Read The Temptation Trap, Complete Series (An Alpha Billionaire Club BBW Romance) Online
Authors: Alexa Wilder
The Temptation Trap, Complete Series (An Alpha Billionaire Club BBW Romance) (21 page)
“I love you, too,” I said, my voice wobbly with tears, as I pressed a wad of blanket into his wound, trying to stop the bleeding while we waited for the ambulance. “If you die on me, I’m going to kick your ass, Axel Sinclair,” I muttered, knowing I wasn’t making any sense.
By that point, I was more than a little hysterical. Axel’s eyes remained shut, and he didn’t say anything, but the little smile remained on his face, and he turned his head into my open hand as if to reassure me that everything was going to be all right.
Despite the blood and his labored breathing, his skin was warm against my palm. Something eased in my chest and I knew he’d be okay. He had to be. I’d finally found my true love, and I would fight death itself to keep him. Axel was mine, and I wasn’t going to let him go. Ever.
G
etting shot sucks
. Big time. A collapsed lung is no picnic either. Between two bullet wounds and the lung, I was stuck in the hospital for almost a week. Emma refused to leave my side the entire time. My girl was amazing, first shooting Tsepov, then putting pressure on the worst of my wounds while she calmly waited for help to arrive. She told me later she’d been so scared that most of it was a blur, a normal response for a civilian with no experience in combat. The important part was that she’d held it together under pressure and saved both of our lives. If I hadn’t already been in love with her, that would have done it.
Sergey Tsepov had walked out of FBI custody over something as mundane as a paperwork error and a clerk too new to know that he should have double checked the release order. Tsepov’s lawyer had taken quick advantage of the mistake, and Tsepov had come straight for Emma, knowing he was operating on borrowed time. We still didn’t know why no one had thought to warn either of us that Tsepov was free.
Emma had killed Sergey Tsepov. Of the thirteen shots she’d fired, three had struck Tsepov and ten had buried themselves in her drywall. She was many things, but my girl was not a crack shot. I was going to remedy that. Hopefully, she’d never again have cause to fire a weapon, but if she did, I would make sure she could do it well.
If
she agreed to pick up a gun again.
She’d said she was okay with Tsepov’s death, but I’d urged her to see a counselor anyway. Taking a life, even when you had no other choice, wasn’t a simple matter. She would suffer for it. It burned, knowing she’d had to shoot my gun for me. I should have been the one to kill him. But he’d nailed me in the left shoulder, making my arm go numb, then he hit my right side, the bullet going through the top of my lung and my bicep. He’d shot me right through the wall—fucking lucky bastard—though it helped that the walls in Emma’s apartment were paper thin. Maybe I could have held up my gun long enough to shoot him, but it wasn’t likely. Without Emma’s bravery, we both would have been killed.
My girl was a tiger. The ICU nurses tried to throw her out more than once, but she’d refused to be moved, telling them she was my fiancée and she wasn’t leaving. By the third day, most of them had given up on arguing with her. Evers never left the airport in Atlanta. He'd gotten back on a plane and arrived in Vegas less than twenty-four hours after he’d left. His presence had gone a long way toward helping Emma make her stand.
He’d brought her clean clothes and stood guard while she’d snuck a shower or some food, going above and beyond to make sure she never had to leave me. By the end of my hospital stay, the nurses loved her. It would be an understatement to say that I was a terrible patient. Emma ran interference, cajoling me into the ten thousandth blood test or vitals check when I would have snarled at the nurses on my own.
My other brothers came as well, Cooper and Gage, along with my mother. By the time they brought me home, Emma had been securely adopted into the Sinclair fold. It was a good thing, since she’d be marrying me as soon as I could manage a wedding. She’d told the nurses she was my fiancée, thinking it was an expedient lie. When I’d called her on it, she’d turned a deep red and apologized, but I’d assured her I wasn’t bothered. She’d let the subject drop, probably thinking that was the end of it.
Not for me. The first full day I was out of the hospital, I’d had Gage sneak me out of my place so I could pick out a ring while my mother kept Emma occupied with moving her things. I’d worried I wouldn’t find the right one. It had to be perfect—unique, special, and exactly right. Vegas had a ton of jewelry stores, but there was only one Emma Wright, soon to be Emma Sinclair. It must have been fate, because I found it at the second store, a two and a half karat, pear-shaped diamond surrounded by smaller bead diamonds. The ring sparkled, its curved shape and brilliant fire warm instead of cold. The perfect ring for my Emma.
I didn’t wait to give it to her. Before Tsepov and my stay in the hospital, I’d toyed with half-formed plans for an elaborate proposal and a big wedding. Instead, I kicked my family out, sending them to bug Dylan and Leigha at the Delecta. I took Emma to bed, though she’d refused to have sex with me—some bullshit about the doctor recommending we wait another week—but I’d managed to kiss her senseless, making her come with my mouth and my hands after promising not to pull any of my stitches. I’d emerged unscathed—barely—and slid the ring on her finger while she was still gasping for breath after her second orgasm. Maybe it wasn’t the most romantic proposal, but watching her passion-dazed eyes register the sparkle of the ring, her pale skin still flushed with pleasure, was one of the best moments of my life.
“Marry me,” I’d said, a clutch in my stomach as I waited for her answer. I knew she was going to say yes. Of course, she’d say yes. Instead, she said,
“Really?”
I shook my head in half-frustrated amusement. Could she still question how much I loved her? “Yes, really,” I said. “Forever. Be mine forever, Emma.”
“Yes,” she finally said, with tears spilling over her cheeks and her blue eyes shining with love as they went from the ring to my face and back again. “Yes, yes, yes.”
I married her two days later. I didn’t want to wait, and fortunately, Emma didn’t put up a fight. I hadn’t come close to dying, but knowing that Tsepov’s loaded gun had been aimed at Emma had changed things for me. I’d already known I loved her, already planned to marry her, but before she’d had to kill Tsepov, I’d been content to wait. No more. After I got out of the hospital, all I wanted was to make Emma mine.
With my family already in town and hers only a plane ride away, I got the ball rolling as soon as she agreed. Lola sent over a selection of wedding gowns, and Emma chose the right one with Summer, her younger sister and both of our mothers at her side. We had the wedding—family only except for Dylan, Leigha, Sam, Chloe, and Summer—at my lake house, then we kicked everyone out for the honeymoon.
Two glorious weeks of just Emma and me, alone in a house with five bedrooms. Though the weather was good, we only made it out on the boat twice. The rest of the time we spent in various states of undress, rarely more than a few inches apart. The outside world threatened to interfere a few times in the form of annoyed calls from Summer about something Evers had said or done at the wedding, and oddly, the same complaints from Evers about Summer. After the fourth such call, I’d confiscated Emma’s phone and told the two of them to work out their issues on their own time. As long as we were on our honeymoon, Emma was all mine.
Watching her lounge on the couch, her blue eyes fixed on the view of the lake and her luscious curves wrapped in a creamy silk robe, I knew Emma had been right. I couldn’t regret a single moment that had led to this one. We hadn’t needed to start over. Every step we’d taken, the good and the bad, had brought us to this, the first moment of the rest of our lives. I joined her on the couch and pulled her into my arms, holding her close. I’d told her the truth at Jacob’s. I’d never been a one-woman man before, but I’d always hoped that someday I would be. I’d just been waiting for the right woman.
I’d been waiting for Emma.
T
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ALPHA BILLIONAIRES IN LOVE SERIES
A
lexa Wilder has been
a sucker for romance since she found her first Harlequin at a hospital rummage sale when she was thirteen. While she loves all forms of the written word (so much that she occasionally gets caught reading the cereal box at breakfast), love stories have always been her favorite.
She lives in the southern U.S. with her husband, two sons, an assorted menagerie of pets, and spends most of her time dreaming up sexy, domineering heroes and the feisty, strong willed heroines who will send them reeling.
T
he Temptation Trap
, Complete Series
Copyright © 2016 by Alexa Wilder
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Find out more about the author and upcoming books online at
www.alexawilder.com
