Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
NAT
After a low-key afternoon and evening—thanks to June’s impromptu barf-fest—both kids were tucked in early and already snoozing, so I settled in next to Asher on the couch, dropping my feet in his lap without hesitation. Or, at least initially without hesitation. It was something I’d done hundreds of times before, but it felt different now. For one thing, I was, apparently, going to be his wife.
His wife . A designation I honestly thought I’d never give myself regarding anyone.
For another thing, there’d been that moment in the kitchen when we’d been standing so close together. He’d looked at me like he’d never looked at me before, his breath a whisper across my lips and a hunger in his eyes I’d been on the receiving end of plenty of times from other men, but never from Asher. I was certain if June hadn’t walked in at that very moment and puked her guts out, Asher would have kissed me.
Worse, I would have let him.
He rested one of his hands on my ankle, his thumb brushing a mindless path along the arch of my foot, as he searched through Netflix for something to watch. “Thanks for tag-teamin’ with me today.” He glanced over at me before returning his attention back to the screen and the list of trending shows.
I shrugged. “Kind of what I agreed to, right? But you can’t go back on your promise—I don’t have to deal with puke, ever.”
“Technically, I never actually agreed to that. You just bossed me around like you usually do and assumed I wouldn’t object.”
“Well, I’m gonna tell you one thing—if you do object, I don’t care how fake this marriage is, the rock I wear better be one-hundred-percent real.”
He laughed, a low, throaty sound that shot straight to my belly…and then lower still. What the hell was going on?
“For one thing, you wouldn’t even want a huge rock,” he said. “I’m pretty sure you’d just as soon wear a rubber band tied around your finger as you would a two-carat diamond on a platinum band.”
“Oh, shut up. You don’t know my life.”
This time, his laugh was louder, and I kicked him lightly while shushing him. “If you wake them up with your obnoxious guffaws, you’re on your own with kid duty, regardless if both of them are up. Meanwhile, I’ll lounge out here, bingein’ Supernatural and droolin’ over the gorgeous and mysterious Winchester brothers while you drown in cries.”
“You’d do that to me?”
“In a heartbeat,” I said, without hesitation.
He dug his thumb into the arch of my foot, no doubt an attempt at retaliation, but the move only made me groan in pleasure-pain as I tipped my head back and closed my eyes.
“If you’re tryin’ to punish me, you’re goin’ about it all wrong,” I murmured, slipping my other foot over to get some attention, too.
Eventually, after long moments of silence, I lifted my head, only to find his gaze already locked on me, his eyes a darker shade than usual, now more like aged whiskey.
I bit my lip. “What was the other thing?”
“What?” he asked, his voice throaty and low, a sound that shot straight between my thighs.
Good Lord , had it really been that long since I’d had sex? Apparently.
“You said for one thing. What was the other thing?”
“Oh.” He cleared his throat and shook his head, glancing quickly at the TV before returning his gaze to mine. “Speakin’ of the ring, we need to shop for those tomorrow since we don’t have a lot of time.”
“Great, let’s do it,” I said. “But I hate to tell you, ring shopping, even with two little kids, is the least of our worries.”
“I kind of figured our worries more revolved around me lyin’ to a judge and us gettin’ fake-married.”
“Yeah, about that… I hope you’re prepared to get the third degree from my parents and Gran. I swore my sisters to secrecy besides all of their significant others—” I gasped and flew upright, my eyes wide. “Oh my God, I forgot to tell you! Apparently one of those significant others is now a husband .”
“What? Will and Finn decided to elope instead? Isn’t their wedding in just a couple weeks?”
“It is, but no, that’s not who. Guess again.”
“If that fucker Nash got married and didn’t tell me when he was just here, I’m gonna kill him.”
“Wrong again. It’s Mac and Hudson! Do you believe that? They snuck off to Parkersville and got married at the courthouse last week. She was worried about steppin’ on Will’s toes and everything else that—” I bit back my words, but I could tell they’d hit Asher all the same.
His eyes shuttered in sadness, and I had the strongest urge to rest my hand over his heart, as if I could heal it somehow. As if I could take away his pain.
It was something I would’ve done without hesitation before. Before this weird tension had developed between us. Before we’d almost kissed. Before I’d started getting turned on by his voice .
Well, I could ignore things with the best of them, so I pulled my feet from his lap and snuggled to his side.
I rested my head on his chest and stole the remote from him. “You got me in the mood for Supernatural .”
He chuckled low and rested his arm along my side, his large hand cupping the curve of my hip. “How’d I do that? With my gorgeous mysteriousness?”
“Nah, because I was just thinkin’ again about how at least one person in my family will wanna kill you at one point, and no one does killin’ better than the Winchester boys.”
“Aw, c’mon. It’s not gonna be that bad. Your momma and gran love me. Pretty sure your daddy doesn’t love anyone, though. Not sure how that’ll go.”
“It’ll be a challenge, just like everything is with Dick.” I leaned my head back and glanced up at Asher, the blue light from the TV sharpening his features, making him look even more handsome than any one man had a right to. “Before we let the cat out of the bag, are you sure it’s me you want? You must have the numbers for a few groupies in your phone…”
“There’s no one else I’d rather irritate for the rest of my life than you.”
“You mean until custody is final…”
It’d been the single mantra I’d repeated to myself while I’d made this decision. This wouldn’t be forever. It’d only be until June and Owen were officially placed with Asher, and then everything would go back to normal.
Except that while I lay there, tucked into his side, his heartbeat thrumming under my ear and his hand cupping my hip almost possessively, I wasn’t so sure this wasn’t exactly the kind of normal I might grow to love.