Page 130 of Broken Butterfly
“I really need you to kiss me right now, Ryder.”
“…for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part…”
“I love it when you call me that.”
“What? Baby?” Ryder cocks his brow at me.
“Yes.”
“I’ll make sure to use it more often then.”
I place my hands delicately yet forcefully on the sides of Ryder’s face, turning it so we are eye to eye. “I love you, Ryder. I hope it’s not too soon for me to say it, but I need to. I feel so much for you. It’s scary, thrilling, and overwhelming at the same time. But I need to say it. I need you to know. The day in the student center when you found me, I had a memory of you that night. I remembered you holding me. I remembered you telling me that you loved me, and I remembered saying it back.”
“Elizabeth, I have loved you since the day we met. I have loved you for a lifetime. I loved you before, I love you now. I will love you always.”
“I see you got my message.” I pull my tank top off and throw it across the room. Ryder’s hungry gaze roves across my upper torso and down to my bare breasts before making a slow perusal down my stomach.
“That I did.” He lifts his shirt off and drops it, letting me get my fill of his golden, tanned skin and defined pectorals.
“I missed you today.” I pull my shorts down and kick them to the side. No underwear.
“Not as much as I missed you.” Ryder pops the button on his jeans and sheds them in one movement. He went commando today.
“How did dinner go with Daniel?” he asks as his copper eyes linger on my lips, my butterfly tattoos, my pelvis, then drift slowly down my legs and back up again. My legs almost give out from the sensual visual inspection he’s giving me.
“Dinner was good.” My hands twitch with the urge to touch him. I bite my lower lip. “Going to tell me what that was all about today with Fallon?”
Ryder swoops in and lifts me up. “Later. First, I need to fuck you.”
I curl my arms around his neck, so giddy with love and lust that I am about to combust, my body burning to ashes from the heat being generated between us.
“I love you, Elizabeth.”
“I love you too. Now shut up and kiss me,” I demand, tugging the hairs on the back of his head.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Elizabeth and Ryder would like to share a few words with one another…”
“Open the door, baby.”
“What?” My ears pick up a faint noise coming from the front of the house.
“Open the door, Elizabeth.”
I hear the noise again. I jump off the sofa and run as fast as I can to the front door. I fling it open like the house is on fire. And standing before me, looking handsome as sin, is Ryder Cutton. The man I love more than anything. The man I want to spend the rest of my life with.
My body starts shaking uncontrollably and I drop Fallon’s phone. He can afford another one.
“How?” How did he find me? I’ve missed him so much.
Ryder gives me that heart-stopping grin, his amber eyes liquid with unshed tears. “There’s my girl.”
“You marked me last night,” I tell him, pointing at the love bite on my neck. “So, I’m marking you. I’m claiming you. You’re mine, Ryder, just as I am yours.”
“I have always been yours, Elizabeth.”
By the powers vested in me by the state of North Carolina, I now pronounce you husband and wife. Ryder, you may now kiss your bride.”
