Page 30 of Captive Audience

“This is going to end badly.”

“I don’t remember asking for your opinion or your blessing.”

I stood beside Asha, gently removed the pillow from her arms, and pulled down the covers. Christ. No panties. And my shirt had bunched around her waist, revealing the pussy I’d spent the night plundering.

Keeping myself positioned between Asha and Aidan so I didn’t have to gouge my cousin’s eyes out, I asked, “Do me a favor and check on Father Sheehan, would you?”

“Aye,” Aidan grumbled.

As soon as he left the room, I collected a pair of sweats from my wardrobe. Then I tugged them up Asha’s smooth legs as efficiently as possible, because I might be a murderer, career criminal, and class A bastard, but I wasn’t a fucking creep.

Without opening her eyes, Asha stirred, grabbed my arm, and clutched it against her tits the same way she’d been holding the pillow. She mumbled something before smacking her lips and drifting back to sleep.

And I was stuck.

She looked so peaceful sleeping in my bed that I wasn’t eager to move her. Truth be told, all I wanted was to crawl under the covers, tuck Asha against my chest, and slumber with her.

But I needed her docile for the nuptials, and if she was kicking and screaming while I slipped the ring over her finger, it would only make things harder.

After carefully extracting my arm, I scooped Asha up and carried her like a floppy sack of rice to the sofa in my living room.

Father Sheehan, Aidan, and I stood around her unconscious form.

“Thisis your fiancée?” asked the priest, pointing at Asha as though I’d asked him to wed me to a chimpanzee.

“She’s who I’m marrying.” Technically, fiancée meant I’d proposed and she’d accepted.

“Is she alive?” Father Sheehan lifted Asha’s limp wrist and dropped it back to the sofa.

“Aye, she’s alive,” I snapped. “Touch her again and I’ll throw you from the fucking balcony.”

He swallowed deeply and glanced toward the view from the twenty-ninth floor, then back to me. “Marriage license?”

From my back pocket, I took out a piece of paper, unfolded it, and passed it to Father Sheehan.

He skimmed it, then aimed a raised brow at me. “Is this real?”

It looked real enough. I’d had my tech guy create it and enter the details into the registry office’s database.

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Aidan asked.

“Never been surer of anything in my life.” I nodded to Father Sheehan. “Get on with it.”

“We can skip the formalities if you like. There’s no need for vows, is there?”

Like fuck there wasn’t.

I growled and delivered a death stare to the priest. “Say the words.”

“All right, all right.” He tightened the sash on his dressing gown and glanced at the names on the marriage license. “Do you, Ryan Oisín O’Connell, take Asha Anne Sparks, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do you part?”

My gaze raked over Asha. Some foolish part of me wished she could hear my response. “I do.”

Father Sheehan’s eyes darted with uncertainty between Asha and me. “And do you, Asha Anne Sparks, take Ryan Oisín O’Connell, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do you part?” He cleared his throat. “I’d feel much better about this if she gave a verbal response.”

Strangely, so would I.