Rogue - Michele Mannon Page 0,114
thumb across his cheek. Taking my time in drawing an invisible K over his smooth skin. Marking him just like he’s so fond of marking me. Just like the initial branded on his back shoulder. Yeah, there’s more than a ring bonding us together.
“I love you. I want you. I need you,” Jaxson murmurs. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes. Oh yes, Jaxson,” I respond.
Gently, he takes my left hand, removes the ring from the box, and slides it on.
“It’s beautiful.”
“You’re beautiful.” He grins at me, stands, and helps me back up to my feet.
I frown. No kiss?
Sauntering forward, I wrap my arms around his shoulders and bring him in tight. “How about you carry me across the gated threshold, we check out our new home, then find a secluded room to get busy in?”
He sweeps me up off my feet, kicks open the gate, and steps inside. “Now.”
“Now?”
“About that kiss . . . to new beginnings.”
“To happy endings,” I laugh.
“That too.”
Jaxson bends his head and kisses me, carrying me up the sidewalk and up the few porch steps, where he fiddles with the unlocked door—yep, the devil had this planned all along—and leads me deep into the living room.
If you told me a year ago that dreams can come true for someone like me, I’d have laughed in your face. I’ve been through Hell Camp and through Hayden’s fury. I’ve been deep within a city sewer and have come out the other end. I’ve been fleeing from and sprinting with open arms toward the man of my dreams. I’ve experienced loss and heartbreak, hatred and love, sadness and sweetness. Bliss. Absolute, passionate bliss.
And then there’s Jaxson. A handsome devil I fell in love with in a matter of weeks. A man as stubborn as me but in a far more seductive way. I never stood a chance. I still don’t.
Thank you, sweet Mary.
Yeah, this thing between us is going to work out just fine.
“Which room do you want to christen first?” he asks me with a sexy grin.
“How about I surprise you after we tour the house? Because if we’re going to be married, I plan on keeping you on your toes.”
He chuckles. “That a challenge? Do your best.”
We head into a small, formal dining area and that’s when he reminds me about something. “I said there were two conditions to me buying this house. One—you marrying me.”
I roll my eyes at him. “I assumed that was condition one and two. Me saying yes to the house. Me saying yes to you.”
“Nope. There’s another. One I insist on if you want this house.”
He’s giving me that look. The familiar, naughty, thou-shall-give-into-the-sexy-devil one.
“Fine,” I say. “What is it?”
“White picket fence—check. Daffodils—check. But rooster wallpaper, even in a bathroom—no freaking way.”
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Read on for a sneak peek of Kylie’s sister Madelyn’s story:
MERCENARY, Deadliest Lies Novel #2.
Mercenary
A DEADLIEST LIES NOVEL - SNEAK PEEK
Madelyn
He’s still there.
Hunkered down on the cinder block we use as a step. A tree branch, light tan in color and free of bark, set on his thigh. A few twirling inches of it sticking out, visible to the curious eye as he rolls it back and forth, back and forth.
His blond head turns. Like he knows I’m on the other side of the door, returning to take another peek around the sheer French drapes I’ve hung in the small front-door window.
The stranger’s been out there for a good hour, like a guard dog staking his claim on my stoop. His body angled slightly to the right so I can clearly see the thin lines whittled into the wood. Ladder marks, six in total.
The air is warm even inside the trailer, the humidity overtaking the comfortably mild run of temperature that’s graced Shelby in recent days. Signs that trouble’s likely brewing; atmospheric conditions are definitely ripe for tornados, especially if the temperature higher up in the atmosphere has grown colder. Two years ago, a tornado leveled the northern outskirts of Shelby, destroying everything in its path. As much as I’d like to wish it isn’t so, storms in Oklahoma are not to be overlooked. Period.
Is that what he’s doing? Biding his time and waiting to see what the weather will do? I wonder if the sexy stranger is one of my faceless neighbors, and try to think back on my brief stay in our new home. Surely, I would have remembered someone like him.
I stare at the