Chapter 31
Callahan
WHILE SHE TRIED ON dresses, I texted my men about the burglary that had happened to Jasmina. We’d narrowed down the suspects, and I wasn’t above just killing them all.
Jameson
Follow them for a week and see what else we can get from them?
Instead of killing them for them stabbing my future wife?
Jameson
Enjoy her rather than go on a killing spree right now. They might just be hired muscle, Cal. You want the mastermind behind it.
I want them too.
Archer
The team will get it done. I’ll make sure of it.
Each and every one of them are mine after this week. Gather all intel we need on them.
I clicked off my phone and took a few deep breaths before she came out in her next dress.
I’d seen her in probably twenty dresses. And every single one I was convinced was the best.
“This is the last one I’m trying on,” she whined from the fitting room like none of this was a good time, then I heard her cousins tell her she’d try on ten more if she needed to. She had to get one that fit, and there wasn’t much time.
Not sure why she kept going back into that room with them at this point. It seemed her cousins went in there with her half the time to tell her exactly why they didn’t like the one she had.
They were opinionated brats.
And anyway, I’d paid to make sure no one else was in the boutique while we were. She could stand out here naked in front of me and change and I’d give her every damn compliment she needed in the world.
The sleeved ones had jewels that danced over her slim arms and seemed to make her sparkle more than she already did.
The beading down the back of one made my mouth water for her.
The way the lace hugged her hips on another reminded me of her delicious curves.
The smooth sweetheart ones were understated, making her the sole focus, not that she wasn’t going to be anyway.
“You want two or three to wear that day?” I asked loudly from the other side of the fitting room. The saleswoman’s eyes bugged out.
“No,” Jasmina answered while her cousins answered, “Oh my God, yes.”
I grumbled at how they were constantly trying to make her decision.
I’d brought her here because I knew how much her family meant to her.
But sometimes who and what you loved weren’t always healthy.
Sometimes people used the bond you thought you had with them to exploit you, and when you were blinded by wanting their acceptance so much, it felt like love.
I got up from my chair, knowing that I’d had enough even if she hadn’t.
“All right, everyone out of her fitting room,” I barked on the other side of the door.
Annarose and Maribel looked a little concerned at me as they walked out.
“Why don’t you two go downstairs and have a glass of champagne while I discuss the options with my bride?” I gave them both a look that told them I was done with them.
Annarose shrugged and started for the staircase, but Maribel glanced back at her cousin as if she was concerned before she sighed and left. Then, I walked into the fitting room and locked the door behind me.
“What are you doing?” Jasmina whisper-yelled at me.
She had another dress on that she was holding over her chest. “Turn around and let me string this up,” I told her.
“You’re not supposed to be in here.”
“And yet here I am, Viper.” I motioned for her to turn around and face the mirror.
She sighed and did as I asked, pinching the bridge of her nose as I started working on the strings. “This is too much. All of it. We should just get whatever works and fits.”
“Never too much with you. It’s just enough. We’ll get the perfect one,” I told her calmly.
“There is no perfect one!” She threw her hands up, and I finished the bow in the back and raised my gaze to see her in the mirror.
“You’re perfection in each of the dresses, baby. You only have to choose which you want. But if you don’t know, I’ll just buy them all. You can stare at them at home and wear them every day for all I care.”
“Get real, Callahan. This dress alone is going to be so expensive that—”
“I don’t care,” I cut her off.
Her eyes met mine. “You’re being too nice, Callahan.”
“Am I?”
“You sent a Rolls-Royce to pick up my cousins—”
“Well, I’m about two seconds away from kicking them out of here with all their damn opinions. They’ll see another side of me soon enough.”
She chuckled and smoothed her hands over the dress. “Please don’t. Maribel is still concerned about the forcing of this marriage. My aunt and uncle, well, we all talked about it like I was being sent away to hell.”
“And now?”
“Now, I guess I’m just in hell with you.” She smirked like she wasn’t going to give me any compliments. Then she sighed and stared at herself in the mirror. “I do really like this one. It has a slit that—”
My hand went to it, and I traced a finger along her thigh holster. “Easy to access more than one thing that way.”
My hand danced farther up her thigh, and she whispered my name in chastisement, but her back leaned into my chest.
“You’re going to make a beautiful bride, Viper,” I told her against her bare shoulder as I pushed her panties to the side.
“My family’s on the other side of this door,” she warned me, like I cared.
“Then be quiet … or loud. Let them know I’m keeping you satisfied. They thought you’d be locked away in a prison with a monster as warden. Instead, the monster makes you feel good between your legs every chance he gets.”
She tsked, but then she gasped as I slid a finger in her, the sound loud with how wet she was.
I bit the lobe of her ear. “Watch your pretty face change with this dress on. Look at these lips.” I dragged my thumb over her bottom lip.
“Parted just for me.” Then I moved my hand down to her chest. “These tits, rising and falling, turning pink like they want my touch.”
I was moving my hand in her faster now, and her body rocked against it, riding closer and closer to her high.
“Even if I am a monster, you like it. Say you love it, Viper. Say you love that I’m forcing this marriage, that you’ll still spread your legs willingly in your pretty bridal gown just for me.”
A blush stained her cheeks as she bit her lower lip hard so that she wouldn’t cry out when I slid two more fingers inside her. Her eyes rolled back as she agreed with me, murmuring that she loved it over and over as her pussy convulsed around me.
When she came down from her orgasm, I pulled my hand from her dress and stared at her as I licked my fingers clean. “I love the way my bride tastes,” I told her. “This is the dress, right? You love this one.”
She whispered, “It’s perfect.”
I nodded and left her to get changed while I told the saleslady, “We want the last one.”
“I don’t know if we have it in her exact size. It’s a custom, and the length would—”
“Tell the designer I’ll pay whatever the cost is to get it done.”
From there, once she came back out of the fitting room, I took Jasmina’s hand, and we met her cousins in the lobby only to see that my men were letting in Monte and Perla.
Perla rushed forward to hug Jasmina, and Monte hugged her, too, before he turned to me, his face grim. “Callahan.”
“Monte.” I knew my tone held malice, but in my mind, it was warranted. “You’re finally here for your niece.”
“What? Of course I’m here. I’m here for her always.”
“Even when she’s bleeding out on Paolo’s floor and you don’t take her to a hospital to have work done?”
Perla gasped, and Jasmina’s hand was on my arm as she murmured my name. “It’s not his fault,” Jasmina said.
“No?” I frowned at her uncle. “Do you not take care of your own?”
He looked down in guilt. “Callahan, it’s not … my resources are spread thin. Telling anyone she was hurt would have shown weakness, and—”
“And you were a coward to not pursue it,” I finished for him, holding his eyes. “Didn’t want me to go back on the deal?”
“No, I … It’s not what you think.”
“Don’t play me for a fool unless you want me to kill you like you are one, Monte.” My words had my men taking one step closer to us all, and Monte felt the tension.
“I deserve that.” He nodded, accepting my words for the truth that they were.
I could see in the way he looked at Jasmina that he wanted her forgiveness more than mine, and Jasmina wanted to give it.
So I took a breath and let him say his piece.
“I trusted the doctor, though. He’s good at what he does, he’s always been honest. It’s what you wanted, Jas. ”
I stood in front of her because of course he’d be able to coax her with their family bond. “And I expect you to always give my bride what she wants unless it harms her,” I told him. “Don’t ever risk her life again.”
His eyes narrowed slightly as if he couldn’t tell whether or not I was serious about caring for her. Monte then said quietly, “Jasmina knows I only wanted what was best for my family.”
“And now, Jasmina is going to be a part of my family, Monte. So, let me be clear: If you ever do anything like calling a cobbled-together animal doctor to check on her again, I’ll make sure it’s that doctor who tears you apart piece by piece.”
Monte still looked hurt as he turned to Jasmina. “I never meant to risk your life; you know that, right?”
Jasmina took a breath and nodded, but I saw her shoulders sag as if some weight had been lifted.
And in that moment, she smiled so genuinely that my hand went to my pocket, where I rolled my fingers over what I’d been holding most of the day. It was a statement I wanted to make, and making it in front of her family seemed fitting.
I pulled a velvet box from my slacks, and then I got down on one knee to turn to her. “Jasmina …”
“Callahan.” She was staring at me with a question in her eyes, and then I saw the tiny smile playing on her lips. “I already said I would marry you.”
“And even still, I need to ask you: Will you be my equal by choice rather than force, because you know I won’t have it any other way?”
Her gaze ping-ponged from her family to me, and then the ring. It was ten carats of sparkling blue princess-cut diamond. “Yes,” she murmured as she held my gaze.
She didn’t correct me and say it would only be for two years.
She didn’t stop me when I put the ring on her finger.
She didn’t pull away when I took her face in my hands and kissed her in front of her family.
She did say “yes.”
And I was holding her to it.