She blinked hard. “Trent?—”
“Just answer me.”
She pressed her lips together. “I don’t want you put out.”
“I didn’t ask if you wanted to protect me.” My voice broke, not angry but raw. “I asked if you wantthis.”
Her shoulders curled like she was trying to make herself smaller, preparing to take a hit. “I want you to be happy.”
I exhaled sharply. She still wasn’t hearing me, so I leaned forward, caught her chin between my fingers, and made her look at me. “I’m not asking if you want the situation. I’m asking if you wantme.”
A furrow appeared between her eyebrows, but as she stared up at me, I realized what she was really afraid of. It wasn’t the drama or someone else’s reaction. It was wanting me too much and losing me. It was this notion that I’d pull away from her if things got too hard, those lies she’d grown up believing about how she had to be amenable and pleasant all the time to be consideredworth the trouble.
Silently cursing Douglas again for his cold,you have to earn the loveparenting style, I reached up and stroked my fingertips across her cheekbones. “That’s all I care about, Charlotte. What you want. And if you wantme, then I’m not going anywhere.”
Her eyes flooded with something I couldn’t quite read, but when she finally found her voice, it came out small. “I do want you.”
Three little words. No hesitation, just truth, but then she blinked up at me with those wide, uncertain eyes, and I realized she thought that wasn’t enough. That wanting me didn’t mean she would get to have me.
“Sweetheart,” I breathed, shaking my head. “I really don’t care about all the trouble you think you’re causing me, because it’s no trouble at all. Not when it means getting to come home to you every day.”
She swallowed, her throat bobbing. “You’re going to get hurt if we keep doing this, Trent. Somehow, some way, they’re going to find a pressure point and push until you can’t take it?—”
I cut her off with my mouth on hers, the kiss not rough or wild, but decisive and certain. “There is nothing they can do that will hurt me more than losing you.”
I kissed her again, letting her feel every ounce of truth in what I’d just said. When I finally pulled back, her lips were parted, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes soft enough to wreck a man.
“I want you,” I told her quietly, my thumbs brushing her jaw. “Not out of convenience, or because of your father, or business. Just you. You need to stop thinking of yourself as some kind of burden on me.”
She tried to argue. I could see it forming, but I didn’t let her get the words out. Instead, I kissed the objection right off her lips and I didn’t stop until she was melting into me. Her hands slipped up my chest, around my neck, her whole body leaning into mine like she was finally letting go of some impossible weight.
I lifted her easily, sliding my hands under her thighs as she wrapped her legs around me. She gasped when I stood, but her fingers stayed tangled in my hair, her forehead dropping against mine. “Trent.”
“Yeah,” I murmured as I carried her toward the bedroom, “I’m here.”
I nudged the door open with my hip and set her down gently on the edge of the bed. She looked up at me with vulnerability and heat and it damn near undid me.
“You’re mywife,” I said, brushing her hair back from her face. “You don’t get to talk like you’re some inconvenience I’mtolerating. I chose you. I keep choosing you. I want you to let me take care of you. I want you to want that.”
She shivered, a little breath leaving her in a way that told me she did want all of it, but she was still scared to believe it. Her eyes fluttered shut as I kissed down her neck, her hands sliding under my shirt, tracing my spine with a kind of desperation that made my pulse spike.
“Tell me you want me,” I murmured against her skin, not because I doubted her but because I wanted her to feel it. To own it. “Tell me you want this.”
Her fingers tightened in my hair. “I do. I always do.”
“Good. Because I’m not planning on giving you an inch of space to doubt it again.”
I laid her back slowly, kissing her like she was oxygen and I’d been holding my breath all damn day. Everything else, the lawyers, Gregory, the threats, the paperwork, and the pressure slid right out of my mind the second she arched into me, trusting me with every inch of herself.
She was pure warmth under my hands. Pure want. And she was all mine.
Something had definitely happened while she’d been out with Stella. I could feel it in the way she clung to me and how she kissed like she was terrified I might disappear, but I wasn’t going to ask again.
Not right now. Not when she was finally relaxing into me instead of retreating. Later, I’d get it out of her and I’d handle whatever the hell it was, but I was done with the drama, the strategy, and the legal threats. Done with everyone else’s demands.
All I wanted right now was my wife, and she was warm, willing, and trembling beneath me. I lowered myself over her, my breath mingling with hers and every muscle tight with need. I would have to cancel dinner with her brothers, but I’d do that later.
For now, I wanted to bury myself deep inside her and forget the outside world even existed—and that was exactly how I planned on spending my night. Everything and everyone else could wait just a little fucking while.
