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“Watch me make you come.”
And then she opened her beautiful eyes, and I was spellbound.She’s glorious.
There was the look I lived for. Fire. All of that intensity was directed at me.
I hooked the edge of her underwear and slowly dragged it out of my way, revealing her smooth skin. As I laid kisses around the swollen flesh, my focus remained on her face. When I slipped my tongue inside her, her lips parted.
Her taste was perfection. I ate at her like a man starved. I was.
As her pleasure built, more of her weight shifted to me. When I sent her into oblivion, her gaze remained locked on mine until the potency of what was between us became too much.
She sagged against me. I righted her underwear and shed her sweatpants before I carried her to the bottom bunk. Once I settled her under the covers, I quickly undressed and slid in next to her.
I hauled her to me, her body hot against mine as she tangled our legs together.
“You didn’t . . .” she mumbled into my chest, running her hand sleepily over my erection.
“Shh.” I threaded my fingers with hers and kissed her forehead.
In minutes, her soft snores had me pulling her closer. This was the first time I felt like I’d taken a full breath since the last time she fell asleep in my arms. We’d been fighting like hell against each other, but she’d renewed my determination to keep her. This was where we were meant to be, and as soon as I woke up next to her in the morning, I’d tell her as much.
* * *
I rolledover and pulled something soft against me. I squeezed and frowned. Opening my eyes was a repeat of a nightmare I couldn’t escape. I punched the throw pillow in my arms where Mulaney should have been.
Fuck.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Mulaney
I wanderedaround the streets of the city until one person turned into thousands. I didn’t like fighting with Easton, I hated how easily I surrendered to him even more. How right it felt waking up with him.
I refused to let myself mourn the wasted nights we’d been apart, because there was a whole lifetime of them ahead. Wedding chapels, whiskey, vows, intimacy, children, arguments all flitted through my racing mind until I couldn’t stand it any longer.
I shoved into a coffee shop and found an empty place in a quiet corner to sit. Outside the window, people moved on with their lives as if nothing was different about this day, when to me, the grip I had on my life had slipped to the point of no control.
“Hide the Wine” by Carly Pearce came on, and I groaned. Why was country music playing in a New York City coffee shop? And it was more like “hide the whiskey” so things like last night didn’t happen again, though I couldn’t blame it on the alcohol. It was all Easton and the undeniable pull I felt toward him.
I blocked out the song.Work. I could focus on that as long as I didn’t think about Easton.
Inside my bag, my hand landed on a slick paper instead of my phone.
Don’t do it.
When had I ever listened to solid advice? I pulled out the Christmas gift I’d ignored for over a week and set it on the table, staring at it as if it might explode.
Then I tugged on the ribbon and ripped the paper. Inside the box were some familiar poker chips, a miniature bottle of whiskey, a red ribbon, and a diamond ring. It was cushion cut, with a ring of rubies surrounding the center stone and an outer ring of diamonds framing the rubies. The band was lined with diamonds.Oh my God.It was the most exquisite piece of jewelry I’d ever laid eyes on. The rubies were a symbol of our makeshift silk wedding bands. I swallowed hard as my throat got thick. They had meant as much to him as they had to me.
I slipped the red circle of ribbon on my finger. It was too large, but I couldn’t bring myself to adjust the size. This was his wedding band, all we’d had when we spoke our vows. I carried mine everywhere, yet kept it out of sight unable to face the possibilities it brought.
The ring made of metal and stones terrified me. It wasn’t some thoughtless piece of jewelry given by a man who only wanted my eggs. The husband who designed the ring had forever in his head and nothing less.
I folded my arms on the table and dropped my head onto them. This hamster wheel had no exit point. I was back where I started, pretty damn sure I was married to a man who didn’t really want to let me go despite his proposition.
The thought of his stupid deal made me want to punch something, namely him. So what if I didn’t want kids? I sure as hell wasn’t going to let him go off and raise my blood by himself. He’d lost his mind if he thought for one second I’d let a surrogate bring our children into this world when I was perfectly capable of doing it myself. If I couldn’t, it would be another story, but as it stood, he wasn’t getting a baby from me through a clinic, even if it did mean he’d sign the annulment papers.
Or we could do it the old-fashioned way.
