Onceshe was close enough for me to grab, I latched onto her hips and hauled her over my lap. She let out a yelp, but she didn’t fight me, and I was counting that as a plus.
With her legs on either side of my lap, my hands encased her hips, and I held her firm. Her palms against my chest, she looked down at me and asked, “What are you doing?”
“Showing you why you should marry me,” I answered right before my hands left her hips to tangle in her silky black hair, then pulled her lips down on mine. Rylee let out a deep moan, and that’s when I slid my tongue in her mouth and tasted her for the first time.
Her hands fisted in my shirt as she began kissing me back, and that simmering, that buzzing, that electrical current sizzling just below my skin magnified like I knew it would.
And this was just a kiss, for fuck’s sake.
If Iwas losing my mind over one kiss, I couldn’t imagine what was going to happen to me once I slid inside her body.
And I was goingto.
There was no doubt about it.
I was going to do whatever it took to get Rylee to marry me. The contract notwithstanding, I wanted Rylee to more than marry me. I wanted her to want me the way I wanted her. I wanted her to love me, too, if possible.
Minutes or hours later-I wasn’t sure-I finally broke off the kiss. Staring up at her lust-filled expression, I said,“That’swhy you should marry me.”
Chapter 14
Rylee~
I had to be out of my mind.
That was the only explanation.
Mental defect was the only acceptable explanation as to why I was going to marry Stone Lexington. Or rather, why I was seriously considering it.
WhenStone had left the apartment yesterday, it had been after an hour of making out on the couch. No second base. No third base. Definitely no home run.
He just kissed me.
Andhad kept on kissing me.
And whenStone had lifted me off his lap, laid me down on the couch, and had covered my body with his, it had taken every ounce of self-restraint I had not to beg him to hit a home run.
There was nodenying the chemistry between us was off the charts, and my dry spell had really resented Stone taking things slow yesterday, but it had been for the best.
Hormones would havehad me marrying Stone tomorrow, but common sense told me I should probably take the entire four weeks to get to know him better before saying our vows. Still, even with that, it was pure insanity to marry someone after only knowing them four weeks. This wasn’t a goddamn holiday Lifetime Network movie, and that’s probably why I’ve been sitting on the couch, staring at my laptop, getting absolutely no work done.
Because I’ve found myself in the middle of some strange alternate universe, where secret societies existed and the repercussions for betraying them were unimaginable.
The front door opening and closing snapped me out of my thoughts. When I turned my head, I saw Laney walking towards me. If she came home last night, it was after I’d gone to bed. I haven’t seen her since the night of the initiation.
“Why’d you lie to me?” she asked, getting straight to the point.
I set my laptop aside and stood up, the couch separating us. “I didn’t lie to you,” I replied, just like I had Friday night. “I’d never met Stone before that Monday when I ran into him.”
“And he was soenchanted with you that he decided to marry you?” she remarked snidely, and it was really throwing me for a loop. In all the years that we’ve been friends, I’ve never seen this jealous, hateful side of her. This hostility was all new to me.
I lifted my chinbecause, as ridiculous as it sounded, that’s exactly what happened, according to Stone. “You’ll have to ask him for those details, Laney,” I replied. “Only Stone knows why he did what he did.” Although I could tell her what he’d told me yesterday, it really wasn’t any of her business.
“But you agreed,”she replied, and it sounded like an accusation.
Staring at her, something felt off. Just like it had that day we’d been studying, and she had gotten weird and nasty. Did she have a thing for Stone? Was that it? Maybe I was wrong about her and August. Maybe they didn’t have anything going on between them, other than the contract. Could this really be a case of plain, old-fashion jealousy?
I narrowed my eyes, wondering. “Why are you so angry?” I asked her. “I didn’t lie about knowing Stone, Laney. But even if I had, it hardly seems like a reason to get this worked up over it.”