The Bad Boy's Bride

“I want to lay out some ground rules.”

I smirk. “Oh?”

“Honesty,” he says. “If we’re figuring this out, there isn’t any room for lies or leaving things out. On both sides.”

I can agree to that. “Okay.”

“Here on the ranch everyone pulls their weight,” he says. “If you’re going to be here, you’re going to have to do your share. We’ll give you a few days to explore the place, try some things, and recover from the soreness before throwing you in, but it’s only fair.”

“I agree,” I say, nodding. “Any more rules.”

“Just one,” he says, “and it’s less of a rule and more of a …negotiation.”

Reaching up, I wrap my arms around his neck. “Intriguing.”

“I’m a modern man even if I do live on a ranch in Wyoming,” he says. “I don’t give a shit who does the cooking or the cleaning or whatever anyone else thinks men and woman should do.”

“Where is this going?”

I realize that he is moving so slowly that I hadn’t noticed his hand is on my neck, thumb hovering over my pulse. His voice is low. “In the bedroom, I call the shots.”

I shudder underneath him, my reaction visceral. It’s a good reaction.

“I told you I wanted your consent in everything, and I do. I would never take something from you that you weren’t willing to give. But when you’re in my bed…” he lets the sentence hang, so I imagine all the possibilities, and there are many.

It feels like all the air in the world has disappeared and I can’t breathe. He’s stolen all my breath. I need more. “What happens once I’m in your bed?”

Clayton lowers his mouth to the bruise from this morning and brushes his lips across it, a delicate reminder of what he’s already done to me. “You’re mine for the taking,” he whispers. “If I want to hold you down and fuck you till you scream, I will. If I want to tie you to the bed and tease you for hours, I will. If I want your mouth on my cock, that’s where it will be.”

The matter of fact way that he says it has heat flowing down my spine. Spears of pure arousal. All those things sound…amazing. The idea of not having to think or worry about what will happen is almost relaxing. And if it leads to the kind of blinding orgasms that I’ve had today…I have no problem with it.

“And if I need to stop?”

“Then we’ll stop.”

I smirk up at him. “And what if I disobey you in the bedroom?”

Clayton’s smile is rich with mischief. “Then I’ll get to come up with an appropriate, delicious punishment for you.”

“Fuck.” The word slips out of my mouth before I can stop it, and he laughs. “Yes,” I say. “Absolutely.”

“You’re sure?”

Fire lights my cheeks. One hundred percent honesty. “I’ve never been so turned on by anything in my life,” I tell him. “But I don’t know if I could do it if it wasn’t you.”

The sound from his throat is nearly a growl, and he seals his mouth over that bite mark, sucking hard. There’s no chance it won’t be a bruise tomorrow. “People will be able to see that.”

“Let them.”

“I wanted to ask…” I say, changing the subject. “Do people know I’m your wife?”

He nods. “Well, they know that I got married. Only Jenna—the concierge—knows who you are so far.”

“Are you going to tell people?”

“I don’t see why we shouldn’t.”

I bite my lip. “But what if we…” The rest of the sentence dies on my lips. I can’t make myself voice the possibility that this won’t work.

Clayton kisses me, hard and hot and possessive, erasing all thoughts of failure. He doesn’t want to voice that either. The sound of his stomach growling breaks us apart, and I laugh. “Guess we forgot about dinner.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Too late to grab anything in staff dining, but dinner will still be available in the guest dining room.”

Suddenly my stomach growls too, like talking about food has suddenly reminded my stomach of exactly how much nothing I’ve eaten today. “Yeah that sounds nice.”

“Your suitcase is right outside the door. I brought it back for you.”

“Really?”

He smiles. “Of course.”

It seems like a simple thing, but it feels significant. Like a sign of who he really is. “Most men I know wouldn’t even have thought to wonder if I had luggage.”

Clayton is grinning as he stands and grabs his jeans off the floor. “I told you, I’m not most men.”

“That’s for damn sure,” I mutter under my breath.

“Get dressed. We’ll head over in a few.”

I retrieve my suitcase and put on a fresh set of clothes. Nothing fancy—I didn’t bring anything fancy with me—but comfortable. I may have chosen the shirt I brought because it has the lowest neckline. Afterall, I was thinking about Clayton when I packed.