One side of Emmie’s mouth lifted in a forced smile. “It’s just been a long day, Shane. Go, I’ll take care of this mess.”

“I don’t know what I would do without you, Em.” I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I don’t ever want to find out.”

--

The limo was waiting outside.

With the cake cut and all of our guests pigging out on the decadent dessert, I was ready to take my bride home, strip her of the expensive dress she was wearing, and make love to her. I licked my lips, tasting the sweet lemon flavor of the icing that still lingered at the corner of my mouth after Harper had shoved the first bite into my face.

“We’re leaving!” I announced to the room at large, not caring that it was still early.

Harper, who was just a few feet away—which was as far as I was letting her get since her mother and stepsister had been escorted out by three burly men in suits—turned her head to glance at me. From the look in those violet eyes I knew she was anticipating what was about to come just as much as I was. “Let’s go.”

“But she still has to throw the bouquet!” Jenna whined from behind me and I sighed.

“Fine,” I grumbled, feeling like a petulant child being denied my favorite toy. “Throw the damn thing,” I told Harper, my bottom lip pouting out.

She giggled and wrapped herself around me, kissing away my pout. “It will only take a minute,” she whispered, her fingers roaming over my chest as she kissed me again. “Go tell the guys and Emmie bye. While I take care of this.”

I didn’t move. There was no use in telling them goodbye since we weren’t leaving the next morning for Mexico as expected. I wasn’t going to waste a second. As soon as she threw the bouquet I was tossing her over my shoulder and we were going home.

Rolling her eyes at my stubbornness she picked the flowers up from the table behind me as the wedding planner asked all the unmarried ladies to group together. Walking over to the group, Harper turned her back to them and slung the bouquet over her shoulder without glancing behind her…

Dallas’s not so quietly growled curse was all I needed to know that she had caught the flowers. I glanced around for Axton, curious as to his reaction. He wasn’t even looking in Dallas’s direction, but standing in a corner with his phone to his ear talking to someone. He didn’t look happy, and his gaze kept going toward Liam’s general direction. Trouble for sure.

Deciding that I wasn’t going to worry about my friend, I took a step toward Harper. Without even realizing it I broke into a run and scooped her into my arms without breaking stride toward the closest exit. “Now, let’s go home,” I growled against her ear.

She shivered and like always my body went rock hard knowing that she was so turned on. Behind us I heard people shouting, felt the gentle fall of birdseed, but paid no attention to any of it as I slipped inside the back of the limo with Harper on my lap. No sooner than the car was in motion was Harper working on getting my shirt off. There was no way in hell we would be able to make it home before either of us exploded.

I lifted her and set her on the long bench seat, then sat on the floor and started pushing the skirt of her dress up, kissing my way up her legs as inch by inch her skin was exposed. I stopped when I reached her lacy white panties, licking over the damp center before reaching for the hem of the almost-virginal underwear.

The feel of something like a bandage distracted me. Concerned that she had been hurt and I hadn’t known I lifted my head to inspect the bandage that went across her lower abdomen. “What’s this?” I asked her, raising my eyes to capture her gaze in the dim lighting of the limo.

Harper bit her lip. “I wanted to surprise you…” she said hesitantly. “If you don’t like it I’ll have it covered up with something else.”

My eyes widened. “A tattoo?” She nodded. “Fuck, I have to see this!” I gently lifted one edge of the bandage and pulled until the skin between her pelvic bones was exposed.

The sight that greeted me made my breath catch in my throat. My name was written on her flesh, with the ‘S’ designed like a demon’s wing and the ‘e’ like a demon’s tail. It was all blood red with black shading and I knew that Drake had to have designed the ink that now branded my girl. The sight of my name had never turned me on before, but at this moment in time I was sure I was going to explode all over the beautiful creature spread out on the seat before me.

“D-do you like it?”

“It’s perfect, beautiful,” I assured her, tenderly tracing my finger along each letter. “I love it… I love you, Harper.”

Chapter 10

Axton

The background from the wedding was making it hard to hear the woman on the other end of the phone. It wasn’t that I wanted to know what she was saying, but that I needed to know. She wouldn’t have called me unless absolutely necessary. That was the way our relationship was these days.

Gabriella Moreitti called only when she absolutely had to.

I understood her reasons for keeping her distance. I kept mine for the same ones. We had really screwed each other up, and while my friends were all loyal and assumed that Brie had been the one to cause all of the problems we’d had in our chaotic, batshit crazy romance, I couldn’t let her take all the blame.

I had been messed up in the head. Thinking I was in love with one person, hiding those feelings as much as possible by diving head first into a relationship that was only about lust—and yeah, even that hadn’t lasted for very long. Problem was I had been in love with the idea of being in love and Brie had been just as stubborn about her own feelings about someone else. While we had tried to hide how we really felt we had pretended to ourselves we loved each other.

She had seen right through me while it had taken me a few months, but I had finally put together who she had been messed up over.

Now we tried to stay friends, or at least be civil with each other. My friendship with Brie’s cousin, Alexis—or LeeLee as Brie tended to call her—pretty much made sure that we saw each other regularly. Her career kept throwing us together in the rock world. We couldn’t really avoid each other if we tried.

“He’s definitely using again, Ax.” Brie’s ever so subtly Italian accent was more pronounced when she was upset. “I’ve found three eight balls of coke alone and a meth pipe. He has this shit in my apartment! Jordan is here almost every weekend. If he found this stuff…” she broke off, swearing in Italian and I couldn’t blame her. I was cursing mentally myself.