“Twyla Hernandez, Liev King.”
She offers him a tight smile. “Thank you. For showing up when you did.”
“Of course. Anything for my bestie and his wife.” Liev sends me a smirk, just visible under the passing street lights. “I’m glad to meet you, Twyla. If you two hadn’t gone off and eloped, we might have met already.” He flicks me a quick look, one eyebrow raised. “What’s the plan? Am I taking you both to camp?”
“No,” I say, nowhere near fast enough to cut him off.
“Camp?” she asks.
Liev looks straight out at the road.
“Liev’s house. I go there every summer. We just call it camp.”
“Camp? Sounds fun.” Her voice is light, completely uninterested. I guess it’s back to the ice queen routine.
I still don’t like it. I like the smart, snarky Twyla I’ve gotten to know. A woman who’s as serious as I am when it comes to work, who respects my privacy, and gives me space. On the other hand, just the other night, she laughed so hard she almost pissed her pants. At a cartoon. On the sofa in the cozy den upstairs. With popcorn.
That was the night I realized what a terrible idea this whole marriage thing was. Not because I didn’t want my sweet, vanilla wife, but because I wanted her way too much.
So I went out and really fucked it all up.
“You’re welcome to come,” says Liev, ignoring my glare.
“I appreciate that,” she tells him, shifting a little in the seat between us. “But I’d better find my own way.”
She squirms again, the movement releasing a warm, floral scent into the air. Not like perfume so much as an actual flower. Except that’s not it either, ’cause it’s not like I picture a bouquet when she’s this close. I picture her warm skin, smooth and soft and shiny with oil. I picture rope burn and bruises and deep red handprints. I can almost hear the way she’d—
She glances up at me and I start guiltily, easing right to keep my quickly-hardening cock from going anywhere near her.
Just then, her phone rings and, to my relief, she puts it to her ear, voice low, though I hear most of what she’s saying. It’s her agent, I’d guess.
My phone buzzes a few minutes later. The security team. They’re close. After a quick exchange, I hang up.
“Next exit,” I tell Liev quietly, while Twyla continues her murmured conversation.
He pulls right, driving the way he does everything—smoothly, well, entrenched in his own deep sense of calm.
I cast a quick glance down at my wife.
Wife.
Not for long.
Her leg moves against mine—soft and strong and warm—and that movie night comes back to me again. I remember the wide-mouthed, low bellied laughs she let out, and then the way she hid under the blanket when I convinced her to let me watchThe Thingafter theIce Agecredits rolled. She fell asleep there, all wrapped up next to me. And, fuck, her little round, solemn face, the freckles scattered across her nose, making her look young and sweet and innocent, when she’s actually got one hell of a dark sense of humor on her.
She shifts again, settling her round booty deeper into the truck’s center seat and—hell—now I’m thinking about the scattering of freckles I spotted right at that line between her ass and thigh when the blanket fell back and her sleep shorts were all bunched up at her waist and I spent a full 45 minutes wondering if she had panties on under there. Then she woke up, looked at me with those soft, sleepy eyes and I had to—
Yeah. The whole marriage as a way to keep people away plan sure fucking backfired.
Drawing in a deep breath, I look out the window. “Park and ride, right lane,” I tell Liev, careful not to disturb Twyla’s intense-sounding call.
“That them?” He pulls the truck to a stop a few spaces from a dark SUV.
“Probably.”
Twyla looks up. “I’d better go, okay? Touch base tomorrow.”
I try to catch her eye. She avoids me.
