“Not letting my wife die from hypothermia.” I wrap the shirt around her. I’m half-expecting her to toss it off, but she doesn’t. She hugs it close. “There are people everywhere. Why do you have thisneedto show everyone your naked body?”
My hands rub up and down her shoulders. I should have been more careful during that fight. He got a single lucky hit, my opponent, and of course it was somewhere visible. And now everything is collapsing with Paige.
“Why can’t you justtellme?” she asks.
I start buttoning the shirt over her chest, sealing away inch after inch of her soft skin behind the linen. “Can’t you just drop it?”
“No, I can’t drop it.” Her voice tightens. “If you’re sneaking out to meet up with a secret girlfriend, it’s going to get out, Rafe. You know it will. And I’m going to look like a fool, and our marriage even more of a sham.”
“You’re angry,” I say. The best defense is a good offense. “Or areyoujealous? Why does this bother you so much?”
“If I’m jealous, then you were jealous on that boat. Of Antoine.” She takes a step closer, and just like that, she undoes all of my hard work. She slips my shirt off her shoulders and remains there, naked, only inches away. “You didn’t like seeing someone else interested in yourinvestment.”
“No. I really didn’t.” My voice is almost a snarl.
He’s fired. Tomorrow.
“If you don’t tell me where you’re off to at night,” she says, “I’ll just have to find someone who will fuck me, too. It’s not fair that I have to stay celibate when you’re not.”
The words run like a hot poker down my back.Fuck her.I imagine Paige’s face relaxed in bliss, her mouth half open, body on top of mine. She’d be good in bed. She’d take what she wanted, and I would love giving it to her. Hearing her moan, just like she did while eating that chocolate cake. We would keep score.
And the idea of her doing that with anyone else makes me want to die.
“You willnot,” I say.
She puts a hand on my chest and shoves. “If you get to, I get to.”
“I’mnotfucking anyone,” I say. “But is that why you’re so upset, then? You’re that desperate for sex?”
Her eyes narrow. “I’m not desperate.You’rethe one sneaking out when our every move is being watched, just so you can get off. I bought you a sex toy. Use that instead.”
“I haven’t had sex in months,” I say, and curse in French. The anger is too close to the surface. She’s not going to let this go. “Do you think I wake up hard most mornings? I don’t. That was because of you.”
Her eyes widen. “Really?”
“Yes, Wilde. Because Iamattracted to you. That’s what you’ve wanted me to say for weeks, isn’t it? That I look at you and wonder what you’d taste like, what you’d feel like.” I take a step closer. “That it’s inconvenient and frustrating and against my will, and Ihatethat you’ve noticed it. That I had to come in the shower this morning, and it was you I was picturing. Lying outside my office window with your bikini top off, basking in my line of sight. Is that what you want to hear?” My hand comes up, cupping her face. “Do you think that means you’ve won this set?”
Her lips part, like she’s shocked. Like I’ve surprised her for once. I lean in closer, my hands sliding down her arms to find the low of her back.
Her skin is cool from the lake’s water.
“I’m not fucking anyone, darling,” I say. “Things would be a lot simpler if I was.”
“Oh.”
“But I’m not the only one who is turned on here.”
Paige’s hands come up to rest against my bare chest, flat against my skin. Her touch feels like fire. “I’m not turned on.”
“You asked me to kiss you the other night.”
“I gave you a chance to practice.”
“You just stripped naked in front of me.”
Her fingertips turn into claws, nails digging into my skin. “To prove a point,” she says. “I’mfine.”
“You haven’t been fine a single day since I met you,” I say, and feel those dimples at her low back beneath my fingers. I’m hard again, aching behind my belt buckle. “When was the last time you had sex?”
