“One, I don’t want kids,” Nash said, his fury rising with each word. “Two, she’s fucking gorgeous. Three, a person is either weird or an asshole, and we all know where you fall on that spectrum.”

While Chelle’s uncle practically spit he was so mad, Nash was walking toward the asshole before he even realized he was moving. However, Chelle’s hand on his arm stopped him, pulling his attention away from the shitbird and to the way the gold band on her ring finger glinted in the sun. Then he looked up at his wife. Her jaw was tight and her eyes suspiciously watery.

Nash had never wanted to commit murder more in his life.

“Please don’t,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “He’s not worth it.”

Something inside Nash snapped in that moment. It was so sharp, so intense, that he heard a crack like a tree branch getting hit by lightning and shattering.

He didn’t think.

He didn’t consider.

He just pivoted, cupped Chelle’s face in his hands, and kissed her.

It started out for show, a fuck-you to her uncle and his asshat objection, but it didn’t stay that way. Sometime in the second between his lips touching hers and his tongue sweeping across the seam of her mouth, everything changed. It morphed from a declaration to a plea, from a protective action to a promise, from a spur-of-the-moment impulse to a need that went marrow deep.

Chelle let out a low moan as she melted against his chest and opened up for him. He didn’t hesitate. There was no way he could have. It felt too perfect with her lush body pressed against him and her fingers gripping his suit lapels as if she needed to hold on or she’d get sucked under by the same unexpected wave of lust that had him ready to strip naked right here and right now.

It wasn’t until he felt a tap on his shoulder that he pulled back.

“The dogs scared the shit out of that knobhead before your cousins scooped them up. Then your uncle ran his little fake cowboy ass out the door,” Karmel said, sounding bloodthirsty and slightly disappointed in that outcome. “So if you two want to go ahead with the ceremony to make this whole marriage thing official, you should stop making out now. Some people looked uncomfortable about seeing that kiss. I mean, I thought it was hot as hell, but you should probably go ahead and finish the I-dos.”