Business I canhopefullyhandle.
This is my first wedding and probably my last.
“How’s the bookstore coming along, anyway? You made any big decisions to make it fit your vision?” I change the subject, but Hattie’s face pinches.
Her lips press together.
There’s a crease between her eyebrows I want to smooth with my thumb.
“Um, slow going. But that’s okay.” She sighs like she’s holding up the world.
Another touchy subject.
Should’ve known, seeing how she never asked me to buy it for her in the first place and drop it in her lap.
But what’s done is done, and there’s no way I regret doing it.
That ratty place is better off in her hands. She could sell nothing but dirty gardening books and it would still be a massive improvement.
“You can tell me what’s new. I won’t bite your head off,” I say, rolling my shoulders and strolling across the room to the couch for the harbor view past the window.
My unruly brain snaps back to the way she tasted on the beach.
Ever since then, I’ve been doing my damnedest to forget, but the kiss returns to haunt me every time I try to banish it from my head.
That memory’s a siren song I can’t silence, repeatedly assaulting my senses.
Hattie’s soft, full curves in my hands.
Hattie’s lips, sweet as wine, drugging me to the brink of madness.
I was so fucking hard when I ripped myself away from her and marched back to the house. Ten more seconds and I would’ve been grinding against her like an animal.
Even Ares is better behaved in the humping department, for fuck’s sake.
Scrubbing a hand through my hair, I exhale between my teeth so she doesn’t sense the gutter my mind is stuck in.
I’m lucky I have Cooper Daley’s bullshit to hide behind.
It’s nothing new.
My mind’s been spinning since she showed up earlier this evening, wearing a cute button-down and leggings.
A far cry from the elegant dress last time, but somehow just as appealing.
Hell, maybe more so because she’s in her element.
Learning Cooper Daley ambushed her at the bookstore made me furious enough to forget the sexual static between us for five seconds, but now that there’s nothing but the sound of Hattie chewing her lip, it’s all I can think about.
Fucking helpless man.
Losing my wits over a kiss.
It’s pathetic.
Too long since I last got laid, perhaps, and I have zero interest in hookups right now.
Hattie and I are engaged.
