Free The Billionaire's Unwanted Virgin by Doris O'Connor Page B

they walked to the front
where the chaplain was patiently waiting for them. As the ceremony started,
Lakota lost all sense of time, giving his answers on auto-pilot.
    The
mixture of traditional tribal rites and the modern western ceremony blended
together beautifully, and he knew deep down in his bones that he had done the
right thing by combining the two. He might have left his heritage long behind,
but he couldn't deny it, not even for what was in effect a sham wedding.
However, hearing Alice giving her slightly hesitant answers, her small hand
trembling in his, it didn't feel like they were pretending.   He ground his teeth when she pushed the
matching wide platinum band on his left ring finger, and the chaplain
pronounced them man and wife.
    Percy
took the blanket off his shoulders, and Sara took it off Alice's to be replaced
by the larger white blanket, representing their future together. They clasped
hands and stepped underneath, and Lakota shut his eyes to stop the unexpected
rush of emotion swamping him. He was getting maudlin in his old age, but when
he opened them again, and saw Alice watching him, something inside him broke. A
primitive urge to protect and possess turned his pulse crazy and sent heated
arousal pulsing through his veins. He might only have married her because he
needed to look presentable, but somehow little Alice had marched right under
his defenses, and now she was his, truly his.
    He pulled
her to him with a growl proclaiming his ownership, and when she melted against
his frame, he tasted heaven.
    ****
    Cocooned under the white
blanket, there was no getting away from Lakota. Not that Alice would have
wanted to. As the ceremony wore on, Lakota had lost more and more of the thin
veneer of civility, and he had turned into the warrior his origins had made
him. Were it not for the business suit he wore under the blanket wrapped around
his broad shoulders, Alice could have easily pictured him out in the open, atop
his horse, like his ancestors had once been. He'd left his hair loose for the
ceremony, and it hung round his face in perfect straight strands, reiterating
the wildness about him—that savage streak her body responded to instinctively.
By the time the chaplain pronounced them man and wife, and the white blanket
settled over them, representing their new start, Alice had been a quivering
mass of need.
    She'd been shocked to the
core to see him incorporate his tribal traditions. Whatever possessed him to do
that, she couldn’t even hazard a guess, but it had been one shock too many on
top of the amended venue and her family being in attendance. She couldn't have
wished for a more perfect wedding had she planned it herself, and she let
herself be swept away with the illusion. And illusion was all this was, she had
to remember that, but as they said their vows, they didn't seem as though they
were just pretending. His deep voice penetrated her very soul, and when he
tightened his hand on hers as she said her vows, such incredible hope had
settled in her heart, it was fit to bursting with it all.
    She clung to him now, every
molecule of her surrendering to the fierce, almost savage way he kissed her, as
though he was branding her as his forever. He murmured an old Sioux prayer
in-between kisses, heartfelt words of love and hope, and an ancient belief in
the powers surrounding them that reached deep within her and let that seed of
hope blossom and spread like wildfire.
    She kissed him back with the
same intense need to brand and claim, and his groan trembled through her.
Whatever lay ahead for them, whatever happened, she would never forget those
intense few minutes under their blanket when time stood still, and the
connection between them seemed so strong, nothing could shake them.
    As abruptly as he'd grabbed
her, he released her when the blanket was lifted amongst loud cheering from the
assembled little crowd. Alice blinked in the sudden bright lights of her
surroundings, and returned the hugs