Page 7 of Operation: Wife Her Up

But I don’t expect a sailor to understand the kind of little rich girl problems someone like me has—and I know better than to try to explain it.

My mother may have been an heiress, but my father lived his whole adult life in service to his country. That I was orphaned at fifteen is sad, but my life will always be comfortable.

You ask for too much, Abigail.

Six more years. Six more years, or I get knocked up. Those are my choices to be able to be in charge of determining what “comfortable” is.

He hands me a pea pod. “So I can bill you for last night’s stay?”

“Again, with the fishing for my contact information.” But I’ll find a way to make sure he’s reimbursed for the inconvenience. Later. Once I’m gone.

“I get it, Goldilocks. You want to stay anonymous.” He rocks his jaw back and forth. “You swear you aren’t hiding from the law?”

I catch his gaze. His eyes are hazel, I think, but they look pretty green right now. Glittering like emeralds in a rare beam of late afternoon sun, filtering through the trees.

“I swear,” I whisper. I wouldn’t want to put him in any compromising position.

And then a cloud moves in, and his gaze is hard to read again. “All right. You can stay here. But I’m going to exact my price one way or another.”

“Spanking?” I joke.

He doesn’t look like he thinks that’s funny. He looks like he’d actually do it.

I stop laughing.

“I have five days here,” he says sharply. “Then I’m driving down to Conception Ridge. I—” He shakes his head, disbelief rolling off him in dark waves. “In that time, I had a couple of projects I wanted to complete. If you want to stay here, you can help me with those.” He stands up, pushing the cheese sticks closer to my hand. “But the spanking is definitely still on the table.”

Then he stalks outside.

CHAPTER5

JUSTIN

What am I doing? I should have given her the water bottle and closed the door in her face.

Little thief. Won’t tell me her name. She makes my palm itchy in a way I cannot fully explain. Spank her? That would just be the warm up. I could spend the whole day lecturing her smart mouth about hiking safety and first aid self-care. Make her do her own first aid, over and over again.

The state that her feet were in? I’d ream a course candidate so hard for that.

I want to force her into the tub for a bath. Make her promise not to be so foolish ever again.

Then I want to dry every inch of her slight, soft body and tuck her into my bed. Hold her tight against me, let her feel how hard I am, and punish her all over again by not letting her bounce on my cock.

Not for you, little girl. You’ve been bad.

I jerk the chairs and fire pit around on the deck to move them into a new shade spot. One of my projects for this week is to build a pergola over the deck for better shade all day long. I had the lumber delivered last week, and that’s where my focus should be right now. Not on railing the tight little mystery currently sitting at my kitchen table.

I give my head a shake, but it does no good. There’s a deep tug inside me, almost forcing me to turn around and go back inside.

I don’t even know her name, and she definitely broke into my house yesterday. I should be calling the cops, not thinking about how I can sweet talk her onto my lap.

Maybe it was her suspicious intake of breath as I crowded her into the chair. I felt that right in my chest. Like she’s scared of me, at least a little, but desperately doesn’t want to be—and doesn’t want to let on to me that she might have that vulnerability.

Fuck, I don’t want to scare her.

The door opens, and she steps outside. She’s put a fresh pair of socks on over her bandaged feet. “Justin?”

I hunch up my shoulders and shove my hands in my pockets. “Hey, Goldilocks.”

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