Chapter 19
FORD
My wife had been avoiding me like the plague, and I was tired of it.
She’d given me every excuse in the book to escape being near me. It had made sense at first—I had no doubt she was sore when mine was the first cock she’d taken in three years. But the longer it went on, the more ridiculous each excuse got until it was clear exactly what she was doing.
Now, she stood off to the side next to my sister, wearing one of those flirty fucking dresses.
The kind that drove me damn near feral with my need to have her.
Worse, it was the same one she’d been wearing the first night I’d fucked her.
The hem kissed her thick thighs, the neckline dipping low enough to give me a glimpse of those gorgeous, full tits, and I was done .
I was done playing this bullshit game, and I was done waiting.
Quinn wanted me just as much as I wanted her—I’d woken up so many times to her, still sleeping but grinding herself all over my dick, my name a whimpered plea on her lips—and I wanted to know why she was punishing us both by not giving in to what we both clearly wanted.
And if I had to fuck the answers out of her, so be it.
I had five minutes left of this dunk tank fundraiser—a last-minute idea I’d pitched to the Blueberry Fest coordinator with a promise to fix her front porch steps if she’d let me slip in for free—and then I was going to grab Quinn, drag her back home, and we were going to work this out, one way or another.
“Come on, Bobby.” Aiden clapped from the sidelines as one of the kids on our team wound up, ready to throw his attempt to dunk me. “You’re our last hope. Send him down!”
“You should be the one in here, you asshole,” I said for his ears only.
“Your idea, your ass in the tank. Those are the rules.”
“You and your fucking rules,” I grumbled under my breath.
I wasn’t sure how much we’d raised so far, but there had been a steady line of people attempting to dunk me.
Luckily, I’d only been taken down a handful of times, and it was hot enough out that I dried off quickly.
While I didn’t want to do this every day, it was fun watching the kids on the team practice their throws and cheer one another on, even if it was at my expense.
Scary as it was, I was a stand-in father figure for some of these kids, especially the ones like Bobby, who lived with just his widowed grandmother. When the resort first sponsored the team and I started coaching it with Aiden, I hadn’t realized just how…fulfilling that would be.
I also hadn’t realized just how many memories it would dredge up.
As a kid, I’d had a father, but I hadn’t had a present father—still didn’t, actually.
No one to cheer for me at games or play catch in the backyard.
Brady had been that person for me and the rest of our siblings, because our dad was usually passed out on the couch by noon.
Hell, Brady was still that person, because our dad didn’t care enough about us to step foot outside Cottage Thirteen even to say thank you for the shit we dropped off at his door to make sure he was taken care of.
He’d sequestered himself there ten years ago after Mom had died at sea in a storm, and we hadn’t seen heads or tails of him since.
So yeah…now that I was able to be that someone for a kid who needed it? It was rewarding in a way I hadn’t anticipated.
Which was why, when Bobby’s ball connected with the target and sent me down, I wasn’t even mad.
I dropped into the water and surfaced to the cheers of the crowd.
I shook the hair out of my face and watched as Aiden—that traitor—lifted Bobby onto his shoulder.
The kid raised his arms above him in a victory V, his grin aimed my way while his grandma laughed from the sidelines.
But that wasn’t the smile that had me snared. That achievement belonged to my wife.
Quinn, now standing alone, looked on, just the subtlest curve to her lips as she watched this all unfold, and I couldn’t wait another second. Couldn’t be smart or methodical about this. Couldn’t plan out the best way to approach it.
I was done . And whether she wanted to or not, we were working this shit out right now.
Without bothering with a towel, I slipped out of the tank and stalked toward her, uncaring of the fact that I was dripping along the way.
My swim trunks were bogged down with water and hanging damn near indecently low on my hips, but I couldn’t focus on any of that. Not when I had a mission in mind.
As soon as Quinn realized what I was doing, her eyes went wide, and she started backing up. “Ford…” she called to me, a warning in her voice as she held a hand out in front of her. “What are you doing?”
“I’m greeting my wife. Aren’t you happy to see me?”
She shot a frantic gaze around, no doubt realizing that all eyes were on us. This was our first public event as husband and wife, which meant we had to play this up. We had no choice but to be on in front of half the town.
And I damn well was going to take full advantage of that when she’d been icing me out at home.
The closer I got, the narrower her eyes grew until she hissed in a low voice, “Don’t you dare…”
“Aw, don’t be like that, kitten,” I said, eating up the space between us. “You know you want a hug and kiss from your brand-new husband.”
“Stop it. You’re going to get me all wet.”
“Good. That’s always my goal.” Finally to her, I cupped her ass in one hand and hauled her up against me, lifting her straight off the ground.
Fuck , it felt good to have her in my arms again. I had no idea what she was doing to me, no idea why I craved her so much. No idea why I felt this constant hunger to touch her, but I did. There was no use denying that anymore.
With a yelp, she threw one arm around my shoulder and reached back with the other, trying to tug at the bottom of her dress as she wrapped her legs around my waist. “Seriously? The hand on my ass is a little excessive, don’t you think?
” she snapped in a low voice. “You better not be giving everyone a show of my panties.”
I pressed my mouth to her ear, tracing my bottom lip along the shell. “Believe me, kitten, no one gets to see your sweet ass and that pretty little cunt but me.”
A shudder racked her body, and I pulled back to look at her. Her lips were parted, cheeks flushed and eyes bright, and she could play that she was mad all she wanted, but I knew her expressions well enough to know, without a doubt, this wasn’t anger. This was desire, thick and undeniable.
“Everyone’s watching,” I murmured, tipping my face to hers. “Time to kiss me, wife.”
“You are such an ass,” she hissed.
I pressed my lips to the underside of her jaw, forcing her to tip her head back, and carried her through the crowd, uncaring of the murmurs around us as we went.
I was desperate to get her someplace semi-private so I could finally get my fill of her.
“An ass you loved enough to pledge the rest of your life to. Are you going to kiss me, so all these people know how desperately you want me?”
“I hate you,” she whispered, but the way she stared at my mouth, licking her lips as if she was just waiting for my kiss, belied her words.
“No, you don’t. You love this game we play. Tell me you want it.” I scraped my teeth over her earlobe and pressed my lips to the shell. “Tell me you want it, wife, and I’ll give it to you.”
“Everyone’s looking,” she said, even though her eyes never strayed from mine. “Just kiss me already.”
She could blame it on whatever she wanted so long as she gave me the permission I needed. Without hesitation, I pressed her up against the nearest building, pinned her to it with my hips, and took her mouth with mine.
Christ, it’d only been two weeks since I’d last tasted her—and a fucking lifetime before that—so how did her lips on mine already feel like coming home?
She opened for me and groaned into my mouth, her arms tightening around my neck as she slid her tongue against mine.
Fuck . I hadn’t thought this through before I’d shoved her against this wall.
I was hard as a fucking rock while wearing swim trunks that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.
Worse, I’d loosened my restraint, the only thing that had been keeping me in check.
And now that it was gone, I needed to fuck her. Badly.
“Ford,” she panted, tipping her head back when I dragged my mouth down the column of her neck. “We can’t do this here.”
Distant sounds of the crowd filtered to me, kids yelling and playing, and I definitely wasn’t interested in giving them this kind of show.
“You’re right, but we’re doing this somewhere, and we’re doing it now .
You’ve got me all fucked up, so desperate for you, I can’t even smell your goddamn shampoo without getting hard.
” I gripped her hip and pressed myself against the cradle of her thighs, groaning when I felt her heat through my soaked trunks.
“And with the way you keep trying to grind that pussy down on me, you feel the same.”
Her cheeks flared bright red, her eyes flashing with that fire I loved so much. “Don’t tell me what I feel.”
“Am I wrong?” I asked. “Tell me I’m wrong, kitten, and I’ll set you down and meet you back at the cottage, where you can keep feeding me your bullshit excuses just to avoid this thing between us.
Tell me, and I’ll jack it in the shower with your soap just like I have been for the past two weeks.
Tell me,” I urged. “And don’t fucking lie. ”
With a glare, she snapped her mouth shut, pressing her lips into a thin line. Not saying a damn word.
“That’s what I thought. Now find me someplace and do it quick because I’m tired of the games. I told you this wouldn’t be a one-time thing. I need to fuck my wife.”
My words seemed to spur her on, and she glanced around, her eyes brightening when her gaze landed on something behind me. “I have a key!”