And for tonight?
I let him.
Just One Truth
Langston
Sweetheart.
The word slipped out of my mouth in the elevator, soft and easy, like it had been waiting in me all along.
And I meant it. Every part of it.
Sabrina has gotten under my skin in a way I can’t explain. A way I don’t want to explain. I’m always in control—of the room, of the deal, of myself. But with her? My grip is slipping. She’s chaos dressed in emerald fire, and every time she looks at me, I feel like I’m standing too close to the edge.
Seeing Elliott put his hands on her tonight… it flipped something inside me. Turned me inside out. I wanted to break him in half for even thinking he had the right. And then that kid at the front desk? The way his eyes dragged over her—like she was available, like she wasn’t already mine?
I could’ve rung his neck just for looking.
Possessive doesn’t begin to cover it.
I swipe the key card and push the suite door open, my hand automatically finding the small of her back as I guide her inside.I can’t seem to stop touching her when she’s around. A palm to her hip, her waist, the curve of her spine. Like I need the physical reminder she’s here. That she’s real.
And it pisses me off.
I clench my jaw, frustrated at myself, at her, at everything this is stirring up in me.
“Decide what you want for dinner,” I tell her, the words sharper than I mean them to be. “I’ve got calls to make.”
Her brows lift, but she doesn’t argue. She sits her bag down by the couch and starts looking over the room service menu.
I turn away before I can soften, before I can say something else I don’t mean to.
In the bedroom, I pull out my phone, sit on the edge of the bed, and stare at the blank screen.
No calls. No messages. Nothing waiting.
I don’t dial a damn thing.
Instead, I sit there pretending to work while every thought in my head circles back to the woman in the other room—my wife.
And the truth I don’t want to admit, even to myself.
I don’t just want to protect her.
I want her.
All of her.
The silence in the bedroom is deafening.
I’m staring at my phone like it’s going to magically ring, like some call is going to save me from the fact that my head won’t stop replaying her voice. That quiet little “You” she whispered in the elevator when I asked what she was nervous about.
Me.
I scrub a hand down my face. I should feel in control here. A hotel suite, a woman who legally bears my name, a situation I engineered into existence. Control is what I do. It’s who I am.
But she’s unraveling me thread by thread without even trying.
