Marry Me Now: An Arranged Marriage Collection

She laughs softly, her face buried in my chest, the vibration of her laughter traveling up through my arms and chest, sending my head buzzing with the fresh proximity of her. I dip down to kiss the top of her head and try my best not to get distracted by how amazing she smells—rose shampoo mixed with her jasmine perfume and the scent beneath them both, a sweet smell that’s all my wife.

“There you are,” I murmur against her hair, and she laughs again, drawing back just far enough to tilt her chin up and catch my gaze, her eyes narrowed with confusion and more than a little bit of suspicion.

“What’s going on?” she asks. “Are you all right?”

“I am now that I know you are,” I tell her, my arms tightening around her once more.

She tilts her head back, and I bend down to kiss her forehead, then the tip of her nose, and finally her lips, soft and slow. She lets out a sigh and sinks into me a little more closely, just for a second. Then she twists out of my grasp. “Are you going to explain the freak out, or are you going to leave me in suspense all night?”

I grimace and slide my hands down her arms before I take her hand, leading her toward the front of the restaurant. “Bianca came onto me.”

“What?” Mara’s eyebrows shoot upward.

I explain everything. The office. What I’d been daydreaming about—in a low voice, but enough detail to make her blush and check our surroundings to make sure nobody could overhear. We reach the maître d’ stand then, and I pause long enough to give him our name and watch the man’s expression shift from surprise to eagerness. He leads us through the restaurant, to a little back room I reserved for a private chef’s tasting.

After more than enough pampering to drive us both crazy, asking every ten seconds if either of us need anything else from him, the man finally leaves us in peace. It’s only once we’re alone again that I resume the story.

I tell her about Bianca walking in on me, and her flirtation. Then I add how I rejected her, and what she said afterward.

All the while, Mara toys with her menu with one hand, frowning, her eyes on the table and her thoughts apparently a million miles away. Finally, unable to stand the tension, or the guilt that’s sitting like a rock in my stomach right now, I shift in my chair, leaning closer to Mara.

“Did I lead her on? I swear, I haven’t flirted with her, or said anything to make her think we’ve been anything but colleagues this whole time… But maybe I was giving off signals unconsciously, maybe I said something in the wrong tone—”

“You’re being too hard on yourself,” Mara cuts in. “I’ve seen the two of you together. You never did anything wrong, John, trust me. I’d have called you on it way before now if you had.” A touch of a smile ghosts across her face.

I grimace in response. “But that reaction of hers… Saying I should learn what it’s like to have my life ruined?” I scowl.

“An overreaction, definitely.” Mara sighs. “She was probably hurt, embarrassed, angry you didn’t fancy her the way she fancied you…” Mara shakes her head. “Crushes make people do stupid things.”

“Believe me, that much I know.” I manage a smirk.

Mara rolls her eyes and kicks me under the table. Then her expression shifts into a sly smile. “I’m flattered you thought of me so quickly, though.”

“Even if it was to over react and freak out that you were in some kind of danger?” I point out, eyes narrowing.

She laughs. “Of course. It’s kind of sexy how protective you are.”

“You have no idea, wife.” I reach down under the table, my hand tracing along her thigh. She’s wearing jeans again, like she normally does, but that’s never stopped me before. My hand inches higher, and her lips part a little as her eyes dart around the restaurant. Or at least, the small back room where we’re seated.

“John…”

“I asked for this room for a reason,” I reply, my smile widening. “Privacy is key, when you’re a big-name celebrity like me.”

She smirks, rolling her eyes. “Oh God, the ego has finally gone to your head.”

“What can I say? I’m used to getting what I want, when I want it.” I lean toward her, my lips catching her temple, then sliding down her cheek. “And what I want right now, Mara, is my sexy wife.”

She shivers and tilts toward me, her body shifting against mine. “You sure about that? You don’t want to flirt with anybody else?” She says it lightly, like a joke, but it makes that rock of guilt shift in me again, and I pull back, just far enough so that I can see her face, my eyes locked on hers.

“Mara, I would never flirt with anyone else.”

She laughs. “Relax, John. I know that.”

“Still.” I frown. “I feel like I wronged you somehow. Just, that whole interaction…”

She shakes her head. “Don’t think about it.” She leans in to kiss me, then, her lips soft and sweet against mine. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” She reaches up to cup my cheek, her hands soft against my stubble. “You’re a good man, John Walloway. And an even better husband.”

I smile and turn to kiss the open palm of her hand. My gaze drifts down for a second, to the ring she’s wearing again, now that the shallow cut on her ring finger has finally healed. We got it resized a little, so that it fits properly, not too tightly or in a way that might injure her again.

I have to admit, it looks beautiful on her. But even better is the knowledge of what it means. Of how it marks her as mine. My wife. I don’t plan on ever letting her go.

“I love you, Mara,” I whisper, feeling every word of that.

Her eyes go wide, fixed as they are on mine. I can see her pupils dilate, watch the way her breath catches in her chest as she takes in the full meaning of that.

“I love you,” I repeat, reaching up to cup her face between my palms. I lean in to kiss her again, to taste her mouth, those perfect shell lips of hers soft and pillowy on mine.

When we part, her lips remain parted a breath, her throat working with a tight swallow. Then her gaze leaps to mine once more. “I love you too, John,” she breathes.

God, she’s so beautiful.

And I’m so fucking hard right now. I don’t hesitate. I slide my hands down her curves and draw her toward me. I pull her onto my lap, until she’s straddling me, one knee on either side of my chair, the menus discarded and forgotten on the table beside us.

I reach down between us to undo the top button of her jeans, my fingers grazing the smooth plane of her belly underneath her shirt. She tenses at my touch, arching her hips toward me, her back curving in a way that makes me unable to resist sliding my hands up along the small of her back, tracing that arch, dragging her down against me.

With my other hand, I cup the back of her neck and draw her into another kiss, slow and searing. At the same time, I undo the zip of her jeans the rest of the way, reach my hand between us and into her pants, sliding my fingers down to cup her pussy tightly, hard and sudden.

She gasps and arches against me, grinding into my palm with abandon. Her hair cascades down her back, free and wild, just like her.

“God you’re so fucking sexy,” I whisper, and she smiles at me, her eyes dark with desire. I shift my hand against her, starting to rub her pussy through her panties, alr

eady able to feel how wet they are with her lust.

“You… drive me wild,” she murmurs, in that sexy, throaty voice that I love, when she’s turned on and can’t resist anymore.

I push the thin, soaking wet fabric of her panties aside and trace my finger along the lips of her pussy, one at a time, teasing, going lightly. “I can tell,” I say, one eyebrow arched. “You’re always so wet for me, dirty girl.”

She licks her lips, and the movement, the track of her tongue, draws my eye, makes me think about all the things she does with that tongue. At the same time, her hands slide down between us, and she traces the bulge of my cock through my jeans. “And you’re already hard just thinking about me, aren’t you, husband?” The word husband sends an extra pulse of white-hot desire through me.

This is what I wanted earlier tonight, alone in my office. I wanted her hands on me, touching me, tightening around me. More than that, I wanted to be inside her.

I shift my hands out of her jeans, ignoring her faint little mewl of protest, and wrap my hands around her thighs instead. Her eyes flash to mine with surprise, just before I rise from the seat and push her back against the table, sending the menus onto the floor.

Her eyes dart to the door, but I smile, shaking my head. “Nobody will come in until we call them,” I say. “I made sure of that.”

I knew I’d want Mara all to myself tonight. The same way I do every night, any time we’re alone together.

She smiles, shaking her head a little. “You’re so naughty.”

“You like it,” I point out, grinning, as I work her jeans down off of her hips.

“Hmm, maybe,” she says, but the words are undermined by the fact that her breath comes out as a faint sigh, her body already pliable with want. I push her jeans the rest of the way off, until they puddle under the table at our feet, and her bare ass is on the table, only her thin little thong between her and me now.