clean. “Good God almighty, woman.” The talented things she could do with her tongue. �
��I’m pretty sure I heard angels sing.”
Her throaty laughter around his cock made the base of his spine tingle. He reached for the condom and managed to free himself long enough to put it on.
“You don’t like it?” A sly smile played on her lips, knowing damn well the effect she was having on him. The proof was in her hand.
“I like. Too much.”
Then he lifted her, and she reached between them and took him in her hand, guiding him into place, a throaty groan escaping her as she slid down to his balls. “Daaamn,” she said with a reverence and awe that made his muscles quiver and his balls go tight with this burning need to drive into her.
He kicked off his jeans, freeing his legs. Wrapping his arms around her, he hugged her against his torso, the ice cream slipping, sliding, and sticking between them. She kissed him then. She tasted of creamy, rich chocolate and pure unadulterated sass.
Rolling, he reversed their positions.
“You got me sticky and messy.” By the delicious way her voice dipped, it was a turn on, not a complaint.
“Sorry, not sorry.” He raised up on his forearms, their bodies peeling away where they’d stuck together.
With his tongue, he worked one chocolate covered nipped then the other as he increased the force and speed of his thrusts. Her hands went to his ass encouraging him to go faster. Rising on his haunches, he wrapped his arms around her thighs and pounded into her, her breaths coming short and quick.
She reached one hand to the apex of her thighs, stroking herself as he felt the first blinding pulse of his orgasm. “Just like that, baby,” he said.
Her body stiffened, and her stroking slacked off as her internal muscles clamped down around him, sending him flying, his nerves pinging, and his heart stampeding in his chest.
“That was... epic.” Her chest rose and fell as she caught her breath.
“Mmmm.” He licked a spot of ice cream from between her breasts and wrapped her in his arms, his own breath ragged, raw. “I think chocolate is my new favorite flavor of ice cream.” He pulled out, rolling onto his back and taking her with him.
“I second that.” Her voice had that sexy, sated purr she got after she’d been fucked. It was almost enough to get him aroused again. “We’ve got a problem though.” She didn’t sound too worried.