Our breath came in pants as we burst through the door, lips locked, hands pulling at clothing, desperate for skin.

“I need you, Alesha,” Sam whispered, his lips soft as they nibbled at my ear. “I need my wife.”

I can’t believe I’m finally married.

“Oh, yes,” I moaned as his fingers danced over my skin, pulling the long zip of my wedding dress until the beautiful beaded bodice came undone and revealed my ample bosom, heaving with desire. “I want you too. I want my husband.” I never thought I’d be so head over heels in love with a man I just met. Especially a man I knew to be a criminal. I was a good Christian girl, who was supposed to abhor the bad and seek to guide them to redemption. But I wanted Sam to be bad. I wanted him to show me how to be bad too. I could be a bad, bad girl. “Oh, Sam!”

“Oh, Alesha. I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you crawling across our lawn with your arse in the air. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted in a woman. Having you as my wife is a dream come true for me.” With a low growl, he buried his head in my amazing cleavage, his large hands cupping my big boobs as he spoke between kisses. “And your breasts, they’re amazing. You’re perfect in every way.”

Damn right, I was perfect.

Wait.

None of that actually happened.

Well, it kind of did.

It happened in a dream I had earlier today while on the plane from Melbourne to the Cook Islands. It was a great dream. A little over the top with the dialogue and the size of my breasts—I actually only had nipples on pancakes—but it felt good. As for the rest of it, I had a hope that it could somewhat come true. One day. I longed to be desired in that way, longed to be touched and adored by a man who would look at me the way Nate, Sam’s older brother, was looking at Holland, my best friend. Unfortunately, that day was not today. Instead of joining hands with a doting groom who was smiling at me and whispering about how beautiful I looked, I was standing by a swampy-smelling waterfall, my feet sinking in mud while the literal man from my dreams stood in front of me, swaying slightly because he was so incredibly drunk.

Am I really that unappealing that he needs to be intoxicated to go through with this wedding?

It was a horrible hit to my already low self-esteem, and it made me wonder if the other option Holland and I had been given was possibly the better choice. You see, we’d stumbled upon something we shouldn’t have, seen more than we should. Things got incredibly complicated, and in the end we were given two options—marriage or death. You won’t need many guesses to work out which option Holland and I went with.

“Do you, Alesha Ward, take Samuel Cartwright to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

Welcome to our shotgun wedding. In attendance were four out of the five Cartwright brothers, two of whom were grooms: Nate, who was marrying Holland, and Sam, who was marrying me. The other two, twins Abbot and Kristian, were witnesses. Also joining us was their mother, Jasmine—she was the one who wanted to kill us. I could rattle on for hours about the intricacies of the plot that brought us all to this moment, but I think Holland could tell it better (possibly in a book all of her own). So, you’re going to have to settle for my no-frills version of events. And with all eyes on me, I was struggling to remember what the hell I was supposed to say, let alone how we got here.

Wait, what was the question again?

Oh, that’s right. Do I want to marry Sam?

I glanced over at Holland, seeking a familiar face, needing her support. But she wasn’t any help at all. While she looked beautiful in a cream wraparound dress with flowers pinned in her blonde hair, she also looked like she might throw up, or worse, run and leave me here all by myself. Many best friends dreamed of having a combined wedding, but somehow for us, that dream had turned into a nightmare—a nightmare filled with incredibly attractive men, mind you, who were all staring at me expectantly.

“I….” The question hung in the air, everyone waiting for me to spit out my answer. It was only two words, but when you didn’t really mean them, they were so damn hard to say.

Could I marry Sam? With his dark hair and ice blue eyes, he was the hottest man I’d ever been able to form a sentence around. He was taller than me, buff as fuck, and he was charming. When we met—which was a nice way of saying ‘when Holland and I were captured’—Sam put me at ease in the midst of that awful situation. That was a miracle in itself, because normally I could barely speak around any man, let alone one who had a face most sculptors would cry over. He’d put an arm around my shoulders and offered me a beer, and somehow the social anxiety that had crippled me for most of my life just melted away like magic—although, the fact I’d been running for my life moments before, and my fight or flight instincts had kicked in, might’ve also had something to do with it. But I was calm around him, even twenty-four hours later, and that was a huge deal for me. I was never calm around members of the opposite sex. Never. So maybe, just maybe, this guy was the cure to my social anxiety. Maybe, just maybe, I was supposed to meet him the way I did Everything happens for a reason, right? Well, that's what the old ladies at my church said, anyway.

My head was spinning, searching for reasons, for signs. But I didn’t have time for any of that. I had to give an answer. They were waiting.

“I….”

I should just marry him, right? Statistically, arranged marriages worked out better than love matches. And you never knew, we might just be a match made in Heaven.

Maybe.

Lord, give me strength. Help me choose.

Based on everything I’ve said so far, you probably guessed that Sam was not a ‘good guy’. In fact, he was the very definition of a ‘bad guy’. The man was a thief. Part of a band of five brothers who cleaned out people’s houses for a living and sold off their belongings.

That was actually how I met Sam, through his thievery. He and his brothers had cleaned out Holland’s apartment twice. I know, I know—how the hell can the same people rob you twice? Well, Holland and I had been best friends since we were eight years old, so I knew better than anyone that she was a special kind of crazy and rarely thought things through before she acted. She was convinced she would do a better job tracking down her robbers than the police would. And she’d been right. She found them, dragging me—the faithful sidekick—along in the process. Her lack of forethought was the precise reason we were standing in a bug-infested swamp about to marry men we barely knew.

The heat pressed in around us, making my dark hair stick against the back of my neck. I could barely breathe through the humidity. “I….”

Holland had been so good at tracking down the thieves that we now knew exactly who they were, where they lived and where they stored their goods. Because of that knowledge, we were too dangerous to let go. It was either marry into the family or spend the rest of eternity in an unmarked grave. A crazy conundrum for any person to have.

Honestly, if I were the Cartwrights and two crazy chicks came barrelling into my life, knowing all we knew, I would’ve ended them then and there to save all this wedding drama. But then, I did have access to a crematorium through my job as a mortuary beautician, so getting rid of a body would be a lot easier for someone like me. No digging deep holes and worrying about search dogs finding some nice soft ground….

I had to admit that I took some sort of comfort in knowing that these guys were more willing to marry us than to kill us to protect themselves. I suspected it was Nate’s weird connection with Holland that had been the primary driving force behind this irrational scheme to save our lives, and once again, I was sucked along by association. I couldn’t imagine Holland would want anything to do with Nate if he let his family kill her best friend, so I was ‘saved’ along with her, given a brother to wed. I guess that meant they weren’t really that bad, right? I presumed it meant once we took their name, we couldn’t go to the authorities, because we could be considered associates. Or maybe they had some kind of ulterior motive I hadn’t considered.

My mind wouldn’t stop reeling.

“Alesha,” Jasmine hissed. I swallowed hard.

No matter what spin I put on all this, one fact remained true—I wasn’t ready to die at only thirty-two. I’d done nothing with my life, barely had the chance to live yet. There was only one real choice available to me. Only two words between me and my own salvation. If only I could spit them out.

“I. Do.” The words burned as they passed my lips, the effort taken to force them out removing all the air from my lungs.

Great, now I’m married to a criminal.

Relief crossed Sam’s features, which surprised me since he seemed so drunk. Then I sucked in a large gulp of air, trying to stop myself from passing out over the reality of what I’d just agreed to. I just said “I do”. I was married to a man I barely knew, and my father, who was the most religious man I’d ever met, was going to kill me. Dear God, save me from my father’s wrath. Let him understand that I’d never do anything to upset him on purpose. Grant him the gift of compassion towards his only daughter. I didn’t want to be cast out of my own family just because my wedding didn’t follow the right protocols.

Just as my silent prayer ended, divinity answered with a solid middle finger as a bug flew right down my throat, choking me with its malaria-riddled wings.

“Uck.” My eyes went wide as I coughed and leaned forwards, grabbing Sam’s shirt, begging for help as I tried to spit the horrid creature out, my feet sliding on the slick and spongy ground.

“Whoa!” Sam grabbed my elbows in an attempt to steady me, but the ground was too wet, too soft, and our shoes provided little grip. We tilted forwards, then back, desperate for purchase, our hands gripping tighter when our feet failed us. Then we went down with a squelch, mud splashing up and coating the stark white of my slip dress. The fairy tale was definitely over. I was either going to scream or cry.

Holland, my most favourite person in the world, stared at me in shock, her honey-coloured eyes opened wide. She looked so beautiful, so curvy and confident. I expected her compassion, needed her sympathy, or at least her hand to get out of the mud. Instead, she pointed at me and laughed. “You should see your face!”

* * *

“Bathroom is in there.” Sam pointed to the door inside our hotel room as he started unbuttoning his muddy shirt, peeling it from his well-muscled chest. The sight made my mouth go dry and my feet glue themselves to the floor. I’m married to that? Despite all that I knew he was, Sam was a beautiful man who sent my heart all aflutter every time I looked at him.

“See something you like?” he asked, a half grin kicking up one side of his mouth.

Immediately I dropped my chin, my gaze hitting the floor as my cheeks heated. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled, heading for the bathroom. I was so completely out of my depth in this situation. There was no handbook on how to behave when marrying into a crime family. Maybe watching some mobster movies would give me some pointers.

“I’m happy to come in there and wash your back for you.” Playful. He was playful. All man. Too much man. Too sure of himself. Too knowledgeable. And I… I was too nervous. What was I supposed to do?

I shook my head and scurried away like a mouse, locking myself in the bathroom where I immediately caught sight of the catastrophe in the mirror.

“Good Lord,” I gasped. So. Much. Mud. The entire wedding party had reacted to Sam’s and my fall with laughter and a mud fight. At first, I was devastated—weddings weren’t supposed to have mud fights in them. But then weddings weren’t supposed to be rushed either. I could sook about it, or I could roll with the punches and have fun with everyone else. I chose fun. And while the mud fight lightened the mood, it absolutely destroyed my dress and made me look like some kind of swamp monster. Not pretty.

Stripping quickly, I got into the shower stall and turned on the water, wishing I’d waited for a moment when the icy cold hit my skin and I let out a small shriek.

“You all right in there?” Sam called through the locked door, startling me for a second time. I was already a nervous person, and the stress of the day was definitely adding to that.

“I’m fine. The water was cold. It’s fine now.”

“Sure you don’t want me to wash your back?”

I smiled to myself, holding my hands under the warming water. “I can manage,” I called back. He seemed to enjoy teasing me, and I think I liked it. It felt light and fun to me, just what I needed to stop being so nervous around him. I’d struggled with attraction before, not knowing what was expected of me, but he’d been kind and affectionate from the get-go. Twenty-four hours. It wasn’t a lot of time to get to know someone, and I honestly wasn’t sure if he was attracted to me or if he was just playing the kind of game his family seemed fond of. The Cartwright brothers were experts at seducing lonely women. When Holland was robbed the first time, the police told us it was their MO—they preyed on the lonely and lived like kings as a result. Was that the case here too?

I ran my arms under the water, watching the mud rinse away while wondering if I called out “yes, you can wash my back”, would Sam come into the shower expecting to have sex with me? After all, that’s what married couples did. The thought made me nervous. But not as nervous as the thought of him laughing and not wanting to come in at all. What if he was only joking? What if he didn’t want me in the slightest?

Once clean, I wrapped myself in the thick white towel the hotel provided and wished I’d thought to bring my suitcase in with me so I didn’t have to go out there to get changed. This could get really uncomfortable.

Staring at the door, knowing Sam was on the other side waiting for his turn in the shower, I took a deep breath. I can do this. I can walk out there almost naked in front of my husband. There was a certain expectation for a woman on her wedding night, and perhaps it would be a good test to see if he actually was interested or had simply been teasing me all this time.

Was I ready for that revelation though?

Clutching the top of the towel, I cracked open the door and peeked out. He was sitting on the end of the bed in just a pair of boxers, the TV remote in hand as he flipped through channels. Lordy me, that man was stunning. All muscle and taut skin that called out to my fingertips, begging them to touch. I’d been in his arms during the playful games he’d included me in the night before—swimming in the pool, playing billiards with his brothers. He’d stayed close to me the entire evening, made me feel safe.

I was a good girl. But I wanted him. Did that make me bad, knowing what I knew?

“It’s all yours,” I said, my voice catching a little in my throat.

Grinning, he immediately stood and dropped the remote on the bed, reaching me in only a couple of strides. The man was enormous. I was five-ten, and he was almost an entire head above me. Plus his shoulders were crazy broad. I could fit three of me across him. And he looked after that body. He was made to seduce, and everything about him made my skin buzz.

“Thanks, peaches,” he said, chucking me lightly on the chin as he walked past and closed the door.

Peaches?

I was standing there naked save for a towel, and he chucked me on the chin? A sour taste filled my mouth and twisted my lips downward. Am I that undesirable?

Hearing the shower turn on, I moved over to the cupboard where our suitcases were waiting. I wasn’t really sure what was in mine since the twins had been dispatched to ‘grab some of my things’. When I placed my hand on it, I wondered if they’d packed anything at all. The bloody thing was empty. Oh shit. I didn’t even know where the clothes I’d arrived in went.

Please let there be something in this cupboard.

Taking hold of the handles, I willed my clothing inside it, then pulled, sighing with relief when I found the shelves filled with familiar items. It looked as though Abbot and Kristian had been quite thorough in bringing a little of everything I owned. My biggest disappointment was the lack of a make-up bag. I hated going bare faced, and it looked as though I had no choice in the matter.

Grabbing a pair of white cotton briefs—I owned nothing sexier than cotton—I pulled them up my legs, still holding my towel over my chest for modesty despite being alone. It was something I’d always done. Nakedness wasn’t something that was ever acceptable when I was growing up, so I barely saw myself naked, let alone anybody else.

I pulled out a matching cotton triangle crop that did little more than cover my nipples so they didn’t show through the fabric of my clothes. I didn’t need any underwire or support because my chest was non-existent. Holland often referred to me as Olive Oyl because I was so straight up and down. All the curves had skipped me and been bestowed upon her. It’s why she was the one who got all the guys—not only was she funny and outgoing, but she was voluptuous too.

Pausing before I put my dress on, I took a moment to really look at my body. It was like somebody stuck a head on a rake. My face wasn’t much better, basic brown hair and eyes too big for my face. My mouth seemed too small by comparison, and my nose was a little on the crooked side. There was also a tiny gap in my front teeth because my father believed in accepting what God gave you, so no braces in my house. I’d lived life with a whistle gap instead. Acceptance of what God gave me. The problem with that is He gave me nothing significant at all. When I looked at myself, all I saw was deficit. No gifts.

With a sigh, I turned away from the mirror. It was no wonder Sam had walked straight past me. He probably had some beautiful busty blonde he’d visit on the weekends, and if I was lucky, he’d be discreet. He wouldn’t need me, the mousy brown-haired whistler for the itty-bitty-titty committee.

His flirting, his hugs, his kindness? Probably generosity towards his frightened, pathetic new pet. He simply felt sorry for me.

And here I was, his wife. God, what have I done?

Pulling my dress over my head, I thought back to the conversation I’d had with Holland on the plane that brought us from Melbourne to the Cook Islands. She was in a panic over our impending nuptials and I’d told her not to worry, that Sam and I were in love. “It was love at first sight,” I’d said. “We’re waiting for the wedding night.” It was a bold-faced lie, and I wondered why in the world I’d said that to her instead of being honest. Maybe it was to help her stress less by not worrying about me. Maybe I wanted her to think I had something that she didn’t for a change. Maybe you said it because you’ve always been jealous of her, and you wanted her to think you were happy and in love, a little voice whispered in my head. A thump resounded in my chest as the words rang true.

I’d always wished I was more like Holland. More beautiful. More sensual. More passionate. Just more.

Yes, I was married to a gorgeous man. A man who was way out of my league, who’d essentially swooped in and pulled me from my dreary life and into the excitement of his. It’s what I’d been wishing—no, praying for. But given that I’d barely earned a quick glance from Sam as he walked past me, being me wasn’t looking so great. I wondered how long I could continue to live my passionless life. I was so tired of feeling unwanted.