King's Treasure (Oil Kings Book 3) by Marie Johnston (great novels .TXT) 📗

because that wasn’t what his background was in and he had no network yet. He was in town for his brother’s anniversary party and his dear sweet Grams was riding him hard about getting married.

When he’d said that, it had clicked. Getting married would solve my problems and his. The most pressing was Lex. Chief would be livid. He might not want me working for him.

What would I do?

Job hunt with my wandering photographer? How would that work?

My buzz threatened to flatline, but I’d had a day. I’d figure it out later.

The elevator doors opened and we spilled inside. I giggled and buried my face in his shirt. He smelled fresh, like detergent and soap—not the perfumy stuff. Natural soap. Citrus and cedar. Addicting.

The door closed and he crowded me against the wall. We were the only two on board. I stared into his dark eyes, not believing that I was going home with him.

“Mrs. Sapphire Jewel,” he whispered as he brushed a few strands of hair out of my eyes.

I inhaled. Should I change my name? To what? Who cared? It wasn’t Abbot. “I thought I was Mrs. Xander.”

The corner of his mouth kicked up. “I am a king and you are my jewel.”

A shiver raced down my spine. He made me feel special, delicate, and I liked it. The guys I’d dated in high school had wanted to impress Chief more than me. The guys I’d dated in college had known how wealthy my family was, but they’d run when they’d learned I’d been severed from all that wealth until I learned some sort of lesson.

What would Xander do when he found out?

“My room’s close to the elevators,” he growled, sending a shiver down my spine and erasing all doubts. “I’ve been wanting those long legs wrapped around me since I first laid eyes on you. Too much too soon?”

I spread my hands across his broad chest. I couldn’t recall a guy ever telling me that I drove him crazy. “Just right and not nearly soon enough.”

He palmed my ass with both hands, holding me so tight that I wrapped my arms around his neck and hitched my legs up. “Is that what you want?” he murmured.

“Yes,” I breathed. So much. Fire whipped down my body. This was it. We were married. It was our wedding night.

Heat bloomed through me, igniting nerve endings that hadn’t been tended to well enough for more than a few years. Our first kiss had beat out any I’d ever had, wiped their memory from my mind.

What would sleeping with him be like?

I yanked his head down before I could lose my nerve. His lips landed on mine and I was lost in him until the slight jerk of the elevator alerted us that the doors were about to open.

His hands remained on my ass as he spun. I clutched him and giggled. A middle-aged couple passed us and the woman sighed wistfully. “Remember when we used to do that?”

The doors closed and I buried my head in Xander’s neck as his strong, assured strides carried us down the hall.

“We’re never going to quit doing this,” he said in my ear.

“As long as your back can take it.”

“My body will take anything you have to offer.” He stopped at a door in the middle of the hall and wrestled the door open. Inside was nothing like the two-bedroom suite Bernard had booked for me and Brady. Too extravagant for one night for a company that couldn’t afford it. Xander’s room was simple, like him. One room besides the bathroom and one bed. He hadn’t gotten more than he needed.

We spilled into the room, but he stopped to pin me against the wall.

The kiss he gave me was long and deep, melting me more with each second. He released his hands to cup my face, his hips anchoring me so I didn’t slide down. “I’m going to spread you out on the bed and open my wedding present.”

I kicked my heels off. Somehow, I knew the relief paled against the pleasure that was yet to come. Which one of us was getting the present? The marriage fairy had dropped the perfect man on my doorstep. He was everything I’d been looking for. I had the rest of my life to learn about him, starting with tonight.

Xander

I was holding my wife in my arms. My wife. She gazed at me with those deep blue eyes full of wonder. Like I was some sort of dream come true. I’d always been the annoying middle brother, the needy one who’d finally gone off to do his own thing and stopped bothering everyone. I’d traveled the world and there was never anyone waiting for me in all the places I’d been. Any relationships I’d been in hadn’t stood the test of time. Either they hadn’t wanted to travel with me, or I hadn’t been enough of a reason to uproot themselves and leave.

Meeting Savvy while we were both on a trip seemed fitting. We could go anywhere. Together.

I had no attachments, not even to my family. I didn’t even have an address. What I couldn’t do electronically went to the ranch and Dawson let me know if something looked important.

But I had a place now—with Savvy. The woman who’d kept me from failing my family yet again. When she’d announced that we should get married, my brain had hung on the offer. I shouldn’t have married a woman I’d just met, but I didn’t react to her like she was just any woman. And that she’d wanted to get married only two days before I lost something that had been weighing on me for the last year?

Fate. I wasn’t going to question it and I couldn’t wait to learn everything that made my wife tick, starting with her body.

I carried her to the bed. Housekeeping had left the blinds parted, giving us enough light without having to turn one on. I wouldn’t care if we were