“I don’t mind stepping in and—”

She covered his lips with a finger and shook her head. “No sense in increasing the tension between the two of you. I can handle it.”

He nodded, knowing she liked to handle her problems on her own. He’d just be there to support her if and when she needed him. Sometimes he wished that she’d let him rule her life, fix anything that needed fixing, but then she’d be a lot less interesting and he’d probably have never fallen so hard for her. It was the challenge of Jessica Chase—Lionheart—that kept him coming back for more. Their compatibility in the sack didn’t hurt either.

“Where’s your ring?” he asked, lifting her left hand in his.

“Are you blind? It’s right there where you put it.”

“Your other ring,” he clarified.

“Oh.” She showed him her right hand. “You’re supposed to wear the wedding ring closer to your heart, so I switched it to my other hand for the ceremony and forgot to switch it back.”

He took her hand in his and grasped her engagement ring with his fingertips.

“Allow me,” he said.

He removed the ring from her right ring finger and slowly slid it onto her left to rest against her wedding band.

She shuddered beside him, and he glanced up to find her smoldering gaze on him.

“Why was that so erotic?” she murmured.

“Slowly sliding things into holes is always erotic,” he said with a grin.

“It is when you do it.”

The limo pulled to a halt. Sed tugged Jessica into his arms and kissed her deeply, knowing the next few hours would be chaos and they’d have no opportunity to be alone. And when they finally were alone together that evening, he had some romantic dinner plans in store for her and some rather lame words he planned to sing while there. He couldn’t wait to see her face when they reached their rendezvous point. He was a bit less sure about the song. It wasn’t like anything he’d ever written before. She might hate it.

The door was opened from outside, and Sed reluctantly pulled away from Jess’s soft, warm lips. He stared into her eyes and said, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“You can count on me, you know. For anything you need or want. You can always count on me.”

She cupped his face between her hands and pecked him on the lips. “I know that. You can count on me as well.”

Sed slid from the limo and extended a hand inside to help Jessica out of the car. All their friends and family were standing in a huge crowd outside the reception hall waiting for them. Their cheers of excitement died as soon as Jessica exited the vehicle. Their slack jaws and wide eyes were probably due to Jessica looking like she’d been rolling around on the mud in her wedding dress. And that was pretty close to the truth.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Sed’s mom separated from the crowd and rushed over to them. “What a terrible time for it to rain.”

Jessica offered Sed a naughty smile before turning her attention to her new mother-in-law. “I actually thought it was good timing,” she said. “I know I look a mess, but I couldn’t be happier.”

Mom wrapped both arms around Jessica and squeezed, swaying slightly with girly giddiness. “I’m so glad you’re not upset. I was worried that you’d be devastated.”

“You can’t stop the rain,” she said.

But nothing had forced them to make love on the beach in it. Except their insatiable lust for each other.

“It’s a good thing you’re level-headed,” his mom said. “You’re going to need a lot of patience to put up with my bullheaded son for the next sixty years.”

“Level-headed? Jessica?” Sed sputtered. “I think you have her confused with someone else.”

His mom gave him a loving smile over Jessica’s shoulder. “Compared to you, doll? Yeah, she’s the level-headed one. I can’t wait to see how your kids turn out. I predict they’ll be a bit challenging to raise.”

Sed’s stomach did a back flip. He wanted eight of them, but if they were all as stubborn as himself and their mother—combined—perhaps he should pare that number down by a few.

His mom tugged away and searched Jessica’s face. Scowling, she pulled the strand of seaweed from Jessica’s hair. “How did you end up with seaweed in your hair?”

Jessica’s eyes widened, and she glared at Sed. He shrugged and shook his head as if he hadn’t noticed it.

“That was some wind,” Jessica said, her cheeks pink.

The photographer sidled over to join their little group. “Do you still want me to take pictures?” he whispered.

“Of course,” Jessica said. “Just pretend I look beautiful.”

“You do look beautiful,” Sed said gruffly. His chest puffed with pride because she was his.

Without warning, Jessica’s mother came at her with a hairbrush. “Dear lord, what a disaster! This will be remembered as the worst celebrity wedding ever in the history of Hollywood. Thank God I was only responsible for the reception.”

Jessica tried to avoid the hairbrush while Sed worked very hard at holding his tongue.

“A, I’m not a celebrity,” Jessica said, cringing when the brush landed in her hair and caught on a snag. “B, we are not in Hollywood. And C, I don’t care what you think.”

“And D,” Mom said, “what’s important is the kids are happy. Right?” She smiled in her ever friendly way, but Stella just scowled at her.

“Celebrities owe it to the world to have fairy-tale weddings,” Stella said. “It gives us regular people something to dream about.”

Sed opened his mouth to argue that celebrities didn’t owe the world anything—not that he considered himself a huge celebrity in the first place. Celebrities had the right to privacy and bad-hair days and cellulite and stretch marks just like everyone else. But he remembered his promise to Jessica and slammed his mouth closed. His teeth clicked together so hard, his ears rang. It was damn hard to hold his tongue when Jessica’s mother was around. Stella was far more outspoken and opinionated than her daughter. And as his opinions always clashed with the woman’s, it wasn’t as if he enjoyed arguing with her. Or watching Jessica try to hold her own. He had half a mind to shove Jessica back in the limo, steal her away without attending the reception, and deal with his wife’s fury later.

While Jessica and her mother argued about Jessica’s ruined hair and her ruined dress and her ruined flowers and her ruined wedding, Sed’s muscles grew tighter and tighter with tension. If his mother hadn’t placed a comforting hand on his elbow, he would have exploded.

“Are you going to say something?” Mom asked quietly.

“Jessica doesn’t want me to interfere.”

“Do you always let her get her way?”

Sed flushed. “Pretty much.”

“You have to pick your battles,” Mom said.

“Yeah.” At his mother validation of his choice, he felt a bit better about staying out of Stella and Jessica’s escalating argument.

“I think this might be the one you should pick.” Mom patted his back. “I’ll see you inside.”

So she wasn’t validating his choice after all. He considered clinging to his mother’s leg and begging her not to leave him with the mother-in-law that came with his new wife, but he wasn’t a three-year-old. He felt almost as helpless as one at the moment. And what must Jessica be feeling having to deal with Stella directly?

“Um, excuse me,” Sed said, trying to gain their attention.

“Those stains will never come out of that dress!” her mother was screeching. “Jesus God, do you even remember how long it took you to pick it out, Jessica Chase? You must have tried on a thousand gowns.”

“Jessica Lionheart,” she corrected. “And it’s my dress, mother. If I want to tie-dye it and wear it in the Thanksgiving Day parade, that’s my prerogative.”

“Do you know what your problem is?” Stella said, eyes narrowed dangerously.

“You! You are my problem.”

; Stella shook her head, sending silky blond locks dancing about her spray-tanned shoulders. “No, your problem is that you think only of yourself, Jessica.”

Sed took a step back as Jessica’s jaw went hard, and her eyes sparked with anger. She’d leveled him with that look on a few occasions. They never ended well.

“It’s my wedding day!” Jessica bellowed. “I’m supposed to think of myself today. My love for Sed and his for me are the only things that are supposed to matter today. You’re the one being a selfish shrew.” She threw her hands up as a plea to the heavens. Or maybe she was praying for a lightning strike to be sent in her mother’s direction.

“Um, sweetheart?” Sed again tried to break into their tirade exchange. He happened to agree with his wife, and not only because he didn’t want to face her wrath.

Tags: Olivia Cunning Sinners on Tour Billionaire Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net