“Violet,” he warned, voice thick.
“Fuck me, Elden,” I ordered.
His eyes flared, and then he thrust in. Brutal. Fabulous. He didn’t stop until the world fell away, and we were the only people left on the planet.
“What about this?” Mom asked.
I jerked back into the present, looking at the light pink, lace dress she was holding up.
My cheeks flamed.
It was completely inappropriate to be thinking about that as I shopped for my wedding dress with my mother, but I couldn’t help it. Elden did that to me. I wore marks on my thighs, my ass as evidence that I was alive, loved, cherished and that that fucker didn’t win.
They still hadn’t found him, something that I knew haunted every man in the club. The sheriff was still investigating, whatever the fuck that meant.
Sariah, luckily, had been too preoccupied with planning things for the wedding next week to be doing anything that would get her on either the sheriff or the killer’s radar.
My wedding, which would be taking place during the eighth month of my pregnancy while I also somehow managed to finish my degree.
Both Mom and Elden had tried to convince me to contact my professors after I got out of the hospital. As far as excuses went, being attacked by a serial killer while pregnant was a pretty good one to get me out of my final assignments. But I fought them. Because if I didn’t have assignments to finish, then I would’ve had a bunch of free time to think about everything.
Thinking was bad.
Which was why I threw myself into schoolwork and into putting the finishing touches on our house. We were breaking ground the day after the wedding.
Elden had taken me out there the day I got discharged from the hospital.
It was perfect. Everything I could’ve imagined. It wasn’t far from Mom and Swiss’s place, closer to the mountains than them, the sky and desert endless around us. I could envision exactly where everything would go. Where we’d have our greenhouse—I planned to grow as much of our own food as possible—where the pool would go, my studio, a large garage.
I could see our entire life there.
But right now, I was looking at dresses.
“It’s pretty,” I said, fingering the lace.
“See, it’s pretty! Perfect!” Colby exclaimed. “Buy it. Then we’re done.”
I chuckled at my friend. He had been a good sport during the first hour, even offering helpful suggestions. But his patience had worn thin after the tenth dress, and he was slowly losing the will to live.
“Even if this is the one, which I’m not convinced it is, we’re not done,” I informed him. “We still have to find shoes, which will be extra challenging since my feet have ballooned to what must be three times their normal size.”
“Why can’t I be fighting rivals somewhere, seconds away from death?” Colby groaned.
Mom and I both grinned. “Your feet are not three times their normal size,” Mom argued.
I sighed, looking down at them. I may have been exaggerating, but they felt like it. My stamina for shopping had greatly decreased, especially since every dress I tried on was wrong.
We weren’t doing a courthouse wedding. I didn’t want that. I wanted to celebrate with my family and friends, make it a big event. My grandparents were coming. My brilliant, loving, unflappable grandparents had taken in stride that their granddaughter was not only pregnant but marrying a man much older than her in the same outlaw motorcycle club as the man my mom married.
My grandmother was already shopping for our nursery and for her granddaughter.
Since it was going to be a real wedding, I wanted something specific. I didn’t want a traditional wedding dress. I did not want it to look like a shotgun wedding. Which was impossible since I was eight months pregnant. Sure, my slight frame hadn’t blown up that much, and every woman in the club had told me how lucky I was, how good I looked, but I was sure they were only saying it to make me feel better.
My tits were huge. My stomach wasn’thuge,but it was approaching that. Not that I wanted to hide it in a dress, but I didn’t want it looking like maternity bride.
For the millionth time, I wished Sariah was here. Not that my mom wasn’t wonderful … she was. But Sariah had a kind of magic when it came to fashion. She’d find exactly what I wanted even when I didn’t know exactly what I wanted. Something elegant, classy, sexy and not over the top. Something that complimented my bump but didn’t highlight it.
“I think we need to call it,” I sighed, wondering what could be so important that my best friend couldn’t help me shop for a dress a week before the fucking wedding.