My hands land on her hips and squeeze before I help to maneuver her over me so she’s grinding down on me. “I have a few ideas,” the words come out absent, my focus on the way her tits are swaying with her movements. “It is our wedding night,” my gaze slides up her body and locks with hers as I arch an eyebrow, the challenge clear.
Her head tips back and her laughter fills the room. Warmth blooms in my chest and I know that we’re going to make this work.
There simply isn’t another option.
Meadow is mine and I’m not letting her go.
CHAPTER 11
MEADOW
Confusion washes over me when I wake up. My eyes snap open and I look around the unfamiliar room. For a moment, I have no idea where I am. The only thing I’m sure of is the delicious way my body is sore.
That is what makes everything rush back in. I got married yesterday. Now I’m in my husband’s room, in the farmhouse he wants me to make into a home, a place where I can very clearly see our future laid out in front of us. It’s a future I desperately hope comes to fruition.
It feels like so much is in the air, but the more time I spend around Rook, the more I trust him and the promises he keeps laying at my feet.
When I stretch in bed, surprised I slept so long after training myself to be an early riser since the opening of GMH, I realize Rook isn’t in bed nextto me. My hand glides over his side of the bed to find that the sheets are cold which means he must have been gone for a while.
I’m willing to admit to myself, alone in this room, that I don’t like waking up alone. I should be waking up in my husband’s arms. But he’s not here in bed with me.
He probably had chores or something to do on the farm. If he did, I wish he would have woken me up and told me where he was going. I hate the way my heart sinks at being alone.
I think I’m falling too fast for this man.
Your husband.
The reminder of who Rook is to me has me climbing out of bed. I pull one side of the curtains to the side and take in how high the sun is in the sky. I stretch again as I move toward the bathroom. It takes me a few minutes to start my day, especially since I didn’t bother looking for my stuff, whatever it was my girls packed for me.
On my way past, I grab one of Rook’s t-shirts from the dresser. The soft cotton slides of my skin and reaches almost to my knees. When I take a deep breath, I don’t smell any coffee brewing and I’m definitely going to need coffee to get this day started.
We’re not going on a honeymoon since it wouldn’t work for either of us to leave Storyville for any length of time right now, but we promised to spend a few days settling into the new normal of our married life. What I never told him was how giddy the thought made me.
When I open the door to Rook’s room, I freeze because of the angry shouting I hear coming from somewhere toward the front of the house. My steps are slow and cautious as I move through the rooms. It certainly doesn’t feel like mine, not yet.
But I really want it to be.
I love this house. The first time I pulled up to it for my initial meeting with Rook, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it. There’s something quaint and cozy about it. It feels like a place with history and has been imbued with generations of life, of possibilities.
Now that I live here, there are things I want to change. I don’t want to erase the house’s history, but I want to make it ours. Right now, every corner of every room is being haunted by the ghosts of those who have lived within these walls throughout the years.
The voices get louder as I approach the front door. When I peek out one of the front windows, I see Rook standing at the top of the porch steps while glaring down at a man standing at the bottom. My husband’s arms are crossed across his chest and the look on his face is murderous.
I don’t even think twice when I swing the door open, my curiosity getting the better of me and silencing my better judgement. Both men freeze in place.
Rook turns toward me slowly. When he looks at me, his gaze sweeps down my body and then back up. His brown eyes heat as he takes me in, but then his jaw ticks and I’m not entirely sure if his anger is directed at me or at the man standing in front of our house.
While looking between the two men, the older man leers at me and I hate it. That’s when I notice the similarities between the two of them and my gut clenches. Without needing to be told, I know this man is Rook’s father.
When I glance down at the porch, I try to get the surge of anger threatening to choke me under control. My hands clench at my sides and I picture myself marching down the steps. I’d walk right up to the man who abandoned his own son and then used love like a dangling carrot, while knowing full well he was never going to give his son that love, and slap him.
Fuck, I want to punch him. I want to cause him even a fraction of the pain he’s caused my husband. He would deserve it.
“Meadow,” there’s a warning in Rook’s voice and my eyes come up and meet his. His jaw is clenched so tight that I’m more than a little concerned about his teeth being ground into dust.
I should go back inside, especially because the way his father is looking at me is making my skin crawl. But I’m not going to leave Rook out here alone.
No, we handle our issues together. It’s one of the perks of being married.
