Daisy shifted to straddle me, and the towel dropped open a bit, her damp, soft flesh pressing to mine.
Fire flamed. A poker stoking the greed.
Reaching out, she brushed her fingertips along my jaw. “No, Cash. I think you just haven’t known what to do with the goodness inside you.”
“Or maybe that goodness had ceased to exist until you walked through my door.”
Tilting her head to the side, she bit down on her bottom lip. “Maybe we both were just trapped. Stuck in a reality neither of us wanted, and we both survived it the best way we could.”
“That why you married Ethan?” Possession wound out with the question. Couldn’t stand it. The thought of her with someone else. Especially knowing he was a piece of shit.
Her nod was wary. “I…I was always so alone, and after I lost you. After Hadley disappeared…” Her face pinched in grief, while my conscience screamed. “At first, he was kind. Super interested in me. Wanted to know all about my history. Who I was. All my experiences. It was easy to fall into that bit of comfort. Then I had my kids, and a dead part of myself came alive.”
Fuck. Even that made me want to go on a rampage. The idea of the prick getting into her beautiful mind.
“And then…” Her head barely shook as she tried to process. “I don’t know. Sometime after I got pregnant with Eva, it was like he grew frustrated with me. It was like there was always this undercurrent. Like he wanted something from me that he never really let me in on. And when he didn’t get it…”
In uncertainty, those blue eyes blinked.
“Maybe that’s when I started waking up. Realizing there was something dark in his life.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there. That I let that happen.”
She edged closer, her skin plastered to mine, the thunder of her heart reverberating against my chest. “I think it’s time we finish being sorry, Cash. It’s time we focus on the fact that our connection brought us together. Because now, we have a new reality.”
I dragged my fingers down the curved slope of her back. My voice dropped low. “And that reality belongs to you and me.”
“You and me,” she whispered.
I slipped my palm to the side of her neck. Need thumped through my veins. “Think we should spend a little time exploring exactly what that’s going to look like, don’t you?”
“No complaints here.”
“Nah, baby, I’m going to see to it that there are absolutely zero complaints. The only thing coming out of that mouth is going to be my name.”
“That sounds like a challenge, Heartbreaker.” She arched a coy brow as she pushed to stand, wrapped in that towel as she strutted back toward the bedroom.
She peeked back at me from over her shoulder.
Taunting.
Teasing.
Tempting.
“Oh, you are asking for trouble.” It was the rough scrape of a tease.
A grin hooked at the edge of her delicious mouth. “I’m pretty sure I already found it.”
I slowly stood. “You certainly have, wife.”
FORTY-SEVEN
CASH
Wife.
I was never going to get tired of the sound of it.
