Page 99 of Sweet Oblivion

She looks like she belongs here.

Belongs to me.

“You’re staring again,”Jamie sighs. He’s right. I am. And I’m not about to look away.

“I’m watching my wife.”

The music shifts, and I’m grateful for the volume and the vibrations and my hearing aids because I can enjoy it all. I watch the girls drag her back to the middle of the dance floor and hear the beat she’s swaying to. Her hair falling loose around her shoulders, bare feet on the makeshift dance floor, spinning like she forgot to care that there are three hundred people watching her.

And that’s what gets me.

Not the dress or the way she fills it out.

Not the way every man here can’t keep their eyes off her.

It’s that look on her face.

The freedom.

The carefree softness she never lets anyone see.

She’s relaxed, and she’s happy, and she’s never been more beautiful.

“What are you waiting for?”

Great fucking question. Before I can blink, I’m moving. Drawn to her like a moth to a flame. And my girl feels me before she sees me. My hand slides around her waist, firm and steady as I pull her back against my chest. My lips skim her ear. “Having fun, wife?”

Her breath catches, and I swear I feel that vibration everywhere.

She wraps her arms around mine and lays her head back on my chest. “That depends.”

“On?” I push.

She brushes her lips over my jaw and turns in my arms. “How long you’ve been watching?”

My thumb drags along her lower lip. “Long enough.”

“Creepy,” she giggles, and damn, that sound fucking destroys me.

“Obsessed.” Her eyes darken, and I know that did it. “You’re my obsession, wife.”

She presses her lips to mine quickly before pulling back.

It’s a tease, and I want so much more.

“Dance with me, wife.” Fuck, I love calling her that.

“I already am, husband.” Her golden eyes shimmer, and I know exactly what she’s thinking, like I can read her mind. Time’s up. She’s my wife. No more counting down the days.

My hand settles on the bare skin of her lower back, just above where lace meets silk, and like the universe owes me one, the song slows, and I take her other hand in mine and hold it between our chests. She fits against me like she was always meant to be there.

“We’re being watched,” she whispers, licking her lips, like she’s dying to kiss me the way I’m dying to here. Not a peck. Not a brush of the lips. A fucking claiming.

“Good,” I groan. “Let them see. That’s the whole point of tonight, right? So everyone can see. So pictures can get posted and articles can be written.”

Fake it. Sell it.

But the way I’m touching her . . . The way I feel about her . . .