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“Okay,” I say, spinning toward the door. I can’t have this conversation now. My throat is dry, and my eyes sting with unshed hurt.
“And as long as we’re married,” he goes on, “we will be faithful, as should be expected in any marital union.”
The cool doorknob is in my palm, and yet my hand is instantly clammy. Again, what the hell? I twist to face him, summoning as much tranquility as I can muster in spite of my urge to spit fire.
“Let me get this straight. For the next five years, you want me to be celibate for ourfakearrangement? I’ll be a twenty-eight-year-old virgin. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but …” I’m not exactly sure why I felt inclined to share that tidbit, but I need to steamroll on past it before we stick there. “You’re insane—you know that? You don’t want me, but you don’t want anyone else to touch me. Fuck that.”
His fingers dive into his hair. “Maybe I am, Ivanna.” Those inky strands cavort wildly as he yanks on them with a grunt. “You make meso fucking crazy.”
“The feeling is mutual,” I hiss. “Is that why you nearly choked me at the hotel? So unhappy with our arrangement that you thought about ending me?” I don’t know why that flew out of my mouth. What the hell is wrong with me right now?
The truth is, I love that side of him because even though it produces a bit of fear, I know in my bones that he’d never hurt me. And the adrenaline from weaseling under his skin excites me like nothing else ever has.
His eyes widen, as though I offended him. “No.Fuck.I would never. You said you like that, and I—”
“When did I say that?”
“When you were drugged.” He halts there, both of us suspended, taking each other in.
God, how embarrassing. What else did I tell him when I was drugged?
His smoldering gaze is searing me, but there are no words, just the rise and fall of his corded chest muscles, golden skin stretched taut and glistening. He struts slowly toward me, erasing the few yards between us, shrinking the space until he’s right in front of me. My back thumps against the door as his forearms meet it, caging me in.
And like a lightning bolt, his words wallop me.
“You said we,” I whisper. “Wewill be faithful.”
“Yes,” he rasps. “We.”
The air is so soupy now that my lungs can’t seem to consume it.
“I don’t understand. Why? Why would you … you keep hurting me, Wells. All these mixed signals.”
He drops his forehead to my shoulder. “That’s the last thing I want, Ivy. I never want to hurt you.”
I soak in his scent of sugar and scotch and his rugged citrus cologne, terrified the answer to my next question could rip me to pieces. “What do you want then?”
“I want my wife.”
A single tear spills down my cheek. “Like you …” I squeak. “You want me for real?”
His nose brushes against mine as he lifts his face to answer, “Yes, Little Storm. I want you in every imaginable way.”
“Oh fuck.” I turn my head, wiping the tear and trying to capture my racing thoughts. They’re slipping through like grains of sand, impossible to catch. “Okay then. Not how I saw this night going.”
A sort of growl thrums from the depths of his chest. “Did you see it going somewhere with Liam?”
It was jealousy. He’s hurt. As much as that delights me, I hate it too.
“No,” I breathe, the erratic drumbeat of my heart drowning out my timorous voice. “That’s not what I wanted … not what I want.”
“Which is?”
With a deep breath, I lock my eyes on his. “You, Wells. I’ve wanted you all along, since the first day we met, but you … I didn’t think you felt the same.”
He moves his arms off the door, one hand grazing the strip of skin above my hip with a wispy buffing, fingers on the other threading through my hair. His lips are so close to mine that I can taste the air between us. “It was vital that I waited until you knew what you wanted. There has never been anything mixed about how I feel for you. Only challenging situations. But you need to understand what this means. Once you give yourself to me, Ivy, there’s no going back. Not in five years. Not ever.”
Good God, that escalated quickly. We may be married, but we haven’t known each other long enough for that level of declaration. Maybe it’s simply foreplay. Although there’s this inkling frolicking inside me, whispering that he’s always been with me, only just out of reach, which makes no sense at all. It’s the same inkling that knows he’s it for me, no matter how absurd this situation has been.
