“At least you’re self-made. Meanwhile, I’d be working in some crummy office if it weren’t for Whit’s help. The gallery is really only mine in name. Whit owns the bricks and mortar, or the shipping container, as it were. And the stock. I think that makes me some kind of nepo baby.”
“No, Lavender, that’s not true. What Whit has done for you is what families do,” he says. “What they’re supposed to do. Look after each other.” He lifts the tray away and kisses me, soft and sweet.But not without heat.
“Pity kiss?” I say as it breaks.
“Yours or mine? Don’t answer that,” he adds, resuming his position next to me, sliding his hand behind me to cup the nape of my neck. “You and me, we don’t need pity.”
Another kiss now, slow, deeper. Wetter. He makes a growly sound as I work my fingers down the hard planes of his stomach. He catches my questing hand.
“Who’d pity us?” I whisper as his lips slide down my neck, and he presses my hand above my head.
“No man in the world would pity me, wife.”
I sigh, my back arching as his fingers trail up my inner thigh. “You like saying that, don’t you?” My thighs tremble as though shy to part. “My wife.”
He hooks my leg wider, exposing my most intimate parts to the daylight. He watches my face as his fingers slide inside me.
“It’s what you are, my incredible, irresistible, hot as fuck wife.”
I turn my face, burying it in the downy pillow, each compliment matched with a stroke of his fingers.
“You only say that when there are people around except…”
His thumb dips, gathering my wetness to slide it over the swollen rise of my clit.
“Except last night, I got off on you wearing my ring while you jacked me off.”
“That’s what it was all about.” How… unexpected. Weird but also lovely in a kinky, possessive kind of way. I probably wouldn’t ever mention it to anyone, let alone admit that I like that sort of thing. “Oh!” My body undulates, and he swallows my gasp in his kiss.
“Got me as hard as a pole. You know why, don’t you?”
My head thrashes against the pillow. It’ll probably look like a bird's nest after this.
“I like how it sounds,” he says, moving over me to between my legs.
“You mean, in bed?” I whisper as he hooks my leg over his shoulder.
“Hmm,” he purrs. Everything inside me contracts at the smooth press of his crown. “Fetishizing matrimony. I like that.”
“Context is everything,” I say, my body hungry, my thoughts a little dispirited.
But then he takes my hand. My left hand, and his thumb rubs over my diamond band. “I like the way this shines when you’re touching me. It makes me feel something I can’t explain.”
“That you like sparkly hand jobs?”
“Ilikeyour sparkly hand jobs.” He begins to slide down my body.
Who am I to stop him?
“What if…” The words are a rush of hot breath between my legs. “What if I wanted to call you my wife because youaremy wife.”
My stomach flips as his hand slides up the bed, his fingers threading through mine.
“Because I want you to be my wife—because you want tobemy wife. For real.”
“Maybe I want you to be my husband,” I say, switching things up.
“Yours.” His tongue licks into me, and I cry out. “I like the sound of that.”
