Groom Under Fire ✅

12.

Make love to me.

He couldn't have heard her correctly. He must have been daydreaming. And his heart was only pounding as wildly as it was because rod the shots he'd heard being fired at his eldest brother. It wasn't because he was hoping like hell that he had heard her correctly.

Desire rushed up, choking him, so that he had to clear his throat before asking, "What did you say?"

Her face flushed a bright shade of pink. Clearly too embarrassed to speak, she just shook her head.

Nobody had ever accused him of being too sensitive. Maybe he would have to learn some sensitivity—now that he was a married man and all. But he wasn't really a married man unless...

"You heard me," she challenged him.

"I heard you," he admitted. "But I don't understand you." If she was so in love with Gabriel...

"I thought I'd made it clear," she said.

He shook his head now—trying to clear the passion from it, so he could think clearly.

"If Kennedy challenges this marriage in court," she said. "I won't perjure myself."

He wanted her. But he wanted her to want him, too, as more than a means to an end. "So you want to sleep with me to spite your sister?"

"To stop her from getting what she wants," Annabelle replied. "The money."

"And what about Gabriel?" What were Annabelle's feelings for her missing fiancé? She had been so loyal in her defense of him. Where esas that loyalty now?

"If you're right and they're in on this together, she can have him!"

"I don't know what's right or wrong," Axel admitted. "I was just saying it was a possibility that they could be in on it together."

"Because of the emails," she said with a nod. She was as hurt as he had worried she would be if he shared his suspicions. But he'd had to be honest with her then. And now.

"But maybe they're not," he said. "We didn't find any reply to her email from Gabriel. So maybe he has nothing to do with any of this." He actually hoped that was the case or he has lost a friend. But if Gabriel wasn't in on it and had been seriously injured, Axel may have already lost a friend. And then he'd married that friend's bride.

That made him the biggest betrayer.

Tears glistened in her eyes. "I don't know what I want to believe anymore. If he's working with Kennedy, at least he's alive. He's a snake," she cursed him, "but he's alive. If he's not working with her, where is he?"

"We're still looking for him," Axel assured her. "Archer's in touch with all his old contacts when he worked Vice." While Arrow has quickly moved from patrol to detective, Ryder had preferred working undercover. Or, if his reputation was to be believed under covers.

Axel would like to get under covers with his bride. But for the right reasons.

Like mutual desire. Need. Love.

"Vice?" she asked. "What would that have to do with Gabriel?"

"Archer's informants are on the streets," he said. "They hear things. They see things." And hopefully one of their tips would lead them to Gabriel. "And everyone on the Payne Protection payroll is working on finding him and whoever has been shooting at you."

"At you and your brothers, too," she reminded him. "I'm sorry—sorry for all the trouble I've been. I shouldn't have asked you to...."

"Make love to you?"