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Okay, so I was still playing hard to get.
I wanted the words. I wanted the commitment. I wanted everything there was to have with Etienne. Including the surety that he would give me forever. In the meantime, he was playing with my emotions.
Hence me telling Bain I would sleep in a hotel.
We all knew that to be a lie.
I hadn’t slept outside of Etienne’s home in so long I could no longer keep count.
Hell, I now got my mail at his place.
If Florida had a common law marriage ruling, then we were legally married in the eyes of the law. Because there’d been numerous occasions where I’d referred to him as my husband and me his wife, in front of others.
When we pulled up to the side of the gate, I wondered vaguely how it’d been unlocked—I hadn’t told Etienne the code that the old man had told me—but I was suddenly very tired.
So tired, in fact, that when he pulled me out and set me on my feet, I swayed.
“Whoa,” he said as he caught me. “You okay?”
I yawned loudly. “Tired. Being out in the heat is exhausting.”
As the years passed, it was getting harder and harder to recover from spending the entire day in the sun.
He tapped my ass as he said, “Head to the bike while I get Bain’s inside the gate.”
I did as he asked and watched as he moved the other bike. His muscles rippled, and if I weren’t so tired right then, I might’ve gotten a little bit excited about how those muscles did things to me deep inside my belly.
Only when he had the gate closed securely behind it did he turn around and come straight to me.
“You have a sunburn,” he said as he eyed me.
The intensity of his eyes after him being gone for two days was blinding. I wanted to look away, but the way his gaze held mine trapped me.
Jeez. I’d known him for so long now, and he still had the power to send a swarm of butterflies through my belly with one well-placed look.
“I have something,” I grumbled. “I didn’t plan on spending the day outside. Or I would’ve brought some sunblock.”
And a bikini. I missed the perfect day to get some sun on my white belly and to even out the farmer’s tan I had going on.
He got on his bike, but instead of pulling me on behind him like I fully expected him to, he pulled me down in front of him, then curled himself around my tired body.
Feeling like weeping all of a sudden, I leaned into him and relaxed as he drove us home.
All the anger and the sadness from him not taking me with him disappeared the closer we got to home.
By the time we pulled into our driveway, I’d fully let everything go.
Before I could get to my feet once he stood, he had me in his arms and we were moving into the house.
He didn’t have to put me down to get the door unlocked. Nor did he have to put me down to get it locked.
He walked me straight into the bathroom where he stripped me with such laughable ease that I might as well have been a willing participant.
Which, technically, I was.
He just didn’t know I was willing.
He thought I was still upset.
Which, I might be in the morning… but right now? I fully expected him to ravish me, then hold me all night.
“What’s that look for?” he asked as he pulled my bra off one-handed.
I licked my lips, stepped out of my panties next, then said, “I was wondering if you could even do slow.”
His lips quirked up at that as he let me go to reach into the shower to turn it on.
He cranked it way down, though, to almost lukewarm, cognizant of my sunburn.
“This’ll be the first time you won’t complain about how hot the shower is that we’re taking together,” I mused as I stepped inside.
The water started streaming down my face and blocked my view of him undressing.
By the time that I was smoothing my hair out of my face, he was already stepping into the shower with me.
I held up my hands, and he came willingly, pressing his hard, muscled body to mine before wrapping me up in a hug so tight it took my breath away.
“Missed you, Mattie,” he rumbled into my ear.
I softened even more against him, if that were even possible, and sighed.
“Being mad at you is tiring,” I told him.
He chuckled. “You shouldn’t do it anymore.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” I replied dryly.
I moved my hands up to his hair, softly moving my fingers through the now-wet strands, and massaged his scalp.
He did the same to me, only he had shampoo on his palm before he did.
I groaned and leaned my head back into him.
