Melody Anne's Billionaire Universe: Roadside Assistance (Kindle Worlds Novella) by Casey Hagen

into bed.”
    She choked on her beer. “You’re a blunt one, Lathan, and a surprise.” She squared her shoulders and faced him. “So, if you don’t want me in bed, what are you looking for?”
    “Romance.”
    She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
    He dragged a finger over the delicate skin of her temple. The hum of the crowd faded in the background. “Because we’re going to be married and year is a long time. I don’t know about you, but I would rather spend it enjoying each other. There’s no reason we can’t have a little fun, right?”
    “We need some ground rules before we have this “fun” you’re suggesting.” She held eye contact with him while she stood her ground.
    He brushed his thumb over her bottom lip and grinned when she sucked in a breath. “Ground rules. Got it. Hit me with it.”
    “This marriage is temporary. One year and it’s over.”
    He kissed her cheek. “One year, check.”
    “No children.”
    Her husky voice gave away what he was doing to her, and damned if that didn’t provoke him to do more. “No procreating, got it. We get to practice though, right?”
    She nodded. “Eventually, we’ll practice.”
    He kissed the tip of her nose and delighted in the crimson stains that appeared on her cheeks. “Any more rules, Jack?”
    She cleared her throat. “The most important one…no falling in love.”
    He pressed a kiss to her forehead. Lingered there. Memorizing the feel of her warm skin under his lips. “I’ll do my best to balance my charm with a fair amount of annoying shit, so you don’t fall shamelessly in love with me.”
    She slapped his arm playfully. “There’s no way I’m falling for you.”
    Well, they would just see about that. One thing Lathan couldn’t resist was a challenge. Not when his friends dared him to climb into the window of the daughter of the chief of police. Not when Liam challenged him to a race the day he got his license, resulting in Lathan’s losing his license until he was eighteen. Not when Liam’s death thrust a multi-billion-dollar company into his unfit lap. And not when his parents hit him with a last-minute hoop to jump through to obtain what was rightfully his.
    He framed her face with his hands and stared into those olive eyes, losing a piece of himself to the vulnerability in their depths. The hum of the guests faded away.
    “Lingering touches and gazing into my eyes, also against the rules.”
    “Too bad for you, I’ve never been good with rules.” He slanted his mouth over hers and sucked her bottom lip between his. When she sighed, he took the opportunity to tease her lips open with his tongue.
    How had he gone his lifetime without this? Without her arms circling his waist? Without her soft sighs with every slide of his lips?
    Not falling in love had just become impossible.

    Okay, she could do this. She glanced at her skeptical face in the mirror. No, really, she had this. So Lathan kissed her in a way no other man had. So what? That didn’t mean anything other than he had had a lot of practice. She caught the hard glare on her face. No getting jealous over the women in his past. This is temporary.
    She wished she believed it.
    She splashed cool water on her face and dried her flushed skin with a thick white towel. She had ducked into the house after the kiss. She absolutely wasn’t running away, at least, that’s what she told herself. When Lathan had pulled away, Jack grew self-conscious, something that never happened, when she spotted his parents watching them out of the corner of her eye. Annette had been kind enough to lead her into the house to collect herself.
    Speaking of Annette, she needed to finish up before Annette guessed that Jack was avoiding her.
    Shit.
    She’d been with them for all of an hour and already she had been knocked off her axis. She hadn’t been prepared to like his family. Knowing he was ridiculously rich, she assumed his family to be snobby and judgmental. So far she had seen very little of