Marry Me Now: An Arranged Marriage Collection

He laughs and puts the car in gear. “Good to know what kind of things can tempt you, Celia. Food, wine… anything else on your list of irresistible temptations?”

I bite my tongue over the urge to reply, You. “You’ve got the main ones down,” I say instead, and roll down my window to enjoy the spring breeze as we head out of the city toward the shore.

The drive is beautiful, all the more so because of all the glances I’m able to steal of Luke while he drives. With his focus on the road, I can enjoy drinking him in more than I’d usually dare. He’s smiling, relaxed, and chatty as we go. He tells me all about Paul—an old friend from college who’s a partner at a huge law firm in New York now. He tells me about the beach and the hotel. About how much he needs a break.

“But you’re the one who really deserves it,” he adds, just before he bends forward to point through the windshield. “How’s she look?”

My eyes widen as I take in the veritable castle we’re driving up to. It’s set on a cliff high above the Pacific, the waves crashing onto white sand beaches far below. Up here, the hotel sprawls into four wings, looking more like a palace that belongs in Europe than here in SoCal. But I’m not complaining.

We pull up to the main drive, and a valet opens the door for me, then offers a hand to help me out of the car. Before I can lift a finger, another hotel valet has opened the trunk to remove our bags.

“We’ll bring these to your room, Mr. Rossfield,” he says, already hustling inside. I move to follow, but Luke stops me with one hand on my elbow.

“I almost forgot.” He draws a small box out of his pocket, and my heart does a painful skip in my chest.

Is that…?

“We have to make this convincing, don’t we?” With a grin, he pops the lid and offers up one of the most beautiful diamonds I’ve ever seen.

I inhale sharply, mostly to try and keep my composure. It’s a princess cut, with a white gold band. It’s everything I ever imagined, and in my wildest dreams, my own wedding ring might look like it one day. At least I can say I had it for a few days, I think, as Luke slides it onto my finger, his eyes on my face to gauge my reaction.

I’m grinning like an idiot. I try to tamp it down, but there’s no disguising this. “It’s beautiful,” I whisper.

He leans in to kiss my cheek, his lips lingering against my skin for the barest breath of a second. “Only the best for my wife.” Then he presses a hand lightly against the small of my back to guide me forward, into the hotel.

It takes me a second to remember how to walk. If this weekend didn’t feel like a dream already, now it definitely does. I suppress a shiver and cross the hotel lobby, trying my best not to look at the ring on my finger. Trying not to let myself fall for the lie. It’s just a bet. One weekend.

But damn, what a weekend it’s going to be.

The bellhops see us straight into the elevator, but inside, they just push the floor for us and step back out again, leaving us alone as the door slides shut. Luke turns to grin at me. “We should practice, you know. Before we have to perform for an audience.”

I arch an eyebrow. “Practice what, exactly?”

His smile remains fixed in place, but there’s something new in his eyes now, a spark that wasn’t there before. A heat. “Kissing,” he says, and before I can react, he’s reaching up to cup my cheek and tilting my face toward his.

I’ve imagined this moment a hundred times before. But I never imagined it quite like this—how warm his palm would feel cupping my cheek, or how I would catch his scent beforehand for a second, a hint of smoke and spice. My eyes drop to his lips, and I have just enough time to let them flutter closed before his lips find mine.

The kiss is soft at first. Hesitant. He kisses me like I’m delicate, breakable. But then I reach up to twine my arms around his neck and kiss him back. The moment I do, his free hand slides around my waist, pulling me against him, and his lips part as he deepens the kiss, his tongue slipping past mine to claim me, completely.

I can’t help it. He tastes even better than I imagined, feels so much more real than I ever pictured. All my fantasies, all my fanfiction stories, they pale in comparison to the reality of his warm, muscular body pressed against mine. This is Luke, I remind myself. This is really happening. It feels like I just wandered into a dream.

His hand slides down my waist to my hip, his fingers digging into me through the fabric of my thin sundress. I arch one leg around his, and I can feel the hard press of his cock against my belly, thick and throbbing through his pants. I moan into his mouth, unable to help it, because fuck he feels so good.

The moment I do that, though, he pulls back, chuckling softly, those searing blue eyes of his fixed on me as he laughs. “Maybe you don’t need any practice after all, Celia.” He reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, one that escaped as we kissed. His hand lingers against my cheek. “You’ve got the horny newlywed act down perfect.”

My cheeks flush bright red, and his grin deepens, like he knows exactly how wild he’s driving me. But before I can respond, the elevator reaches our floor, and he takes my hand to lead me out of it, down the hallway, toward the suite that we’re sharing.

My heart races in my chest, my whole body still tingling. It feels like my lips are on fire from his kiss, my hips still seared by his touch. I can’t help it. I risk a glance down at my fingers, where the ring he gave me sits, right where it would if this were all real. If he really were my husband.

I decide that, just for this weekend, it will be all right to let myself believe it. I know it will only make everything harder once this is over and we’re back at the office once this fantasy inevitably ends. But… I can’t shake the look in his eyes when he kissed me, either.

So I decide, just for the weekend, I’ll throw caution to the wind.

4

The first thing that catches my eye when we cross into our room is the welcome note the hotel staff left on our bed. There’s a bottle of champagne chilling in a bucket of ice on a stand beside the bed, and in front of it, a short letter welcoming “Mr. and Mrs. Rossfield.” Just the sight of those words, a casual listing of me with his last name, like it’s normal, like we’re greeted that way every day, sends a thrill through me. How many times have I written fanfiction where that happened? How many times have I daydreamed about how good Celia Rossfield sounds?

My whole body tingles. Especially when I glance up at the rest of the room, with its huge windows overlooking the grounds below, a balcony outside, and a jacuzzi-style hot tub in our enormous en suite bathroom. “Did you actually book the honeymoon suite?” I ask, grinning.

“Of course.” Luke winks and steps closer to me, his gaze fixed on mine, that hungry expression in his eye again. “In a way, this weekend is like our honeymoon, isn’t it?”

I force a laugh, because I hope it will disguise the fact that my heart is racing, my pulse pounding. “Our pretend one, of course.” But I can’t keep my voice even, or my eyes off his lips. All I can think about is how he tasted when he kissed me in the elevator. How he’d taste if he kissed me again, right here, right now.

When I glance back up at his eyes, forcing myself to stop staring at his mouth, I notice his gaze doing the same thing. Jumping back to my face as if he wasn’t just checking out my lips, my body. My cheeks flush with heat, but he’s already turning away to survey the room.

I do the same, walking across to the balcony and sliding open the doors. It’s a beautiful day outside, the weather just right, warm not too hot. I step out onto the balcony and breathe in the fresh air, the scent of flowers growing along one side of the hotel. From up here, I can see the pool, huge and luxurious, with full beds around it rather than lounge chairs, and massage stations set up nearby, along with a swim-up bar. Farther away, I spot what look like outdoor hot tubs, and little wooden shacks beside them that must be steam rooms or saunas. Beyond those, a series of flower gardens.

In the other direction is a scenic clifftop overlooking w

hite sand beaches and the ocean far below, crashing against the rocks. The view is beautiful, breathtaking. It will be even more so at sunset tonight, I’m sure. The thought of coming back to this room with Luke tonight has my pulse racing and my mind leaping toward dirty thoughts.

I didn’t think, when I agreed to this, that anything would happen between us necessarily. It seemed like too much to hope for. But after that kiss in the elevator, I can’t help wondering if he has more in mind than just playacting.

When I turn back into the room to call Luke over, I catch him staring at me, that unreadable look in his eyes once more. “You look beautiful,” he says, his voice so low I’m not sure I heard him right. He walks toward me, and I step back into the room to meet him, my heart racing.

“Thank you.” My cheeks are still flushed from earlier, and the heat flows back into them now, especially when I watch the way his gaze drips over my body, like he’s drinking me in. “You look… great, too.” My voice faltered before I could say what I was really thinking. You look hot enough to set me on fire.