Chapter 22: STEEL

Chapter Twenty-Two

STEEL

“ I can’t marry you,” Joslin whispers. I hate to hear those words from her. It’s been painful to wait for her answer and to hear those four words… I refuse to accept this answer.

I love her and we’re getting married.

“Why not?” I whisper, pushing hair out of her face. She hasn’t hit me. She hasn’t run. This isn’t a rejection yet.

“You’re a stranger and a violent criminal.”

“Tough talk from the woman who killed her husband.”

She doesn’t like me throwing that in her face. Too fucking bad. Joslin… I’ve kept my hands off her because of her past. Because of what she went through. I’ve fought my urges by putting my tongue deep inside her pussy instead of acting on my darker urges and exposing this woman’s small body to my cock.

I have this bizarre urge to protect her alongside all my disturbing instincts to fuck and dominate her body into total submission and docility to me. I have watched too many men lose the women they love by forcing them to give up control. You have a lot better luck with women when you give them the choice.

And I want her to have the choice… to a point.

Let’s get one thing clear – I’m not leaving this woman’s side for longer than an hour until she agrees to our elopement.

Joslin gestures at the stack of papers we lifted from her ex-husband’s house. It’s hard not to find myself charmed by how innocent she is.

“There isn’t anything in that stack of papers that could stop me from wanting to marry you.”

Staring into her perfect eyes, I mean it. I mean it so fucking hard it scares me. There’s a reason I found this woman crouched in a basement, delirious from heat stroke and reaching out her hands in search of something solid. Something real.

It gives me purpose to think that my life outside of prison could be deeper than taking the fall for the club and doing the dirtiest jobs. I want a woman. I want the peace my brother has… There will always be some element of competition between us, but what will make that a lot easier to handle is if I have a woman of my own to focus my attention on.

And I found one.

“What type of marriage are we going to have, Ryder? We’re strangers.”

“I had my tongue in your pussy.”

“What beautiful, heartfelt wedding vows.”

I run my thumb over her lips, desperate to kiss away every ounce of resistance in this woman’s heart.

“Fine. What’s in the papers? If there’s nothing in there that scares me away, you have to say yes.”

“You don’t want to marry me,” she says.

“Why the fuck would you say that?”

“Because,” she says. “Men and women want marriage for different things. You’re not the type.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” I respond, inching my lips closer to hers. “After we’re married.”

Joslin’s body stiffens at first when my lips press against hers but just like all the other times I kissed her, she accepts my kiss. Eagerly. Listen, she’s the one who brought up the absence of our marriage several times. I won’t be one of those men who keeps her sitting around for years unable to take the hint. If Joslin wants marriage before she has my dick…

“What if I don’t want to marry you?” She says, raising her eyebrows and folding her arms with clear intention to provoke me — and to put just a little too much distance between us for my tastes. I grip her chin so I can hold her head in place and stroke those pretty full lips with my thumb.

“Why wouldn’t you want to marry me?” I push back. “I’m better than your first husband.”

“How would I know that?”

“I rescued you. I licked your sweet pussy lips until you creamed all over my fucking beard…”

I kiss her again, giving her a break to soak in my excellent points before I continue to supply her with reasons we belong together.

“And…” I continue, once I pull away from Joslin with a pounding heart. “I will kill anyone who tries to hurt you and do anything to protect you.”

“I have no proof of that.”

My chest tightens. She could have proof. If I told her the truth about running into her mother when I ransacked her ex-husband’s house. She’s been suspicious of how I procured the documents, but one of the talents you gain in federal prison is the ability to change the subject pretty damn quick.

When my fellow white boys in prison started up their typical raucous and inflammatory discussions about race, it was a matter of survival to switch the subject to something more agreeable like football or basketball. I sided with my skin folk behind bars, taking the right side when fights came down along racial lines, but I cared more about making hooch than inventing new slurs for black people.

“You do have proof,” I tell her, my heart leaping into my throat. The truth. I always thought I would keep every detail of my work away from Joslin, but I can’t help it. I want her to marry me and if I want that, I’ll have to give her a reason to trust me. A reason to gamble her future on a strange man with a dark past.

“Do I?”

“I met your mother, Joslin.”

Betrayal registers on her face. I could have mentioned that the second I walked in the door. At any point when she asked me where I got the files. I chose to lie.

“Did you kill her?”

She asks the question without hesitation and without any emotion, which I didn’t expect. Like it’s the first thought on her mind. It’s hard to suppress my anger.

“No. I didn’t kill your mother.”

Does she really think that fucking low of me? I know I look all fucked up and I have every last emotional scar from my past woven into every fucking thing I do, but I thought Joslin saw past that just a little.

“I just… Why didn’t you tell me then?”

“I told her I wanted to see your obituary first. She had to report you dead.”

“Why?”

Joslin’s eyes scan my face as if she can read the reason from the smallest movements in my facial muscles. I sense her curiosity, but no anger. If I didn’t know she already killed a man, I would think this woman is incapable of anger. Can’t kill your husband without being angry at him.

“I want you safe,” I tell her. “If you felt it necessary to escape and disappear off the face of the earth, I trust you had a good reason.”

Her chest settles with appreciation for my response. I’m just happy I didn’t screw up my answer this time.

“You had a good reason for not telling me,” she says.

I have to fight getting closer to her or just dragging her off to bed before I have her complete confirmation that this shit ends with a ring on Joslin’s finger. We can get to know each other later. Shit, the point of marriage is spending your entire damn lifetime with the person.

“Yes,” I tell her. “I want to prove that you can trust me, church girl.”

She looks at me with confusion. I still don’t have an answer from her and it burns me. I want her to just say… yes. I want to grab her cheeks and force it out of her. But that won’t work. Not in the long term. She has to want it.

“What about the documents?”

“I’ll look at the documents once you agree to marry me. I gave you the proof you wanted. I will protect you. I will stay by your side. I will eat your pussy until you come every night you want it… as long as we both shall live. And I have no shame about saying those words in front of a pastor.”

“You could leave out the part about my pussy,” Joslin says, her nose wrinkling in disapproval as her body betrays her ethics by pressing against me. My dick is about ready to burst.

“Whatever you want, church girl.”

“I’m not a church girl,” she says. “I’m a cult girl. I love Jesus, I love God, I get a lot of comfort from the Bible, but the people who raised me and the man who married me didn’t have anything to do with God’s church.”

“I call you that because you’re all innocent,” I say. “Just like all the church girls I ever knew.”

Joslin laughs for the first time since I’ve had her in my possession. Her smile is fucking beautiful. Her teeth are naturally straight and white, with a small gap between those front teeth that I only really noticed when she smiled that wide. It’s so cute. Then those high cheek bones turn this copper, cinnamon color.

“I killed someone, Ryder. I might be a lot of things, but I’m not innocent.”

“I think you are.”

“You’re just saying that because I’m four-eleven.”

Maybe. But I also want to drag all four-foot eleven inches of Joslin into this motel bedroom and spread her pussy lips wide…

Not until I get her yes.

“Marry me.”

“What if you regret it?”

“Then you have my permission to kill me.”

She doesn’t like that I smile after giving her my life.

“I’m serious,” she says.

“How can it be any worse than your first marriage?”

“That’s not as compelling as you think.”

“Neither was the pussy eating stuff, apparently.”

Joslin pauses, then says hurriedly, “If I say yes, that isn’t why.”

“Really?”

“It’s because you protected me.”

“So you’re saying yes?”

“I’m not saying no.”

My dick is ready to burst out of my pants from the tension and impatience of waiting for this woman to just give me her approval.

“That’s not what I asked, church girl.”

She looks up at me and shakes her head. “I’m already dead,” she says. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

“What beautiful romantic words from my future wife,” I whisper, fighting the urge to run my thumb over her lips due to pure fear that any contact with her lips will trap her desire for me behind them.

“Yes,” she says. “I’ll do it.”

I almost expect her to keep fighting, so I just stare at her like an idiot for a few seconds. So long that she says it again.

“Yes. I’ll marry you, Ryder. Even if I don’t really know your last name…”

“Our last name, church girl. Our last name…”