"Evidence suggests otherwise." I tap my chest where the damp spot is clearly visible.
"You—" She sits up fully now, the sheets pooling around her waist, and I force myself not to notice how her tank top has ridden up, exposing a strip of skin at her hip. "You could have moved."
"I was comfortable."
"Comfortable." She laughs, sharp and bitter. "Ever since this sleeping arrangement started, the sheets on your side of the bed have remained cold every morning. Now, when I…" She pauses as if to redirect her words. "I was asleep. This doesn't mean anything."
And this is why I've slipped out of bed. She's not ready to admit she has feelings, and I don't want to hear her rejection. After the kiss, the kiss that meant fucking everything to me and nothing to her, she's been hard to look at. Letting her wrap herself around my body like I'm something she actually wants is masochistic. So, I slipped out—until now.
"Didn't say it did."
"Good,” she snaps.
"Great."
We stare at each other, and the air between us shifts into something electric. My heart constricts, and I'm acutely aware of every shallow breath she takes. My eyes drop to her mouth and the lips I've spent nights trying to forget. I drag my gaze back up to meet hers. The anger there is barely masking something else, something hungry that makes heat coil low in my gut.
"The pillows—" she starts, but her voice wavers.
"You knocked them over."
"I did not?—"
"Asha." I drop my voice. "Your side of the bed is pristine, and mine looks like this." I gesture to the crumpled sheets and pillows, and the evidence of her gravitating toward me in sleep. "You want to keep pretending, go ahead, but we both know the truth."
"Oh, you want to talk about the truth now. That's rich coming from you," she says with a bite, which makes me think the past few days of intentional distance I put between us were not only recognized but felt. If she even feels a pang of the hurt I felt aftershe dismissed our mind-bending kiss, chalking it up to a show for my merger…good.
"Yeah, I do," I say, leaning in closer, close enough to feel the heat radiating off her skin, and blood rushes south at the memory of her softness pressed against me. "You spent the night wrapped around me, loving every inch."
"Did not." She leans in, challenge in her eyes. "But the situation in your pants can't hide the fact that you more than enjoyed it."
"Your silk pajamas are just as revealing." I let my gaze drop slowly, taking in the evidence of her arousal before dragging back up to her face. My voice comes out rougher. "Tell me, do all women wake up with hard nipples, or is that just ayouthing?"
She rolls her eyes, but I see the way her breath hitches, the flush creeping up her neck. "You're infuriating."
"And you just got caught looking," I point out, unable to keep the satisfaction off my face. Knowing exactly how she'll react, I can't help but deliver my next provoking line. "You know, if you want to, I'll even let you touch it."
Her cheeks turn rosy, her eyes darken to almost black, and Christ, I want to catalog every second of this reaction. The flush spreads over her chest, blooming across her collarbones, and I'm mesmerized by it. Her mouth can tell lies all day long, but her body? Her body never can. That truth settles in my chest like a brand.
"That's never going to happen. It was in our agreement."
"Was it?" The words come out almost as a growl. I'm so hard it hurts, and the space between us feels thick enough to choke on. "You mentioned separate sleeping quarters, but beds aren't the only place you can bounce up and down in my lap."
She scowls, but I see it, the flash in her eyes, the way her lips part slightly. She's envisioning it, imagining exactly what I justsuggested, and the knowledge sends a bolt of pure want straight through me.
"You really expect me to stay celibate for a year?" My voice is rough, raw with frustration and desire that's been building for years.
"What are you suggesting?"
The distance between us feels eliminated, nonexistent. I can feel the whisper of her breath against my skin.
Heat floods through me. "I think you know exactly what I'm suggesting, Wife." I draw out the word deliberately, making it clear she agreed to the title, agreed to being mine.
"I think that's why God gave you hands,” she says seductively, my cock noticing before my brain can register what she’s said. The sultry expression that was written all over her face is gone like it was never there, and cold air rushes between as she pulls away and adds, "Use them." She smiles sweetly, innocently, but her eyes glitter with triumph. She knows exactly how she just played me, and she's enjoying every second of watching me realize it.
My jaw tenses as understanding crashes over me. This was payback for the distance I put between us, walls I erected because of her, because of stunts just like this one. I should have seen it coming. If I push, she pushes back. She always does, and fuck if it doesn't make me want her more.
My fists clench in the sheets, and she already has one leg off the bed, grabbing her robe, when my phone rings. The name on the screen gives me pause, but it doesn't surprise me.
