Chapter 36 You’re Stuck With Me, Davidson
YOU'RE STUCK WITH ME, DAVIDSON
DALLAS
The bedroom looked like a clothing bomb had detonated.
And then there was Davina, her face was swollen, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy, her nose that shade of pink that only came from extended crying. She was clutching one of my old wrestling shirts.
She'd been crying. My wife had been crying. A lot.
“What…” My voice came out wrong. Strangled. I cleared my throat. “What's going on?”
Brooke shifted in my peripheral vision, and I'd honestly forgotten she was there. She was wearing that expression I recognized from press conferences gone wrong.
“I should go,” she said quietly. “Let you two talk.”
She squeezed Davina's arm as she passed, shot me a look I couldn't interpret, and then she was gone. Her footsteps retreated down the hallway. The front door opened and closed.
Silence.
Davina still hadn't moved. Still hadn't spoken. She was staring at me with an expression that made my chest feel like it was being compressed in a vise.
“Davina.” I stepped over a pile of jeans, navigating the destruction to reach her. “Talk to me. What happened? Why are you…” I gestured helplessly at the mess surrounding us. “Why does it look like you're packing?”
She laughed, but it wasn't her real laugh. It was hollow, brittle, the kind of sound that preceded breaking. “Because I am packing.”
“Packing for what? Where are you going?”
“Home.” The word landed like a slap. “My apartment. You know, the place I live? The place I should have stayed?”
Nothing made sense. I'd left this morning with a kiss and came home to find my wife crying and halfway out the door.
“I don't understand.” I reached for her, but she stepped back, and the rejection felt like a physical wound. “Davina, please. Tell me what's going on.”
Her eyes, still wet, searched my face like she was looking for evidence of... Evidence of what, I had no idea.
“Sam told me everything.”
Three words. Three words that somehow explained nothing while suggesting everything.
“Sam,” I repeated the name slowly, trying to make sense of it. “My publicist, Sam?”
“How many Sams do you have?”
“Just the one, but I don't…” I shook my head, confusion mounting. “Sam was here? Today? Why?”
“To deliver the news, because apparently you couldn’t do it yourself.” Davina's voice had gone flat. Controlled. The voice she used in business meetings when she was trying not to show emotion. “About the divorce. About the timeline. About the movers coming to pack up my things.”
The word divorce hit me like a body slam I hadn't seen coming.
“The what?”
“Don't.” Her voice cracked, the control slipping. “Don't pretend you don't know. She told me you called her yesterday. That you asked her to start planning the separation. That you wanted recommendations for attorneys to make everything go smoothly.”
I stared at her. The words filtered through my brain one by one, each one more incomprehensible than the last.
“Davina.” I stepped closer, ignoring the way she tensed. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”
“She said you told her to get the plans together. That this was always the timeline. That…” Her voice broke completely, tears spilling fresh down her cheeks. “That I was never your type.”
Anger ignited in my chest. “She said what?”
“She said…”
“I heard you. I just…” I ran my hands through my hair, trying to process the magnitude of what I was hearing. “Davina, I never talked to Sam about a divorce. I never asked for attorneys. I never said anything even remotely close to any of that.”
“But she said…”
“I don't care what she said.” I closed the distance between us, catching her face in my hands despite her attempts to pull away.
Her skin was damp, her cheeks flushed, and she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, even now.
Especially now. “I haven't talked to Sam in over a week.
I have a meeting scheduled with her this afternoon, but I haven't spoken to her about you or our marriage or anything else.”
Hope flickered in her eyes, fragile and uncertain. “But she was so specific. She said…”
“I don't know why she said any of that.” I brushed the tears from her cheeks, gently, desperate to erase the hurt from her face. “But none of it is true. Do you hear me? None of it.”
“Dallas…”
“You think I want a divorce?” I laughed, but it came out rough, raw. “Davina, I spend approximately ninety percent of my waking hours thinking about you. The other ten percent is divided between protein intake and wondering if you're also thinking about me.”
Her lips twitched despite everything. “That's a lot of thinking.”
“It's an obscene amount of thinking. It's probably unhealthy.” I leaned my forehead against hers, breathing her in, the salt of her tears, the familiar scent of her shampoo, the warm reality of her in my arms. “I am obsessed with you.
Genuinely, pathetically, embarrassingly obsessed.
Ask Matt. Ask my mom. Ask literally anyone who's had to listen to me talk about my wife for the past four months.”
“But Sam said…”
“Sam is wrong. Or lying. Or… I don't know what the hell Sam is doing, but I'm going to find out.” My jaw tightened at the thought of that conversation, at the cold fury building inside me.
But that was for later. Right now, the only thing that mattered was the woman in front of me.
“You're not going anywhere. Do you understand me?
You're my wife. This is your home. I don't want a divorce. I want you. I want this. I want forever.”
She was crying again. “I thought…” She hiccupped, her hands fisting in the front of my tank top. “When she said I wasn't your type, I thought…”
“Not my type?” The words came out incredulous, almost angry. “Davina, you are the only type. You ruined the entire concept of types for me. There's just you. There's only ever going to be you.”
“That's…” She laughed wetly. “That's a lot of pressure.”
“You can handle it. You handle everything.” I cupped her face again, tilting it up until her swollen eyes met mine.
“I love you. I love you so much it terrifies me, and I am not letting you go.
So whatever Sam said, whatever she's planning, it doesn't matter.
We're not getting divorced or separating. You're stuck with me, Davidson.”
The old nickname made her smile. “You haven't called me that in a while.”
“I'm bringing it back but only for special occasions.” I brushed my nose against hers. “Like when my wife thinks I’m leaving her and I need to remind her that I'm annoyingly persistent and completely incapable of functioning without her.”
She sniffled. “That's a very specific occasion.”
“I have a lot of specific occasions.”
She laughed, and the sound unlocked something deep inside me that had been wound tight since I'd walked through that bedroom door.
Grabbing her jaw, I kissed her, thrusting my tongue in and out of her mouth. She melted into me, her hands still twisted in my shirt, and a soft moan escaped that went straight to my cock.
We stumbled backward, navigating the minefield of scattered clothing, until the backs of her knees hit the mattress. The gym duffel tumbled to the floor, spilling its contents, and I couldn't have cared less if the entire house was burning down around us.
I lowered her onto the bed, following her down, my body covering hers. Her legs wrapped around my waist, and I groaned against her mouth.
“I love you,” I said between kisses, the words falling like promises against her lips. “I love you. I'm not going anywhere. You're stuck with me.”
“I love you too.” Her hands sliding under my shirt, nails dragging across my back in a way that made me see stars. “I'm sorry, I believed her. I should have…”
“Don't.” I kissed her again, deeper this time, swallowing her apology. “Don't apologize. Just let me show you.”
My mouth crashed back onto hers, swallowing her next breath, my kiss a furious, tender, desperate claiming. It was everything at once. My hands, the same hands that could break a man in the ring, were impossibly gentle as I framed her face, my tongue explored the sweet, familiar heat of her mouth.
I broke the kiss only to trail my lips along her jaw, down the delicate column of her throat, pausing to suckle the frantic pulse that fluttered there.
A low growl vibrated against her skin. Mine.
The unspoken word was a physical sensation.
I moved lower, my mouth blazing a wet, open-mouthed trail to the neckline of her shirt.
“Off,” I snarled, my voice thick with a need that mirrored her own. I didn't wait, my fingers hooking under the soft cotton and pulling, the sound of the seams straining a tiny protest before I tore it up and over her head, tossing it blindly into the sea of clothes around us.
My breath hitched. I drank her in. She was braless, her breasts swelling with each panting breath, her nipples pebbled into tight, aching peaks.
I didn't touch them with my hands. Not yet.
I just looked, my gaze a physical caress that I hoped she felt more intimately than any touch.
Obsessed. I'd said the word, and now I let her see it, raw and undisguised.
“God, you're perfect,” I murmured, my voice reverent.
I finally lowered my head, my lips closing around one taut nipple.
I circled the sensitive bud before I sucked deeply, drawing a sharp, keening sound from her throat.
I paid the same devout attention to her other breast, my free hand finally coming up to knead and roll the damp flesh, pinching the nipple gently between my thumb and forefinger.
I kissed my way down her quivering stomach, my tongue dipping into her navel, my stubble a delicious abrasion against her soft skin. I hooked my fingers into the waistband of her leggings and underwear, pulling them down her legs in one swift motion, leaving her completely bare to my hungry gaze.