Accidentally Kidnapping the Cowboy (Accidentally Kidnapping)

5. Daisy

CHAPTER 5

DAISY

The silence in the motel room is deafening after Zane closes the door, locking us in. “Here’s the deal, wife.”

The mocking nickname rolls off his tongue with ease. “I’m not your wife.”

“You will be. And more importantly, you’re already my responsibility.”

“I didn’t ask you for that.” I can take care of myself. Mostly. Sometimes.

He looks at me incredulously. “You didn’t ask me for anything, including permission to involve me in this!”

“I’m sorry.”

He sighs heavily. “Save it. We’re in it now, so I’m taking charge.”

“What does that mean?”

“What do you think it means?” He rummages through the bag of essentials the lawyer provided to him. I don’t know who he called, or how he managed all of this, but that doesn’t feel like basic public defender service.

“You want… you want…” I stammer to get it out.

“I want… I want…” He peels off his shirt, giving me a shocking glimpse of hard muscles and a trail of dark hair down the center of his torso before he yanks on a new t-shirt, this one generic gray.

I glare at him, furious that he distracted me with bare skin while he was mocking me again. “Don’t make fun of me!”

He grins. “Don’t make it so damn easy, wife. What do you think I want from you?”

“Retribution.”

His eyebrows curve up. “Really.”

I nod.

He rocks back on his heels and lifts his jaw. “Is that because your parents exact a price from you whenever you do something wrong?”

A lump forms in my throat, preventing me from answering.

“I know what that’s like.”

Shocked, I blink at him. “You do?”

“I have four brothers. We all have different mothers. And by the time we were teenagers, we only had each other. Not everyone is meant to be a parent, but biology lets them breed, anyway.” His mouth tightens to a hard line. “Do you want children?”

I shrug weakly. “If everything in my life were different…yes. Of course.”

“What kind of parent would you be?”

“Not like my mother. I would never put my husband first before my children.”

“Good. I hope you never do. I would never ask you to. I would want you to protect our children like a fierce mama bear.”

Our children? “Against who, in this scenario? Against you?”

“I hope I never give you reason to, but sure. My father was a neglectful asshole. If that’s genetic…” He exhales roughly. “I never thought I would have children. Planned to ranch with my brothers until the day I die. But now…”

My pulse pounds in my ears. “Now?”

“You were wrong about me, angel. I don’t want retribution. But I do want something from you. I want a proper wedding. None of this eloping bullshit. I want a family, with someone who will love my babies fiercely.” His gaze drags over me. “I want you to be my wife. I want the story we tell the judge to be true. Maybe I was dropped onto the hood of that truck for a reason. You saved me, and without even knowing a thing about me, knew I’d be a better family to you than the ones who hunted you down. That’s as good a proposal as I could ever make.”

“It wasn’t real!”

“The marriage license sure feels real to me. The meeting in front of the judge tomorrow feels real, too. And the way you’re skittish around me… Little girl, we’ve got some work to do to make this believable.”

The alternative…confessing it was all a ruse…is terrifying.

Zane smiles at me, his mouth crooking up, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Would it be so bad to be married to a cowboy?”

I blink at him. And then I burst out laughing. “No, of course not. But we don’t know each other.”

“Then we need to rectify that.” He comes closer. “Do you like to be kissed?”

“It’s all right.”

One eyebrow curves up. “Just all right?”

“Very nice, I suppose.”

“Can I kiss you, Daisy? So you can see how I compare?”

It’s really not that many kisses that I have to measure him against, but I don’t want him to know that I’m inexperienced, so I simply nod. If it’s a choice between admitting that I’m a thief and a liar, and having to kiss this tall, muscular, handsome cowboy…I guess I’ll keep the secret about lying forever and ever, amen.

He lifts my hand to his mouth and brushes his lips over my knuckles first, his gaze locked on my face as his warm breath fans over my skin like a glorious summer breeze.

I shiver.

“That’s all right?”

I nod.

He turns my hand over and presses a kiss to the center of my palm, and that’s like the sun coming from behind a cloud at high noon, suddenly blazing hot.

With a shocked exhale, I close my eyes and feel that heat ripple beneath my skin.

“Still nice?”

“Mmm,” I manage.

His mouth drags to the inside of my wrist, his lips parting, and his…his tongue slicks against my skin unexpectedly. I gasp and yank my hand out of his grip.

Breathing hard, I stare at him. “What was that?”

His grin is lazy and indulgent. “A kiss.”

“That’s not a kiss. You licked me.”

“Licking is a part of kissing, darling.”

“Not for me, it isn’t!”

“Then you’ve been kissing all wrong.”

I rub at my wrist.

He waits, watching me. His gaze is just as soft and indulgent as his smiles, but I was wrong to call his expressions lazy. There’s a patience there that feels anything but. Almost as if he would prefer to act, but knows he better not.

As if he knows to be careful with me, and that makes my eyes burn.

I duck my head and hear myself start talking. “I haven’t really kissed anyone, or been kissed, like that. I’ve only had some kisses on the mouth, sort of standard, you know?”

“Standard.” His voice deepens. “I’m not sure I do know.”

“Ordinary, I guess. So it’s not a fair comparison. I don’t know if your kisses are as good as the others I’ve had.” My cheeks go hot as I realize how that sounds, like I’m inviting him to kiss me on the mouth.

He doesn’t reply, which makes me feel embarrassed.

I look up, ready to apologize again, but the words die on my lips when I see the look on his face. No longer soft and indulgent. He’s glaring at me, much in the same way he did in the jail cell, and I don’t understand why.

He can’t be this mad that I suggested we kiss. Not after licking me.

“I don’t know if I can manage an ordinary kiss,” he bites out sarcastically. “But I should probably try.”

“You don’t need to,” I snap back.

“I certainly do! We’re going to be married tomorrow, Daisy, or did you forget that part?”

“I never thought we’d actually get married! I thought it would be enough that we were simply engaged!”

“And I didn’t think I’d be so God damned protective of a woman that I’d want to snap off the heads of the mediocre men who had given her standard, ordinary kisses before, but here we are. Both of us, thrust into the unknown together.”

He’s breathing hard. We both are.

His gaze goes to my mouth and lingers there. “Do you want me to kiss you on the mouth, Daisy?”

“You’re the one who brought up kissing,” I say primly. I don’t know what it is about this man who makes me so, so… so.

“I did.” He rubs his jaw, his gaze still intent and searching. His fingers drag to his lower lip, and he pulls on it.

My breath goes short, my head starting to spin.

“I like the way you look at my mouth, Daisy,” he says softly.

“I didn’t mean to…”

“Don’t fucking stop.” He drops his hand and pulls me right against him, his arms strong around my back. “Daisy, Daisy, Daisy…you better not be a fucking demon.”

“I’m not,” I promise dumbly.

“I’d still fucking kiss you,” he admits as he lowers his head, covering my mouth with his own.

At first, there’s no licking.

It’s still better than nice, and definitely more than all right, from the way it sends a bolt of heat right through my center.

It’s…firm. A demand, really. More than a kiss. Like a sharp knock on a heavy door.

I gasp against him, my lips parting, and his tongue traces that welcoming seam coming apart for him.

Licking is a part of kissing.

Well, I didn’t know that before, not really. Not personally.

But now I can see how it is, yes.

Yes.

My own tongue reaches for his without me consciously thinking about it. I push back at him, making him work for entrance to my mouth, and he growls in a good way, as if he enjoys the challenge. I wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him down, holding him close as I make him spar with me. Back and forth, back and forth. Licking each other and moaning because it feels so good, it feels incredible, and I regret making him stop at my wrist. I regret that so much, because now I need to know how he’d kiss my elbow and my shoulder and my neck…

My head tips back.

“You want more?” he rasps. “Is this an invitation, Daisy?”

“Lick my neck,” I pant. “Please, Zane, I need it.”

He drops his mouth to my pulse point and kisses me there, but not licking. No. Something even better. He sucks, pulling my flesh into his mouth, and I scream at how good it feels.

Laughing, he covers my mouth and pushes me away from him.

Both of us are breathing harder still. So hard it feels like a kiss has changed me forever.

“Okay, little demon. I hear you. You like kissing. But you can’t make sounds like that without the deputies returning to find out what your fiancé is doing to you, you understand?”

No. I don’t understand anything at all. I stare at him, my chest heaving, and I get mad. “Do you kiss everyone like that?”

“Uh…”

“Zane Lowry.” I point my finger at him, my whole body shaking. “How many girls know that you kiss like that?”

“Jealous?” His eyes light up. “I like that.”

“I’m not jealous!” I yell it, as if that could make it true, but of course it’s not true. I am deeply, completely, horribly jealous, because none of the kisses I’ve had in my life were anything like that.

He covers my hand with his own. “Not that many girls. And none of them have made me hard in a jail cell, so you’ve got a definite lead on them in that respect. Also, none of them ever stole my wallet and procured a marriage license while I slept off a bar fight. Another memory that is only ours. But most of all, none of them—not a one—ever made me feel like kissing was their way of begging to get bred.”

My mouth falls open.

My eyes go wide.

“What in the?—”

He covers my mouth again as my voice starts to escalate. “Don’t deny it, Daisy. This all started because we were comparing shitty parenting and our own desires for a family. And then you had some doubts about whether you’d enjoy kissing me, which I sufficiently put to rest. But then, my little hellion, you took it to the next level, trying to climb me like a babymaking tree so you could tap me for my seed.” He grins. “Which I liked a lot, in case that wasn’t clear.”

When I just stare at him over top of his hand clamped across my face, he tilts my head down and gestures at his visible erection.

He liked it a lot.

“I just met you,” I mumble. “You can’t breed me.”

He smirks. “I can’t breed you yet . First, we need to get cleaned up and then order something in for dinner.”