AllFreeNovel
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I check my Instagram feed. In the short time since Clementine posted the video, I have two hundred new followers.
I log into my website and discover that I have another fifty subscribers for the boxes.
I spend the rest of the afternoon still in shock and filling the subscription boxes I had planned to put together today. I carry them upstairs to the guest room, which has become my temporary storage site.
Lucas doesn’t have a choice now about me staying in his room. My boxes have taken over the guest room.
And thanks to Clementine, it’s going to be even more crowded in here by the time I’ve finished with this month’s boxes.
I’ve been staying in Lucas’s bedroom for the past three nights, and he hasn’t had any nightmares. Or if he’s had nightmares, I’ve been oblivious to them.
I tidy up the living room and return the rest of my supplies to the guest room. Dinner is simmering in the slow cooker Lucas and I got as a wedding gift. Lucas is due home soon.
“You ready to go outside and play?” I ask Jasper. He replies with an enthusiastic puppy bark.
I take him into the backyard and stand barefooted on the lush lawn. The sweet scent of freshly mowed grass perfumes the air. Jasper brings me his favorite ball, and we spend the next twenty minutes playing catch. I grin at the puppy’s endless energy.
I throw the ball again. But he doesn’t drop it at my feet after he retrieves the ball, he bounds past me to the house. I swivel to see what has him so excited. Lucas is standing in the doorway, his hair damp from a shower, and he’s smiling like I’m the sun to his galaxy.
He walks toward me, but as he draws closer, I notice he seems exhausted. Emotionally drained. The toll of the past twelve weeks is wearing him down. And it won’t get any better. His trial is in ten weeks. Ten weeks today.
The black stitches on his temple ignite a firestorm of anger and frustration and sorrow inside me. I still can’t believe someone hit him. Hit him because he was asking questions they didn’t like.
“Are you okay?”
Lucas doesn’t answer. At least not with words. His mouth is on mine, and he’s kissing me like there’s nowhere in the world he would rather be.
I loop my arms behind his neck. My tongue meets his, stroke for slow stroke. We continue kissing, temporarily pushing aside all our problems. Kissing until Jasper grows bored of waiting for us to pay attention to him. He jumps his paws onto our legs.
I drop to his level. Only to be rewarded by his enthusiastic puppy kisses. I fall back on my butt and laugh. Lucas helps me to my feet.
“I take it things didn’t go well today?” I ask as we walk to the house.
“It’s been a long day. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“Is there anything I can do that might help?”
He stops walking and turns to me. His mouth tilts into my favorite panty-melting smile, and he rests his hands on my hips. “I can think of one thing.”
“What’s that?”
He kisses me once more, a tornado of emotions filling each kiss as his mouth moves against mine. His hands skim down to the backs of my thighs, and he hoists me up. I wrap my legs around his hips.
We go into the house with Jasper bounding alongside us, releasing little puppy yaps. Lucas puts me down long enough to get Jasper into his crate. Then he’s carrying me upstairs.
We walk into our bedroom, still kissing, and Lucas lays me on the bed. My fingers find the hem of his T-shirt and slide it up his body. Lucas tugs it over his head while I wiggle out of my sundress. He quickly strips out of his shorts, then his warm strong hands are caressing my bare skin.
My fingers do their own exploring, savoring the strength of his muscles flexing beneath my fingertips. Our movements aren’t rushed. They’re slow and exquisite.
Lucas unhooks my bra and drops it on the floor. We shimmy out of our underwear.
And then it’s just him and me and nothing between us.
Well, nothing except for protection.
Even though we’re married, we use condoms. Lucas, because he thinks we need the birth control. Me, because I haven’t found the will to tell him the truth.
His fingers find the most sensitive part of me. My fingers embrace his length. And our breaths weave together as we create music, a symphony of moans and groans and whimpers.
