Dante's Stolen Wife by Day Leclaire Read Free Book Online

his shoulder.
    “I don’t want to be a high-powered business exec anymore,” she informed him in a muffled voice.
    He felt unbearably tender toward the woman in his arms. “Who would you like to be?”
    “Me. Right now. With you.” She lifted her head to look at him with an endearingly solemn expression.
    “What could be more perfect?”
    “Nothing that I can think of.”
    He stripped back the plush comforter and blanket before easing her onto the mattress. Her hair spilled like black ink across sheets of baby-soft ivory cotton, the ebony strands as soft as spun silk. He came down beside her, in no hurry now that he had her where he most wanted her.
    “We could make this trip even more special, if you want,” he offered gently. “When we return tomorrow, it could be as Mr. and Mrs. Dante.”
    For a split instant he thought he’d pushed an inch too far. Staring up at him, she moistened her lips. “You know,” she admitted hesitantly. “I’d planned how I’d answer you tonight, just in case Britt and Angie were right about your intentions.”
    “And what did you decide?”
    “To tell you how much I appreciated our friendship and hoped over time it could become more than that. More intimate than that.” The explanation sounded more like a confession. “That I was willing to take the next step if you were, but that we’d have to take it slowly.”
    “And now?”
    Tears sparkled like diamonds in her eyes. “And now all I can think about is how lucky I am to have found you again and how afraid I am that I’ll wake up tomorrow and it’ll just be a lovely dream. That our relationship will go back to the way it was and I’ll lose all this.”
    “This isn’t a dream and you’re not going to lose me.”
    The apprehension lingered, a shadow that darkened the clear blue of her eyes. “What happens if everything changes again? What happens if we revert to how we were before?”
    “That won’t happen, I promise.” He feathered a kiss across her mouth. “Marry me, Caitlyn, and I’ll fill your days and nights with more romance and adventure than your wildest dreams.”
    “Considering some of my dreams, that’s a pretty tall order.”
    “Try me.”
    Joy welled upward and she nodded. “I do believe you just won yourself a bride, Mr. Dante.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Very sure.”
    “Then, what do you say we do this right?” He checked his watch. “The marriage bureau doesn’t close until midnight—”
    Her arms tightened around his neck. “And how do you know that?”
    “ Cara ,” he admonished, laying on a thick Italian accent. “It’s my great pleasure to anticipate your every need.”
    “Which you’re doing brilliantly.”
    “Which I’ll soon do even more brilliantly. Let me make a quick phone call and then we’ll go for our license.”
    “Perfect. That’ll give me time to freshen up.”
    She didn’t shift from her position, but simply gazed at him with such yearning that Marco knew that if he didn’t get them off the bed and fast, they wouldn’t leave it anytime soon. He risked another kiss, sliding across the lushness of her mouth before dipping inward. Just a gentle give and take, a lazy teasing duel that teetered on the edge of flaming out of control.
    She broke off the kiss with a strangled moan. “I don’t understand any of this. It’s like kissing an entirely different person.”
    That had him levering off the bed. He softened his desertion by holding out his hand with a warm smile. “Come on. Now that you’ve said yes, I want to turn my brand-new bride-to-be into my brand-new wife.”
    She sat up, delightfully appealing in her rumpled state. He’d done that to her. He’d upended her neat little columns and smudged all her meticulous facts and figures. And she’d let him. More, she’d encouraged him to yank her outside her box and into his world, a world without order or logic. It did, however, have a plan, one he’d executed with all the care and precision of his