“This isn’t really about the kitchen,” he said. “It’s… building something with you.”
I slid my paint-stained fingers into his hair, gazing into his warm eyes. “Then we’re doing exactly what we should.”
He leaned in, kissing me again, gentler this time, grateful in a way I felt down to my soul.
The cabinets hung crooked, paint streaked the floor, and I had blue drying on my shirt. But it didn’t matter. The room already felt like ours. Not because of the tile, or the layout, or the shiny appliances. But because inside all the mess, we were building something solid. One brushstroke, one mistake, one kiss at a time. Imperfectly perfect, like our marriage.
Eli’s mouth brushed mine again, softly, testing. A kiss that asked a question I’d been answering every day for years.
I slid my hands beneath his shirt, palms gliding over tight nipples and warm skin. He sucked in a breath. That sound always made my pulse trip.
“Adrian,” he warned, except it didn’t sound like a warning at all. More like encouragement disguised as sanity.
“Mm?” I tugged the shirt higher, exposing him inch by inch.
“We’re supposed to be painting.”
“Then we should take a break,” I murmured, kissing down the column of his throat. “Safety hazard, remember?”
He let out a shaky laugh that dissolved into a sigh when I pressed him back against the unfinished counter frame. My mouth trailed down his chest, my fingers hooking into the waistband of his paint-smeared jeans. Christ, he had the sexiest hipbones. They absolutely begged for my tongue.
His voice dropped, low and wanting. “You’re impossible.”
“Good thing you married me anyway.”
I lifted him onto the counter, and though it sat crooked andhalf-installed, it was solid enough for what I had in mind. He wrapped his legs around my waist, tugging me closer until there wasn’t a breath between us. Our kiss turned hungry, needy. After years together, he still tasted like a promise I was desperate to keep.
Paint smeared across our skin as we moved, our hands everywhere, laughter tangled with heat. The plastic sheeting crinkled under our shifting weight. A cabinet door rattled loose above us. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the way he moaned into my mouth and pulled me closer, not able to get enough.
“God, I love you,” I breathed against his lips.
He licked the shell of my ear, shooting desire straight to my balls. “I know,” he whispered. “But now isn’t the time for declarations. It’s the time to show me how much you need me.”
I answered him with my hands, my mouth, my entire body, giving him everything he asked for, right there in the sanctuary of our unfinished kitchen.
Dropping down between his spread legs, I finessed the button and zipper of his jeans until I had him exposed. My mouth worked his cock, my hands stroking him with a tight grip, squeezing all the blood in his shaft to the tip. It became so engorged, so sensitive, that he cried out with every flick of my tongue. And when I hollowed my cheeks and sucked him to the back of my throat, Eli released his load in a shuddering breath, clutching my hair tightly between his fingers.
By the time we were done, the paint had smeared, the counter frame was slightly more crooked than before, and Eliwas curled against my chest, flushed and boneless and impossibly beautiful.
“Worth it,” he murmured.
I kissed the top of his head. “Every time.”
We’d absolutely defiled the drop cloth. I started gathering up the rollers and ruined towels, tying the trash bag closed.
“I’ll take this out,” I offered.
“Wait.”
I stopped. Eli never saidwaitunless something mattered. His expression changed from open and satisfied to determined. He rushed out of the room, and I wondered what he was up to. He came back holding the stack of divorce papers we’d shoved in the drawer almost a year ago. The sight of them hit me like blunt-force trauma. All the air left my lungs.
“Eli…” I breathed, not trusting myself to say more.
He didn’t speak. He stared directly into my eyes, lifted the first page, and tore it clean down the middle. The sound cracked like bone under pressure.
I didn’t stop him. I couldn’t. My throat burned. My eyes grew watery.
He kept tearing—halves, quarters, smaller still—his hands shaking by the end. Every rip felt like a release valve opening in me, pressure bleeding out of old wounds I hadn’t realized were still festering.
