Spider Game (GhostWalkers, #12)(117)

Trap grinned at her, completely unrepentant. He kept her pinned to her side. “Let’s do this, Pepper. Nonny, you get them to start the music and we’ll get married. The sooner we’re married, the sooner I get to have you in my bed.”


Cayenne frowned at him. “I was just in your bed.”


“Yeah, baby, and once I had that taste of you, I needed more. It wasn’t enough.”


“Trap!” Nonny said sharply. “We have children in the room.”


“With Wyatt around, Nonny, I think those girls are going to grow up knowing what their men are going to be expecting.”


Nonny shook her head, raised an eyebrow at Pepper and pulled open the door to signal to Wyatt to put on the music. She went first, followed by Pepper and the triplets, who solemnly flung flower petals in all directions. Trap kept her clamped to his side, his large body protective, partially shielding her as they followed the little girls.


It was a very short walk. Rows of chairs had been set up in the room with a path between them so the wedding party could make their way to the minister. Cayenne found her heart beating so hard she feared Trap would hear it. He knew she was nervous because she was trembling uncontrollably. She didn’t look at anyone, just stared straight ahead, concentrating on Trap. The feel of his hard body moving so close to hers. His breathing. The strength in his arm as it wound around her waist. His massive chest where her hand lay.


Baby, thank you for doing this. I know it’s scary for you, but once it’s done, you’re legally my wife and I’m your husband. I’ve always been yours, but this makes it official to the rest of the world.


She felt his fingers flex on her waist. I want to make you happy. She did. More than anything else, she wanted Trap happy. She knew the demons he had. She had her own, but she never had a family to lose. Now that she saw Nonny, Wyatt and Pepper and their daughters, she understood what having a family meant. He’d had that and it had been ripped from him. She couldn’t undo the past, but she wanted to do everything in her power to give him something just as beautiful. Maybe, if she was lucky, even more so.


It was a very short ceremony. She repeated the vows in a low voice. Trap sounded firm. He never once took his arm from around her until he had to in order to put the diamond band on her finger, pushing it next to her diamond engagement ring. Pepper had gasped when she saw the ring, but had just smiled when Cayenne asked her why.


Trap’s expression, the look in his eyes, when the minister pronounced them man and wife, had tears burning close. She knew, in that moment, she’d done something huge to make him happy. His kiss was everything she’d come to expect. Hot. Hard. Commanding. Demanding and possessive. Catcalls and whistles erupted along with applause.


Trap didn’t leave her side after the ceremony either. He did most of the talking to the GhostWalkers as everyone celebrated with copious amounts of food. The music started and Trap whirled her onto the dance floor, holding her close to his body, enfolding her into his arms as if she were the most precious thing in the world.


“You are,” he whispered. “Have no doubt that I’ll always take care of you, Cayenne.”


“I plan on taking care of you,” she told him, meaning it.


She vowed silently to love him better than anyone else could possibly do. She moved in his arms to the rhythm of the music, drifting on a tidal wave of love. Of need. So close to him, it was impossible not to feel hunger for him. Pepper and Nonny had bought her an outfit for bed, one she was more than delighted to show him before going to bed, but she didn’t see why she would want to wear it in bed. Still, they told her he would love it, so she knew she’d wear it.


“Phone’s for you, Trap,” Wyatt said, tapping him on the shoulder.


“I’m a little busy.” Trap didn’t look up, his arms around Cayenne as they moved across the dance floor.


“I think you’ll want to take this one,” Wyatt said. “It’s an assistant who is holdin’ for Violet Smythe. The Violet Smythe in the running to be a candidate for the vice presidency. The same Violet Smythe who was married to Senator Ed Freeman who set up Jack and Ken Norton from Team Two in the Congo. The same woman who betrayed all the women in Whitney’s compound when they were prisoners being forced to be with men they didn’t want to be with. That Violet Smythe.”


The room went instantly silent. Ryland Miller, head of Team One, Gator’s team, stepped away from the wall where he’d been lounging. “She recently pulled the plug on her husband. He’d been in a vegetative state for some months. We believe she did so on Whitney’s orders. It’s rumored she might actually be paired with Whitney, but no one has confirmed that as of yet. Clearly she is in league with him.”


“Why would she be calling Trap?” Draden asked.


Trap shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t have anything to say to the bitch.”


“Trap,” Nonny snapped. “Do not refer to a woman as a bitch, even if she is one.”


“Sorry, ma’am,” he muttered, not looking in the least sorry.


Later, Cayenne was fairly certain that she was going to hear all about Violet Smythe, and he wasn’t going to be calling the woman Violet or Smythe.