AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You were drunk too.”
“Fine. We came up with it together.”
Her mouth twitches, a light coming into her eyes. “Over champagne and bourbon.”
I didn’t notice that I’d been closing the distance between us, but I must have because I’m standing barely an inch from her now, one arm propped against the window, her head tipped back, blue eyes peering up into mine. “You going through half a stack of cocktail napkins while you worked out our vows.”
“Those were some badass vows,” she says softly.
“‘I, Sexy Stranger, take you, the woman temporarily known as Jane Jones, to be my wife…’”
She sighs. “I loved that name.”
I like hers better. “‘To protect you from the bullshit of romance gone wrong…’”
“I’m pretty proud of that part.”
I drop my voice to a low rumble. “‘From this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health…’”
She bites her lip.
“‘To stand between you and some undeserving fuckwit’s betrayal, until death do us part.’”
“You nailed the finish.”
I nod. “Right?”
Suddenly, her eyes go wide, and her lips part on a gasp. “Our prenup!”
My head drops back.
Why did I have to mention the napkins when one of them very clearly states that we leave this marriage with what we came into it with?
Shit.
I had a plan. Start high, negotiate down so at bare minimum she walked away with a new car, but hopefully more than that. Now she’s spinning away, hands in the air as she goes in search of the “contract” that won’t hold up in court anyway but, for some ungodly reason, she’s saved in a locked file drawer behind her desk.
She pulls the slim manila folder out with a flourish and then sashays back to me looking so smug and cute, I’m reaching for her before I even think about it. It’s instinct. Gut.
Hell, maybe it’s the memory of that dark bar and how she scrawled out the short terms of our agreement and then sealed it with a kiss that left a glossy imprint on the paper.
Whatever the reason, the result is my hand at the curve of her waist, drawing her in so our bodies meet, pinning the folder closed between us. It’s her breath hitching just that little bit. Her eyes lifting slowly to meet mine.
Jesus, I should let her go. Get my big mitt off her, except all I can do is look at where my fingers span that soft dip, feel the heat of her body, and tell myself I’m supposed to be setting herbacka step, not pulling her forward.
Only then do I realize I’m not the one pulling her in at all. My hand is on her waist, yeah, my fingers firm in a hold I’m trying to talk myself out of, but it’sherdrifting infinitesimally closer. And suddenly it’s a year ago and I’m staring at the woman who just became my wife, and I realize I don’t want to let her go at all.
“Yo babe, got any paper clips?”
My head snaps toward the now open door to Stormy’s office and the fuckwit who just strode in without knocking… and called herbabe.
13
Stormy
Liam looks down at me, all the mind-scrambling heat and intensity that was in his eyes a moment ago replaced by something that hints at lethal. “Ray?”
Uh-oh.
