Chapter 32
STERLING
I ’d taken a risk, telling her something like that. The truth was that I’d put her bag in my room because I’d wanted her close. I didn’t expect sex.
Eventually, sure, I fully intended on burying myself deep inside her and staying there as long as I could, but it wouldn’t happen because of an expectation. It would only happen when she was ready for it.
I might even make her beg just to be sure.
Either way, as soon as I said the words, her eyes widened, but then her mouth was back on mine and she was kissing me this time. She tasted like red wine and mischief. Maybe even like a bit like trouble I wanted more of.
Her hands were in my hair, her nails stroking my scalp in ways that made me tingle in places I’d never tingled before.
In return, I gripped her hips like I didn’t know how to let go—and frankly, I didn’t.
Not while she was in my lap like this, soaking wet, warm, and giggling against my lips between kisses like this wasn’t the most dangerous thing we could be doing right now.
I didn’t want to stop. Every inch of her fit against me like a glove and I wanted her more than I wanted my next business deal. Her hips started moving against me, grinding against my hard cock like she was planning on letting this go all the places I so desperately wanted it to.
But I did stop eventually, because I wasn’t that guy.
I couldn’t take advantage of my buzzed wife just because she was climbing all over me like I was the last man on earth.
Just a little while ago, she’d been talking about how she wanted to get to know me better before we started trying for a baby, and well, this would not only tell her more about me but also stop her from doing something we were both likely to regret in the morning.
After I’d slowed the kiss to a natural end, I let my forehead rest against hers and brought my hands up to her face to stroke my thumbs along her cheekbones. My heart was pounding, my body so on edge that it wouldn’t take much to make me snap, but I couldn’t.
“Not like this,” I murmured, sighing as I lifted my head away to look into her eyes. “To be perfectly clear, it’s not because I don’t want you. I just won’t have our first time together be after we’ve consumed half the wine in the valley.”
She exhaled heavily but nodded, not saying anything. I rose and helped her out of the tub. Some towels hung on hooks drilled into the rock and I handed her one, practically feeling the spell break as she wrapped it around herself.
I hadn’t even stolen a peek, which made me grind my teeth in annoyance at myself, but the air was cool against my overheated skin and it was sobering. The first time I saw her naked, it would be because she wanted me to. That was what it all came down to.
Laney gave me a sleepy smile after tucking the corner of the towel between her breasts. “I’m going to get ready for bed.”
Without waiting for a response, she padded off barefoot into the house, her hair dripping down her back. Still as hard as a rock and needing a moment to breathe, I stayed outside. Forgoing a towel I sat down on one of the loungers and tilted my head back toward the stars.
The breeze did a great job trying to cool me off, but as much as I tried to forget the taste of her lips and the sounds she made when I’d kissed her, neither the breeze nor my brain were achieving the desired result.
It took a while before my heart stopped pounding.
When it finally did, I dug out my phone and called my brother.
“I really thought you’d be too busy to remember we even existed,” Jameson said instead of greeting me. “If anyone had wanted to take the bet, I would’ve put money on it that you wouldn’t even have remembered to come home on Sunday.”
“I’m glad no one took the bet. Although it would’ve been nice to see you lose for a change.” I exhaled. “How’s your night going?”
“Infinitely less interesting than yours, I assume. How’s the honeymoon? It can’t be great if you’re up but calling me.”
“It’s not a honeymoon,” I muttered.
He paused for a beat. “Right. You’re just two newlyweds who have gone to Napa together after the wedding, but it’s not a honeymoon. Got it.”
“I’m serious.” I rubbed a hand across my face. “Once things have settled and she’s ready, I’ll take her on an actual honeymoon wherever she wants to go. France. Bali. Tuscany. This is not that. This is just a weekend away.”
Jameson made a humming noise that somehow managed to let me know he was smirking.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing. You’re just full of surprises lately.”
“Yeah, well.” I looked back at the house, the lights glowing warm through the windows the same way they always had, but it felt different now that I knew she was in there. “So is she.”
After chatting for a couple more minutes, we hung up and I went back inside, finally ready to face her again without taking her eye out with my erection. The house was mostly quiet except for the low creak of a door and the soft shuffle of footsteps upstairs.
I found her in our bedroom, sitting at the dressing table and brushing out her damp hair. She’d put on an oversized sleep shirt that did absolutely nothing to help me forget what she’d looked like in the hot tub, but she stopped brushing when she saw me.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” I wrapped my fingers around the side of my neck and tried not to think about how I was going to get through the night with her beside me. “Are you alright?”
She nodded, then glanced at the hallway. “Um, so, which room am I in tonight?”
“This one.” I thought we’d cleared that up, but I felt something tighten in my chest at her obvious uncertainty.
It definitely wasn’t ideal how gray this whole arrangement had become.
“It’s a massive house and we’re the only two people in it, Laney,” I said, my voice a little too clipped.
“Can we just not play the separate rooms game tonight?”
Her eyes widened just a little, like she’d been caught off guard, but her voice was soft and firm as she frowned at me. “I’m not playing a game.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” I squeezed my eyes shut and did my best to find a shred of rationality inside. All of this was reminding me way too much of those early days of contract negotiations and I didn’t want to be back there. “I just, uh, I’d be more comfortable having you close. That’s all.”
When I reopened my eyes, she’d crossed her arms and there was a slow smirk tugging at her lips. “Comfortable. Is that what this is?”
I groaned. “Don’t start. Please.”
“Comfortable.” She arched an eyebrow at me. “Is that the real reason you wanted to get married, because you’re afraid of the dark?”
My laugh surprised us both, but the tension broke like it always did when she became playful like this. She had a way of somehow slicing through all the bullshit weaving my muscles into knots.
“Let’s just go to bed,” I said. “Don’t steal all the blankets.”
She saluted me and turned. I climbed into bed with her after going to brush my teeth and throwing on a pair of sweats in the bathroom. We were both asleep almost immediately, but I was aware of her all night.
Aware of the gentle sound of her breathing. Of how she didn’t pull away when my arm accidentally brushed hers under the covers and didn’t move when our legs tangled together somewhere around midnight.
When I woke up in the morning, her head was on my shoulder and her hand was resting on my chest. She didn’t say anything about it. Neither did I.
After breakfast, we left the house and drove into town for some shopping, but I noticed she was smiling a lot more today. She might not have mentioned it, but she sure seems happy.
Everything was surprisingly light and easy until we stepped into the first boutique and she refused to buy a damn thing.
“I don’t need anything,” she said, waving off the sales associate and leaning closer to me, her voice lowering. “This place is a crime against common sense. Have you seen the prices?”
I rolled my eyes, unable to help myself. “I think they’re quite reasonable. At least just take a look around. I’ve never gone shopping with you, so humor me.”
She sighed, pursing her lips before she cocked an eyebrow and that playful smirk appeared on her lips. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think this was a kink for you, seeing someone spend your hard-earned money.”
I leaned in low, my lips right against the hair covering her ear. “Watching you spend my money does, in fact, make me feel a certain kind of way.”
She froze, but her cheeks turned pink and she rolled her eyes, shoving me away with a breathy laugh. “Yeah, right.”
Shaking her head, she finally turned and started browsing through the nearest rack of sundresses. I had a feeling it was more to avoid looking at me than to shop—and maybe I was a little twisted, but knowing I’d caused that flush?
It really felt like I was winning. I would’ve told her I loved it when she blushed like that, but despite that one small win, I knew I was on thin ice with her.
Sex wasn’t something we’d talked about. The conception aspect of it, sure, but not in any way that didn’t feel sterile, or medical, or transactional. IUI, IVF—those were the acronyms we’d used. Everything had been cold and clean. Procedural.
After last night, however, my brain was someplace else entirely. It hadn’t been on clinical terms once since her mouth had practically fused to mine. I wanted her—and not because we were strangers who needed to make a baby. Not because it was part of the agreement.
It was a hell of a lot simpler than that. I wanted my wife. In my bed. In our house. With no one around to bother us for just two more days.
Before we could get there, she needed more from me though and I knew it.
If I wanted her the way I did, I had to meet her there.
We wandered hand in hand from the first boutique into a few more.
Laney still hadn’t bought anything, but when we ventured into some tourist shop that sold wine-scented candles and T-shirts that said “I Napa’d So Hard,” we laughed like idiots and I finally saw something I wanted.
A teddy bear. It was ugly, brown, and squishy, wearing a dumb, grape-cluster hat, but I picked it up anyway and tucked it under my arm. Laney grinned at me. “Please tell me that’s not for you.”
“No.” I shrugged. “I thought we could give it to our kid one day.”
She blinked, but when she smiled a few moments later, that smile undid me more than any piece of lingerie or come-hither look ever could have.
That smile meant she saw something real in what I’d said and I spent the rest of the damn day trying not to lose my mind over it.
Trying not to say something that would give away just how far I’d fallen.
Trying to figure out when the hell I’d even started feeling this way about her.
Was it when she stormed into my office, spitting fire? Or was it when she sat on my lap, kissing me like I belonged to her?
We had dinner together again in another quiet, candlelit restaurant, but we might as well have been eating cardboard in a basement for all I cared. Laney was wearing a soft, pale pink dress, and every time her ankle brushed mine under the table, it felt like a jolt.
Neither of us spoke much. By the time we got home, there was a tension in the air I couldn’t pretend not to feel. She was almost jumpy, like maybe she couldn’t tell what I was thinking and the thing was, neither could I. My brain seemed to be malfunctioning for the first time ever.
“Should I open another bottle of wine?” I asked after we’d wandered into the master bedroom. With all this tension still thrumming between us, I doubted sleep would come as easily now as it had last night.
She shook her head, those gray eyes wide and locked on mine. “No, thank you.”
I’d already been moving to the door to go grab a bottle and a couple of glasses, but suddenly, we were just standing there, face to face in the middle of our bedroom, like fate had placed us there.
The silence stretched between us. I watched her and she watched me. Neither of us moved a muscle, but all I could think was that this had never been supposed to happen. I’d married her because I had to. It had been a calculated choice. An arrangement. A mutually beneficial agreement.
But Laney didn’t feel like business anymore. She felt like a fire I’d been walking toward in the dark, not realizing how cold I was until I’d gotten close. I closed the distance between us in one long stride and kissed her. Hard. Without permission or preamble.
There was just heat and hands as she kissed me back. Not tentatively or carefully. She kissed me like she’d been waiting, like we’d both been starving and we’d finally found the one meal worth everything.