I press my face into his chest and close my eyes and pretend that’s true.
Chapter 38
Fake Husband
LILA
Ilisten to his heartbeat slow from a gallop to something steadier. Feel his hand in my hair, his lips at my hair, the warm solid weight of him all around me.
“I promise I’ll be gentle next time,” he whispers.
“Okay,” I say. “Or don’t. I like everything you do.”
He pulls me closer to him, nuzzling into my neck.
We’re officially cuddling.
I’ve wanted this so badly. The sex, yes, but this too. The intimacy. The comfort. Feeling like a real couple. I settle into him happily.
“So you wanna keep doing this?” he asks. “Us? Together, like this?”
“We are married,” I say. “Might as well enjoy every minute we have together.”
His fingertips skim across my hip. After a long pause, he says, “I wanted to do that for so long. Hold you like this for… God, I don’t know. Since I met you. But I think… I didn’t want to mess it up with you. I was scared I’d do something to make you pull away. I’m not good at dating.”
“You say that, but if we count that first day we met, that was the best first date I’ve ever had.”
A kiss on the back of my neck. “For me too. I wish I was better at the whole relationship thing.”
I take his hand and brush my lips against his scarred knuckles. “You’re way too hard on yourself. Trust me, you’re great at it.”
He sighs heavily. “Been told I’m always absent. Emotionally unavailable. Cold. The feedback ain’t been great.”
I struggle to reconcile Slade’s words with what I’ve experienced of him. It just doesn’t compute. And…feedback?
“Your exes told you that to your face?” I ask.
I feel him shrug behind me.
A surge of fierce protectiveness and indignation simmers through me. “That was rude and cruel,” I say. “And patently false, for that matter.”
He chuckles as his arm tightens around me. “Not gonna lie, I like when my wife defends my honor. Even if I don’t deserve it.”
“They slandered you!” I say, still bothered on his behalf. Slade is sensitive, I know that much about him. He internalizes criticism. My first instinct, that still waters run deep where he’s concerned, is true in so many ways.
If anyone throws a stone at him, it sinks all the way to the bottom and stays there.
I wriggle against him, pulling his arm more tightly across me. “I know you’re busy with all the work you do at Wild Rose, but you always make time for me.”
“I’m not playing hockey right now,” he reminds me gently.
“That’s true. Okay, so I can’t speak to that. Butcalling you emotionally unavailable and cold… no. You might have a hard shell, but you’re a warm gooey marshmallow inside.”
He actually laughs at that. It’s a low but warm sound and I decide right there I want to hear it a lot more often.
“I guarantee you’re the only person in the world who thinks so,” he murmurs against my hair.
“That’s because they don’t see what I see. Someone thoughtful and generous in every possible way, someone who I…”
