“You’re being buried.”
She huffs, getting to her feet. The bottle of whiskey in her hand. “You’re saying I don’t get to choose?”
“You get to choose whether you want to be buried on my right or my left,” I say, looking up at her where I remain sitting. It’s that simple.
“Unbelievable,” she hisses, giving me her back. My eyes drop to her legs. She’s still wearing her dress and heels from the club because we didn’t have anything for her to change into. “Even in death, you decide everything.” Tipping the bottle back, she takes a sip. “What about your next wife?” She turns to face me once more.
“Next wife?” I can’t help but smile. “Angel, you’re going to be my one and only wife.”
She pops a hip out. “Say I die first and then you get married again. And then you die and she buries you?—”
I burst out laughing, cutting her off, and her eyes narrow on me.
“What’s so funny?” she demands and her knuckles go white from tightening around the bottle.
“You. You come up with the craziest hypothetical situations that aren’t going to happen,” I answer through a smile.
“It’s a legitimate concern.” I frown, and her eyes drop to her wedding ring. “It happened to Bill.” Her eyes meet mine and I hold in a sigh. “He told me how much he loved my mother and wished he could have saved her…but now he’s on his third marriage to Janice, and he’ll be buried with her.”
“Is that why you want to be cremated?”
She shuffles from foot to foot. Taking a deep breath, her green eyes find mine. “My body is useless. It would be a waste of space. Burn what’s left of me and throw my ashes here.” Licking her lips, she adds softly, “This is where I belong.”
I look over the abandoned cemetery. I don’t think there’s anything I can say that will make her feel differently. My wife thinks very little of herselfbecause of how she’s been used, but I’m making it my life’s mission to show her how important she is. That she is somebody.
My wife.
My world.
My everything.
I hope I go first so I don’t have to spend a life without her, but I’ll be dammed if she’s cremated and dumped here. I will make sure that her guardian knows she is to be buried at Carnage next to me.
“You belong next to me—your Lord. Your husband. And that’s where you will be laid to rest.” This is something I will not budge on. I don’t care if I die twenty years before she does, there will be instructions to make sure my wife is next to me.
“So bossy.” A smile tugs at her lips, and I don’t hide mine.
My girl likes me taking control and telling her what she’ll do.
She falls to straddle my legs, and it pushes her dress up in the process. My hands go to her thighs. “Want to know a secret?”
“Absolutely.”
“My first kiss was in this cemetery.”
My teeth grind. “Who was he?” I demand.
She smiles. “So jealous.”
If she is able to remember the fucker, he’s dead. “I mean it, Eve. Who the fuck was it?”
“Why? Going to kill him?”
“Yes.” I’m going to bury his body right here with all the other sorry bastards.
Her smile just grows, showing off her perfectly straight teeth. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I don’t want anyone out there walking around knowing what my wife’s lips feel like.”
