22. Bliss
Bliss
Zane walks toward me, his cowboy boots thunking against the hardwood floor.
I swear if he sits next to me right now, when I’m so mad at him …
I’ll be tempted to bite him. I clench my jaw as he comes closer, and a weird tingling sensation spreads across my body as I meet his gaze.
His eyes are dancing, and he looks as though he’s even fighting a smile.
Well, I don’t think it’s very funny.
He stops in front of me. “Good to see you, Charlie.” He doesn’t even look her way.
“Good to see you too, Zane,” she says in a confused voice.
“I’ll bring your blanket back.”
What does that mean?
Zane bends toward me, and I reflexively place a hand on his shoulder to push him away. He catches my wrist in one hand and slides an arm around my waist, pulling me toward him and off the couch. Once I’m on my feet, he grabs the edges of the blanket and wraps me tight, like a burrito.
“What are you doing?” I yelp.
I try to free my arms, but before I can, he scoops me up into his arms like a baby and starts carrying me toward the door.
“I’ll see you at five tomorrow,” Zane says to Max as he walks past him.
“Sounds great,” Max answers. “The vet will meet us at the barn and can preg-check your heifers too.”
“Are you going to let him do this?” I ask Max, completely miffed that they’re discussing business while my husband carries me out of the house like a giant burrito.
“Yep.” He even smiles as he says it.
“This is ridiculous,” I grumble as I try to wriggle out of Zane’s iron grip.
How dare he come in here with his big muscles and literally carry me out of the house.
I don’t want to be in his arms. Because when I’m close to him, I remember how attracted to him I am. And right now, I just want to be mad.
“Don’t do that. I don’t want to drop you.”
“Then put me down!”
“Not a chance.”
Max, the dirty traitor, even opens the front door for Zane.
Zane turns sideways and steps out onto the porch. I expect him to carry me to my truck, but instead, he walks straight to his. He adjusts his hold on me, lifting me higher, and my forehead brushes against his cheek.
“We’re going home. You don’t get to run from this.”
“I’m not running from this.” I sniff. “I’m running from you.”
“Why? What did I do?” He actually sounds surprised, which only annoys me more.
“You know what you did.”
“No, I really don’t,” he says as he swings open the truck door and sets me down in the passenger seat.
“We can’t just leave my truck here.”
“I’ll bring you back to get it in the morning.” He slams the door on any of my protests.
If I wasn’t stuck in this blanket, I might think about resorting to violence.
Zane opens his door and climbs into the truck. “All right. Do you want to know why I’m mad?”
“No. I really don’t care.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t!” I shoot back.
“Your eyebrows rise every time you lie.”
“What?” I reach a hand up and touch my eyebrows. There’s no way I have such an obvious tell.
“Yes. It’s how I know you didn’t like the pasta sauce I made the other night.”
“I loved it,” I reply, determined to lie without a giveaway.
“Your eyebrows went up.” Zane grins and leans toward me. He grabs the buckle and pulls it around my blanket-wrapped self. He clicks it into the lock but doesn’t move back immediately.
I slowly lift my chin, wary of meeting his gaze.
It’s as bad as I feared. He’s looking right at me with those piercing blue eyes.
He has a light shadow of growth on his face from the day, and he smells good even though he’s been working all day. The man has the decency to own a bottle of cologne and knows how to use it.
I take a slow, deliberate sniff, hoping he won’t notice.
He’s still not moving back. “Are you mad too?” he asks, his eyes roaming my face, as though he’s going to flesh out the answer just by looking at me.
“You were flirting with the tourist,” I say.
Zane shifts a little closer to me, and I can feel his warmth between us. “What tourist?”
“The woman in Henry’s. The one looking for a good place to go hiking.”
“I was not flirting with her,” Zane scoffs. He slides back and folds his arms across his chest as he frowns at me.
“Ha!” I exclaim. And then I do my best to mimic his voice. “‘It won’t be the only beautiful thing up there.’”
Now it’s his turn to look surprised. “That was not flirting!”
I ignore his objection and continue speaking in a deep voice. “‘You’re gonna love it out here, then.’”
Then I switch to a falsetto voice. “‘It sounds like I might need a personal tour guide to find all the beautiful spots.’”
Zane rubs a hand over his face.
Back to my deep voice. “‘You sure do.’”
I glare at him.
He glares back. “I didn’t mean me.”
“Well, it sure sounded like you meant that. And I’m pretty sure she thought so too.”
“I wasn’t trying to flirt with her. At least not like you were flirting with that new doctor in town. What was his name? Greg?”
“It was Grey,” I reply without thinking.
Zane’s eyes sharpen on me. “Aha! So, you were paying attention to him.”
“He’s new here. I was being friendly and welcoming.”
“Then I was being welcoming to the tourist.”
“You take your sexy bedroom eyes and point them somewhere other than at another woman,” I mutter.
Zane’s defensive posture shifts immediately, and I regret letting the words slip out.
“What did you call my eyes?” he asks quietly.
“I’m not going to repeat myself,” I mumble.
“Really? Because I think I’d like to hear more about my sexy bedroom eyes.”
I glare at him, but he just throws his head back and laughs as he starts the truck.
I turn to look out the window, determined to ignore my husband.
Twenty minutes later, he pulls up in front of our house. He climbs out of the truck and walks around to my side. He opens the door and leans across me to unbuckle the seat belt.
“You were jealous.” He chuckles as he unlocks the buckle.
His strong arms slip underneath me and pull me out of the truck.
“If I was, then you were too.”
He walks up the sidewalk to the house. “Fine. I was jealous too.”
He sets me down on the porch, and I finally manage to wiggle out of the blanket.
Zane looks at me with a serious expression on his face. “I know we said this would be purely platonic … but I have to admit, I didn’t like watching you flirt with Grey.”
“I thought you called him Greg …”
“Don’t make me wrap you up in the blanket again.”
“Honestly, it was pretty cozy.”
“Why can I never annoy you properly?”
“Because I’m much better at annoying you.”
“I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you, Bliss.” He sighs like he has the whole weight of the world on his shoulders.
I let a slow grin stretch across my face. Operation Annoy My Husband has been a success.
The frown melts off his face, and he points a finger at me. “You’d better be careful. I’m starting to figure you out, Bliss Madden.”
He reaches past me and opens the front door.
“I don’t know that I want you figuring me out.” I step inside, careful not to let the blanket drag. Once we’re both inside, I fold it into a neat square and set it on the entryway bench. I’ll return it to Charlie next time I see her.
“So, you don’t like me flirting,” I say as I turn to face Zane.
He’s bent over, trying to take his cowboy boots off. I have the overwhelming urge to give him a push.
My hand hovers in the air as I fight with the devil on my shoulder. Intrusive thoughts are the worst. You should push your husband while he’s trying to take his shoes off probably isn’t a normal thought for most wives.
Zane looks up right then, coming eye level with my hand. “What are you doing?”
I clear my throat loudly. “You just had some alfalfa in your hair.”
I pretend to brush something out of his hair, but then I come into contact with his cheek as I pull away, and it’s all too close to a caress. “Like I was saying, you don’t like it when I flirt. And I don’t like it when you flirt.” I try to return to the important conversation at hand.
Zane steps out of his last boot and stands straight. He looks down at me with a serious expression on his face. “You’re right. I don’t like watching you flirt.”
I was not flirting with Grey. At least, I don’t think so. He was very nice, and I liked that. Okay, so maybe I was flirting a little.
“Okay. Here’s the deal,” I say. “We are married. And we got married with the intention of staying married. Right?”
Zane nods slowly, and he takes a step closer to me. “Right. It’s not like we’re playing pretend. We got married and said vows and everything.”
I smile triumphantly. “Exactly! So, even though it’s not like we fell madly in love and got married … we did make a commitment to each other.”
Zane takes another step forward, and I take a step back. The entryway is a narrow hallway, so I don’t have far to go.
“And when people make promises, they should do their best to keep them.” I emphasize the words by shaking my finger at him.
Zane nods, taking another step. “They should honor the vows they made, definitely.”
“We are going to have to learn how to live together, don’t you think?”
“Yes, I agree. Flirting with other men, besides me, is off the table.”
I straighten my shoulders and lift my chin to look him in the eye. “The same goes for you. No more flirting with other women.”
Zane is impossibly close now. “No more flirting. I’ll only flirt with you from now on.”
My stomach drops at that. Flirt with me? Why would he want to flirt with his own wife?
“Ugh.” Words fail me.
Zane’s mouth quirks up at the corner. “And isn’t it strange that you and I have been married for eight weeks and we still haven’t kissed?”
“Do you think we should?” I blurt out.
I know I want to. No, bad idea, Bliss.
If we start kissing now … where will that lead?
Bed. No, heartbreak.
But I’ve never been very rational where Zane is concerned.
“I think we should,” he says with a confident nod.
I lean my head back and reach my arms around his neck.
The smile falls from his face as he looks down at me. “Do you want this?”
It’s a loaded question. If we kiss now, it’s going to change our relationship forever. But haven’t we already started on that path by getting jealous?
This pivotal moment was probably inevitable. We married each other and promised forever. Of course we were going to come to this crossroads.
“Yes.” The word barely slips past my lips before Zane is scooping me off the floor with one hand and placing the other behind my head, pulling me tight against him as he presses a hungry kiss against my lips.
I sigh against his mouth and hold on to his shoulders. My feet are off the ground, and I don’t even care. An electric current races through my body as Zane becomes the only thing I can think about. I want him. I want only him. And it feels as though I can’t get enough.
Gasping, I revel in the feeling of his rough skin against my cheeks. His warm lips press against mine and he parts his lips, devouring me. It’s not a slow, gentle first kiss.
He’s a hungry man.
And I’m just as bad. I pull his bottom lip between my teeth and bite it. He growls and slips his tongue in my mouth, and we spar as he pulls me tight against him. So this is why you shouldn’t kiss your husband. Because I never want this to stop.