“You’re my lovely beast and I’m sure whatever you branded on me is fine. I’ll just cover it over with my hair.” She laid her head back down and nestled against me with a sexy yawn.

“Somebody is sleepy.”

“Well, yeah, that happens when you don’t spend much time actually sleeping the previous night,” she returned without a pause, bringing a hand to my ribs like she was going to go for another tickle.

I took her hand in one of mine and neutralized her potential attack, grabbing a lovely handful of her prized arse with my other, and squeezed. The feel of her soft curves in my hands made everything feel right with the world. “But we should probably get moving, baby,” I reminded gently, annoyed that we couldn’t just stay here in bed together and sleep for a few more hours.

“Now wait a minute, am I hearing you correctly? Whose idea was this wedding weekend extravaganza with a morning-after breakfast anyway, because I sure as hell know it wasn’t mine.”

She had a point. Our wedding had been much more of an event than either of us would have preferred, but when the plans were put into motion, the reasoning behind everything was very valid. As the ideas were laid down, I’d wanted as much exposure for her as possible; the higher profile the celebrity of a society wedding would bring, the better the insulation at protecting Brynne from her stalker. At the time none of us had known he was a rogue crazy named Karl Westman. I’d feared much higher levels were involved…and they were on the clean-up end. Of that I was certain. Westman had been taken down by US Secret Service. Threat eliminated and extinguished…by expert professionals who could make a person just disappear if they want to.

By the time Westman was out of the picture, our wedding plans were already deep in motion, and press releases gone out to the gossips rags. Too late to call any of it back, or change the guest lists, so we’d just gone along with what had been originally scheduled. Big wedding, numerous parties, weekend guests, a noisy send-off to our luxurious Italian honeymoon—all carefully constructed to publicize Brynne’s status as the wife of elite security, connected at the deepest levels to the British government.

And apparently, the trend of inviting select members to stay overnight to wish the happy couple off the morning after, was the “in thing” at the moment. I suppressed the urge to scoff at the idea. I couldn’t wait to get away with her. Just us. Alone in our own little world where everything was safe and peaceful and we could catch a breath.

I smiled at her and kissed her on the tip of the nose. “It was mine, my beauty. Blame me.”

She tilted her head up and cracked an eye open. “Blame you for the fact I’m sleepy due to a very busy wedding night, or the big hectic wedding neither of us wanted?”

I laughed at her logic. “Both. Guilty on all counts, Mrs. Blackstone.”

“Okay, so your punishment is getting the shower ready and carrying me in, because I don’t think I am capable of walking just yet. You know what your orgasms do to me.”

I did know very well. She usually fell asleep for a few minutes. “I don’t know if I can either after that epic shag, but I’ll give it my very best.” I carefully rolled her off me and hauled myself up to sit at the side of the bed. “More than just a little motivated here, baby. My plan is to whisk you away where I can keep you all to myself.” I picked up my mobile from the bedside table and checked the time. “And to make that happen, I have exactly five hours to get you on a plane with me bound for the Italian coast. If I must have breakfast with a slew of people in order to get us the hell out of here, then so be it, but know this…if I could manage it, we would’ve already snuck away and been long gone by now.”

Brynne’s only response was to observe me from the bed as I left to go get the water started for our shower, and she hadn’t moved at all by the time I’d returned; just lying there tangled in the sheets, looking soft and flushed from shuddering in my arms only moments before. So beautiful to me, I had nothing else to compare her against. Brynne was the definition of beauty when she looked like this after I’d just had her.

Her eyes drew over my body, seeing and evaluating as she often did when I was naked. My girl liked a little leer when the opportunity presented. And if we hadn’t just shagged to within an inch of our lives, my damn c**k would’ve been standing at attention begging right now, with the way her eyes were on me. Brynne could express so much without ever saying a single word. How in the hell she managed to be so off-the-charts f**king sexy by just giving me a look, I will never know. I was just the lucky bastard who reaped the benefits, I suppose.

We stared at each other, neither willing to look away, when she gave up one of her barely-there, signature smiles. The kind of smile that shows just the hint of gladness, but with Brynne, it tells me she is happily content with sunny skies in our immediate future.

“You are absolutely adorable right now, Mr. Blackstone.”

I shook my head at her. “I can think of few other words to describe me at the moment, baby, and adorable is definitely not among them.” Barking mad maybe, but no f**king way “adorable” fits the bill.

“But to me you are,” she said. “So frustrated at being forced to be social, and having to put on a show for those people, as you call them, who just happen to be our closest friends and family, and only want to wish us well and send us off on our honeymoon in style.”

“I know,” I admitted. “I just don’t want to share you right now…with anybody.” And I didn’t. At least I was honest about it.

Brynne held her arms out to me, and I reached down to pick her up, settling her against my chest, cradling her bum in my hands as she wrapped her legs around my hips. I walked us into the bathroom, kissing her sweet lips the whole way, counting the hours until my wish would be granted.

OF course there were jibes and catcalls when we showed up to Hallborough for the morning-after breakfast-slash brunch. Ethan would’ve had us climb out the window and slip away if he could’ve gotten away with it, but I’d convinced him we didn’t have a choice but to show up. I reminded him how happy it would make everyone to see us this morning, and in the end I’m pretty sure he agreed with me, because I had my methods of persuasion, and felt it was my prerogative to use them if I needed to. But as we walked in to join everyone, the knowing looks on their faces, the inner speculations about what Ethan and I had been doing the night previous was a little too invasive for my tastes. I loathed for people to think private thoughts about me. I understood very well why I had hang-ups with that particular idea; it didn’t change anything for me. I still felt that way.