“Are you going to skip this week?”
“Why do you care?”
It was a good question. Whether or not she went to her family’s weekly gathering was only his concern if it impacted his ability to make love with her.
Right. Because making love is what she’s been doing all day, every day at your house.
Not living together. Not playing at domesticity.
Going out and riding on the trails. Cooking dinner. Eating dinner. Going to sleep, waking up, showering.
Hell, they had ended up brushing their teeth together.
He could suddenly see why—per her earlier concern—men got weird about toothbrushes.
There was something intimate about a toothbrush.
There was also something about knowing her so intimately that made the sex better. Everything that made the sex unique to her made it better. Living with her, being near her, was foreplay.
He didn’t have to understand it to feel it.
Faith cleared her throat. “I told Poppy about us.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed. “Why?” He had never met Poppy, but he knew all about her. Knew that she had pretty recently become Faith’s sister-in-law. But he hadn’t gotten the impression they were friends in particular.
“It just kind of...came out.” She shrugged, her bare breasts rising and falling. For the moment, he was too distracted to think about what she was saying. “And I didn’t see the point in hiding it anymore.”
“I thought you really didn’t want your brothers to know.”
“I didn’t. But now...”
“You finished designing the house. We both know that.”
She ducked her head. “I haven’t shown it to you yet.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that you’re done. Does it?”
“I guess not. It’s not a coincidence that I went ahead and told her now. I needed to talk to her about some things.”
“Don’t you think that if it’s about—” he hesitated over saying the wordus“—this, that you should have talked to me?”
“Yes, I do need to talk to you.” She folded her knees upward, pushing herself into a sitting position. “I just... I needed to get my head on straight.”
“And?”
“I failed. So, this is the thing.” She frowned, her eyebrows drawing tightly together. “I don’t want us to be over.”
Her words hit him with all the force of a blade slipping into his rib cage.
“Is that so?”
He didn’t want it to be over, either.
That was the thing.Not being overwas what he had been pondering just a few moments ago. They didn’t have to be over yet.
He almost felt as if everything else was on pause. His revenge, his triumphant return back into Alicia’s circles. His determination to make sure that she went to prison by proving what she had done to him.
All of that ugliness could wait. It would have to. It was going to start once the house was finished. And until then...
