Marrying the Master (32 page)

Bashir
laughed. “I don’t think it will be long. I noticed Chance has disappeared, so
that is, I would think, a good indication that things are moving along. How
many roles is he playing?”

“All
of them, I think,” Roman said. He had asked Chance to be his best man, and Lola
had insisted that Chance give her way. By mutual agreement, and since they
were, already, legally married, they informed Chance that he would also be
officiating. Roman suspected that this
was
 
Lola’s
attempt to keep her cousin
out of trouble. He doubted it would be particularly effective, but he thought
it was sweet that she tried.

Damn
it. All he wanted was Lola.

“Are
you nervous?” Bashir asked.

Roman
looked at him. It struck him as such a ridiculous question at first that he
didn’t immediately realize
why
he
considered it ridiculous. As he thought about it a broad smile spread across
his face: he wasn’t anything even approaching nervous. He just wanted to get
started being a husband to his wife.

“No,”
he said, still beaming.

Just
then all the lights in Volare’s main room dimmed to almost complete darkness.
Maybe moments before the most anxious among them would have started to freak
out, two points of light illuminated the floor in the center of the room.
Then another two, and another, and another, until there was a
slowly moving path leading out to Volare’s own large terrace.

Ava
and Catie had, somewhere in the last few minutes, gathered themselves together.
The two of them led the entire wedding party out onto a terrace that had been,
to Dagmar’s credit, completely transformed. It was almost entirely covered by a
roof trellis, wrapped in vines and all sorts of plant life Roman would never be
able to identify. There were flowers of all shapes and sizes interwoven with
small lights. He thought he smelled honeysuckle.

Still,
none of it was Lola.

“Roman,”
someone stage-whispered. He followed the rest of the lighted path and saw
Stella, Lola’s maid of honor, gesturing with her head. “Over here.”

Roman
tried to figure out what was going on with him. He wasn’t drunk. He hadn’t had
anything to drink. And yet, he was almost light-headed with joy. By the time he
made his way to the small clearing under an arch and took his place near
Stella, the rest of the guests had taken their seats.

“Where
is she?” he whispered to Stella.

“Hush,”
she said, and gestured for him to look back the way he had come.

The
guests had gone reverently silent when the lights had gone off, and now string
quartet had started playing. Where had that come from?

It
didn’t matter. A moment later he saw her.

Roman
would never have the words to describe her, in any language. She appeared, and,
as had happened before, everything else simply fell away. He watched her float
down their makeshift aisle, her curves wrapped in yet another dress that begged
to be removed. He supposed that dress was very beautiful, but he doubted it
would remain so once he was done with it, and in any event he would,
eventually, have to take someone else’s word for it. He simply couldn’t take
his eyes of Lola’s face.

No
veil. Nothing separating him from her but the space between them, space that
Roman saw closing for the last time. Her clear green eyes held him all the way.

The
ceremony itself: a blur.
Everything a blur.
Roman knew
he spoke the right words at the right time because things moved along, but he
didn’t hear anything besides the sounds of her breathing, didn’t see anything
besides her face. He remembered the look on her face when she saw the rings he
had bought for them: platinum bands with emerald for him, red diamonds for her.
He wanted something to remind him of those eyes always.

He
would remember that she mouthed the words to him:
I love you
.

He
would remember that he cried in public for the first time when he said the
words back.

He
would remember that, a moment later, while Chance was saying something to
entertain the crowd, something that couldn’t penetrate their own little world,
she gave him an entirely different kind of look. And then she bit her bottom
lip.

After
that he was just a man with one, all consuming need: to get his wife alone and
out of that dress.

Eventually
the words ended. Eventually there was applause. Eventually he got to kiss his
wife, and it took everything he had to stop at that.

“I
need you
right now
,” he said.

Lola
smiled wickedly and looked down the path that would eventually lead to an exit
and his—their—apartment, now crowded with
well-wishers
.

“There’s
quite a gauntlet,” she said. “Think you’ll make it?”

He
heard a low rumble come from his chest. He didn’t ever mean to do
it,
Lola just seemed to bring the beast in him out to the
forefront.

He
didn’t particularly mind.

“The
question is whether that dress will make it,” he growled at her.

He
caught the satisfying hitch in Lola’s breath as he put his arm around her and
began guiding her, at a pretty good clip, down the path.

The
first obstacle was Stella.

“Roman,”
Stella hissed. “Roman! You guys, I know this is, like, the worst timing ever,
but good deeds, right? Good deeds?”

She
was holding her cell phone out with such a plaintive expression on her face
that Roman knew she must have extended herself for someone or something.
Probably someone needy, and something worthwhile.
Stella was
the kind of person who couldn’t bear to think of anyone feeling badly.

How
could he not stop?

“Who
is it?” he said, taking the cell phone.

“Don’t
be mad.”

Roman
felt Lola’s eyes on him. If he looked at her he’d forget all about Stella’s
good cause. He closed his eyes instead.

“Who
is it, Stella?”

“It’s
Harold Jeels,” she said, very quickly. “I know, I
know
, and I totally agree, but he’s obviously got problems and he’s
having a really hard time right now and it’s just so obvious that he could use
help, and he’s been trying to contact you to apologize, and…”

Roman
put the phone to his ear. “Senator Jeels?”

“Mr.
Casta. Please, let me just say…I don’t really know what to say. I don’t have an
excuse. I am sorry if I caused you any difficulty.”

The
man sounded drained, as though he was ready to give up. Roman sighed.

“Senator
Jeels, apology accepted. Do you have any contacts in the scene up in your part
of the state? Anyone you can turn to for support at all?”

There
was a pause. “No.”

“I’ll
get you some. Apologize to them the way you apologized to me, and they will be
welcoming. It’s good to be yourself, Senator Jeels. It will be a lot less
lonely.”

Roman
knew what it sounded like when a man was suppressing tears, and he did the
right thing and pretended not to notice.

“Stella
will take care of you,” he said, more gently, and gave the phone back to
Stella.

He
didn’t wait to hear what she said. He scooped up Lola and forged ahead.

“That
was very kind of you, Roman,” Lola said to him.

“Oh,
God, Lola, I hear you
speak
and I
nearly lose control,” he said.

He
doubled his pace.

The
next obstacle was
Ford
.

“Hey,
Roman, I know it’s not a great time, but I was wondering…” Ford paused to look
at the blonde actress he’d been talking to for the entire evening. “I was
wondering if I should go out to L.A. to help with the new location?”

“Yes,
fine, that’s perfect, go do it,” Roman said through gritted teeth.

Lola
laughed. He would remember that.

“Roman!”

He
groaned. It was Dagmar, the wedding planner. She had Denise Nelson and a man
with a giant camera with her.

“
What?”
he roared.

“A
photo?” she asked.

Nobody
had ever seen Dagmar cowed before. It mattered little; the photographer was
happy to get a photo of the groom picking the bride up and running towards the
exit like he was returning a field goal.

Roman
rushed through Volare and towards his—their—apartment with only the
sound of Lola’s peals of laughter in his ears, the smell of her in his nose,
the heat of her in his whole body. He thought he’d go mad when he finally got
her alone, but what happened instead was that he was mesmerized. He set her
down like the precious person she was, suddenly so very conscious of what she’d
given him, and in so much awe of it.

He
kissed her. He had no idea how long it lasted. Time belonged to people who
didn’t have forever.

Lola
took the dress off for him, slowly, languorously, letting him savor it. She was
still the most beautiful woman in the world. No matter what happened, no matter
how many children she gave him, no matter how old they grew together, she would
always be the most beautiful woman in the world.

He
almost wanted to cry again when he realized she was
his
.

Instead,
he dropped to his knees so he could kiss every inch, every swell,
every
curve of her naked flesh. By the time he was up to her
face again she was panting heavily, her breasts rising and fall, her stomach
muscles taut and her hips moving. He kissed her cheeks, her forehead, her
closed eyes, and her lips, and then he said, “Mine.”

“Mine,”
she answered back. “Yours.”

They
breathed together once more, and then Lola broke first. She clawed at his
zipper, freed his pulsing cock, and said, “Oh, God, Roman—“

She
didn’t finish. He lifted her high into the air, she wrapped her legs around
him, and he lowered her down while he drove his hips up, plunging his length
into her in one, shocking thrust.

Together
they thought:
home
.

THE END

Thank you!
I
hope you enjoyed Roman and Lola’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it, and
that it brought you a bit of happiness. :) If you want to know about my next
book as soon as it is out, you can sign up for my New Releases List
here
. And read on for a chance to get a free advanced review copy of the next
Volare book (Chance’s story!) by joining my review team!

If you liked this book, go ahead and
lend it to a friend. There’s no DRM for just that reason, so g’head, go nuts.
:) It’s one of the best ways to find new books.

And, if you
have a moment, please help others enjoy this book too by
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and letting
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Marrying
the Master
. I think it helps other readers choose which books are right for
them, and I learn something with every review, too. If you do leave a review,
shoot me an email with a link to the review at
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review, hopefully about a week or so before the book comes out. (Though
sometimes I get my butt kicked by deadlines! Oh man. Ask previous
reviewers—my butt is thoroughly kicked.)

And oh yeah,
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I kind of love Chance,
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‘Til the next book,

Chloe