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“You okay?” I reached over the console and took her hand in mine. Instantly, warmth trickled through my veins.
In the two weeks since the night in my office, I couldn’t get enough of my wife. Her mouth. Her taste. The sounds she made when I sucked on her clit and the way she clawed at my skin every time I entered her. Fucking her was turning into an addiction that I was powerless to stop.
Before Kenzie, I’d easily survive a dry spell that lasted months. I thought it was because I’d gotten good at prioritizing my needs—and my need to help others always superseded my need for sex.
Maybe I had… but they both paled in comparison to my bone-drenched need for her. Not for sex. Not for release. For Kenzie.
The vanilla scent she left on my pillow. The sigh she let loose each time I kissed the sensitive spot in the corner of her neck. And her small smile—the one that wrote like a secret on her lips—when I took her into my arms at the end of each day. No matter what the day brought, it brought us together at the end.
We’d become the sunset.
“Yeah.” Kenzie nodded, but I could see her nerves were getting to her. The slight crease between her brows. The constant tug of her lip through her teeth. The tap of her finger on her thigh.
I tried to pretend like it wasn’t anything special—tried to tell myself that being able to read the slightest of her expressions came from growing up with two sisters and then running a safe house for women for almost a decade.
But that was about as big of a lie as telling myself it was going to be fine—I was going to be fine—when we eventually parted ways.
I wasn’t going to be fine. I was going to be screwed.How the hell did one rip the sunset from the sky?Because that was the equivalent of what I’d have to do.
In two weeks, our lives had completely meshed together. All of her things—of which there weren’t many—were moved into my apartment, and she’d filed the paperwork to change her name. It wasn’t necessary, but that was the point of this—to do anything and everything so the judge would have no reason to deny her partial custody of Jake.
I swore at that moment, my offer of marriage had been selfless.Anything to help her.Two weeks later, and I had to admit the offer was selfish.
Two weeks of stopping for coffee and lemon poppyseed muffins at Roasters in the morning. Of working side by side. Of going out to dinner. Of not faking one ounce of my enjoyment in her company while seeding the image of happy newlyweds to the rest of the town.
And of spending every night fucking my name from her lips.
Fuck, I thought I was civilized. Upstanding. Kind. Generous. Thoughtful. All of that went out the window when the day dwindled to Kenzie and I in the apartment. Then, I was reduced to some brand of dominant, lust-driven beast, hungry for the feel of her cunt wrapped around my cock.
My name. My life. My reputation. I’d let her trade on it all as long as I could stay on this borrowed time with her.
“You don’t have to tell him yet if you don’t want. It’s okay to wait,” I said quietly, catching the way Kenzie’s eyes had dropped down to her ring.
It was the plan—to tell Jake today that we were married. While we built the foundation of our relationship back in Carmel, we’d kept it under wraps from Jake… and Stan. Kenzie said she’d wanted to give Jake a few more times around me before telling him the truth.
I had a feeling she was worried what Stan would have to say—and what he’d say to Jake when she wasn’t around.
“No, I do,” she said, balling her fingers tight. “It’s time, and I don’t want to risk him finding out any other way.”
She meant from her ex. Carmel was still pretty far outside the suburbs of San Francisco, but that wouldn’t stop news from traveling, especially to a man who liked to keep tabs on the mother of his child.
Maybe Kenzie didn’t notice—or if she did, she didn’t care because all she cared about was seeing Jake—but I sure as hell noticed how fucking nosy her ex was. I never stayed in the apartment for the video calls, but a few times, I’d overheard him asking Kenzie a barrage of questions about her life here. Even the last two weekends when we’d met them at this park, all he’d done was bring up memories of their life together. Telling her about the garden she’d started at their house—how he’d kept everything alive. Talking about their favorite restaurants. Family movie nights.
The guy was becoming a broken record of memories from her life before Blooms—before me—and it was really starting to piss me off. She didn’t want his narcissistic ass, she wanted me.Her husband.At least for a little while.
We entered the parking lot, and I picked a close spot in the shade and parked.
“Don’t worry about Stan.”I’d handle him.
Her attention darted to me, nervous.
I hated that he made her feel this way. Small. Unworthy. Uncertain. She’d been with the prick for eight years; all it took was eight minutes in his presence to get a damn good idea of the emotional damage his narcissism could do to a person over time, but my gut always felt like there was something more.But what else could it be?
“You’re not in this alone,” I swore.
She pulled the corner of her lip between her teeth, her eyes growing hooded for a second before she was over the console and pressing her mouth to mine in a swift, hard kiss.
“Neither are you,” she reminded me softly before pulling back.
