The woman had driven me to the brink of madness with just a kiss.
“Oh!” Her mother laughed from the doorway. “There you two are!”
“Kill me now,” Persephone mumbled, burying her face in my neck and holding me against her.
“We’ll be right out,” I replied, hoping I didn’t sound as turned on as I felt. Fuck, my dick was harder than the desk.
“Oh, don’t rush. I know how young lovers are!”
I felt Persephone cringe.
“It’s just that your sister started in on the Hampshire boy and now she’s…well…she’s already broken three champagne flutes…”
“I’ll be right there, Mama. Just give me a second to right myself,” Persephone called out over my shoulder.
“Take your time, love birds! I mean, of course we want a grandbaby, but do be careful with the desk! It’s an antique, you know!” The door clicked shut.
“Is she gone?” Persephone asked.
“She is.”
She released the death grip on my neck, and I backed away like she’d bitten me. Space. I needed space, or I’d be right back on that desk, finishing what we’d started. Where the fuck was my self-control? My ability to shut it all off?
She just kissed it out of you.
I held out my hand against my better judgment, and congratulated myself when I managed to step away after helping Persephone off the desk. She smoothed the lines of her dress and ran her fingers through her hair.
“Do I look okay?” she asked, her eyes wide with worry.
“You look exquisite.”
She offered me a tentative smile, but it faded as she looked me over. “Umm. Are you going to be…okay?” She glanced at my beltline.
“I’ve had worse. I’ll be fine. Get out there and help your mom.” My cock throbbed, calling out my lie.
She hesitated.
“Persephone, go. Before someone else marches in here.”
She nodded, then walked out of the study, taking a second to lift her chin and transform into the VanDoren everyone expected.
Thank God I’d met her mother two weeks ago, or I might never have recovered the first impression. I got my body under control and headed out of the study, barely dodging the man I’d had yet to meet as he walked into the room.
“Mr. VanDoren.” I held out my hand.
The older man was fit, and rather distinguished, with hair that leaned more toward salt than pepper and with a grimace where a smile should have been. He looked over the tattoos that sprawled from my wrist to my knuckles and tensed before meeting my gaze.
“Mr. Price.” He ignored my outstretched hand. “Let’s forgo usual pleasantries, shall we?”
“I prefer it that way,” I answered, lowering my arm.
“Good. Let’s get one thing straight. You’re not good enough to marry my daughter.” His eyes narrowed in challenge.
“You’ll get no argument from me on that.” He may as well have said that the sky was blue. Duh, asshole.
“Any man who spirits a young girl off to Vegas for some Elvis wedding without asking her father’s permission for her hand or letting her mother attend isn’t worthy of being a VanDoren.” He folded his arms over his chest.
“I’m a Price, but you do have my apology for that. I’m afraid we got carried away.” It was the most I was going to back down, and I only did it for her.
“Well, you’re done getting carried away. I know all about your temper. I’ve read all about your lack of control, and I’m telling you that if you harm one hair on Persephone’s head, I’ll destroy everything and everyone you love.”
Well, that turned all Godfather with a quickness.
“Mr. VanDoren, I would never hurt Persephone. You have my permission to cut me limb from limb if I ever so much as touch her in a way she doesn’t appreciate.” For the few months I’ll be married to her.
He bristled, but his shoulders relaxed a little. “Good. Fine. Your purpose here is to make my little girl happy and keep her mother ecstatic for all the time she has left. Then I’ll deal with the legal mess you two have created with your recklessness.”
He turned and left me standing in the doorway of the study as he headed back to the party.
People like him with their preconceived judgments were the reason Persephone and I would never happen. Not for real. They’d remind me at every possible turn that I wasn’t good enough for their first-class life because I’d been born into steerage.
It didn’t matter how Persephone and I fit together, or how our chemistry ignited on a nuclear level. Nothing that happened between us back in that study would do us any good in the long haul, and yet it hadn’t mattered when she’d been in my hands. The world could have burned down, and I wouldn’t have cared. That was dangerous to both of us.
I had to keep my fucking hands off my wife if I wanted to come out of this marriage as sane as I’d been before going in.