Page 136 of One Wild Wish

I descended upon her, knocking her hardhat off and capturing her lips with mine, groaning at the contact. It was instant, how she made me soft and hard at once, melting my angst yet shooting me full of steel. I plunged my tongue between her plump lips, a little rough and a lot needy, each swipe searing my mind. I groped her ass and waist and breasts. So many curves. Too much clothing.

Her teeth sunk into my bottom lip as she tried to climb my body. “You’re so tall.”

“You’re perfect.” I hoisted her up, latching her legs around my waist, and swiveled, slamming her back against the door with a violent thud.

A strangled oof pushed from her pretty mouth. “That’s sexier in the movies. I think I broke my spine.”

Head thrown back, I chuckled. “Doll, I fucking—”

Whoa.

Love you. That’s what I’d been about to say. In jest, maybe, an off-the-cuff fondness often offered to friends, but it was more. It was everything.

I’d only known Ainsley two months, not that long, but long enough to piece through my need to see her today and the whirl of emotions spinning through me and understand this was definitely more than infatuation. And she was in the dark about my past.

She had no clue I’d ever even been married.

Legs locked around me, she trailed wet kisses down my neck and along my collarbone, but I couldn’t reciprocate. Her openness in the face of my duplicity was too much.

Her teeth bit, her tongue licked. I was riled up, dying to see her creamy skin, but it didn’t feel right. She deserved to know. The basics, at least. She confessed a deep truth on the phone. I had to man up and offer the same. Find a way to explain Tessa’s accusations without losing the first person in years to make me feel alive.

I returned her kisses, exploring the column of her neck, the delicate lines of her ear. Then I pulled back. “We need to talk.”

“We need to kiss.”

It was hard to argue with her breathy sounds and rotating hips, her body plastered against mine, but this was important. Honesty was important.

I inched away from the door, lowering her so she could find her feet. My shirt was twisted. Hers was halfway up her stomach. Her eyes darted to my hand as I adjusted myself in my jeans. “We do need to kiss,” I said, “but I have some stuff I have to tell you.”

She tapped an impatient sneaker. “I’m not sure what you’re playing at, but I’m a tad horny, and unless you finish the job you started, and I get to strip you naked in the nearish-immediate future, I will die of blue bean.”

“Blue bean?”

“Blue bean.”

Even with my impending admission, this woman had me amused. “I don’t follow.”

“You get blue balls. I get blue bean. It’s not fun, so wipe that ridiculous grin off your face.”

I covered my mouth with my hand, unsure when my smile had gotten so wide. “Sounds painful.”

“You have no idea. So get on with whatever conversation is more important than saving your girlfriend from an excruciating death.”

I sobered quickly, shoving my hands in my pockets as I played the words in my mind. I had to say this right, not scare Ainsley off.

Before I could speak, she touched my cheek softly. “You’re making me nervous. What’s going on with you?”

Nothing. Everything. My life tumbling out of control. “I didn’t tell you the real reason I went to D.C.”

She snatched her hand back, like she’d been shocked. “You didn’t have to sell your house?” Confusion sunk in a line between her eyebrows. There was uncertainty there, too. Wariness.

I forged ahead. “No. I did have to. I still do, but there’s a reason it’s lingering on the market.” A stray nail was on the floor, and I rolled it under my boot. “I’m in the middle of an ugly divorce, and my ex is making things difficult. Including selling our house.”

Recoiling farther, she blinked and shook her head. “You’re married?”

God, the distress in her eyes. Her chest rose faster, while mine caved in. “No. I left her months ago. Nearly a year. It’s just the law and paperwork getting in the way of ending things.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”