“Maybe Murray is concerned that you’re concerned he might cross the line while you’re living with him,” Taran suggested. “It might not be a bad thing to have an honest conversation about boundaries so you both know where you stand.”
I knew she was right.
But the problem was even if the best thing to do was to tell Murray I wasn’t interested in anything romantic with him, it would be a lie. I didn’t know if I was ready to date again. To trust again.
And yet for the first time in a long time, I had my libido back. In a big way. I’d never felt this hyperaware around a man. It was addicting. And it was confusing everything.
Not that it mattered because I was pretty sure Murray didn’t see me like that. And Taran had kind of confirmed my insecurities about it. She might have been careful with her word choice, but her cutting off Cammie every time she tried to suggest Murray was attracted to me and then suggesting I let Murray know he would never cross the line with me …
It was like Taran knew something the rest of us didn’t.
It was like she knew Murray genuinely wasn’t attracted to me.
Which would explain him treating me like I was made of glass anytime he had to touch or kiss me.
The level of disappointment was crushing, and that confused me even more.
As conversation gently turned to Taran and Quinn’s wedding, I tried not to stew in my hurt feelings. My phone beeped in my purse, and I pulled it out to see an email from Murray. It was forwarded from his lawyer.
It was the postnuptial agreement.
He wanted me to read it before they got me to sign the physical document.
And just like that, I wasn’t confused anymore.
This was a business deal between me and Murray.
Nothing else.
And my heart and libido needed to get back on board with that and fast.
14.Murray
Getting my daughter back was one of the worst and best days of my life.
It was a Monday and almost two weeks since London and I had married. We’d spent most of our weekends avoiding each other and doing a terrible job of proving to Leth Sholas we were in a real relationship. At least we had the excuse of our actual jobs to explain why we were rarely seen together.
The tension in the house was getting so bad, I’d decided I would go out with the next crew heading to the North Atlantic tomorrow morning. The vessel would be out for ten days, and Kelly wasn’t due home until the weekend after that …
I’d started waking up at the same time as London. Not because my alarm went off or because she woke me up … but it was like my body knew when she was up and about. Once I was awake, I’d hear the creak of the floorboards from upstairs. Her guest room was above the guest room next door, and I’d started wondering all sorts of things I shouldn’t be wondering.
Like what she wore to bed.
If the golden freckles on her cheeks and nose could be found anywhere else on her body.
The woman living in my house, taking showers above my head, had been the subject of my masturbatory fantasies for the past year … and living with her was akin to torture.
I’d gone without sex for a long time, so I was used to celibacy. While I suspected Jill had been unfaithful, I never was. I’d seen what that betrayal did to my mum, and I vowed I’d never do that to a woman. No matter what was going on between us. There had been stretches of months in our marriage where Jill didn’t want me to touch her. Toward the end of our marriage,Ididn’t want to touch her, and I didn’t for over a year. When we separated, I had a few one-night stands for the first time in my life, and they’d left me cold. The last had been after a gig the lads and I did on Scaris.
To say I was gun-shy of getting into a real relationship with anyone was an understatement, and since casual sex didn’t really do it for me, it meant I hadn’t had sex for almost eleven months (my right hand didn’t count). It wasn’t the longest I’d gone without sex, but it was close.
Now that London was a mere floor above me every night and every morning, my body was strung so taut, I might as well have been celibate for a decade.
That morning I woke up around five-ish. Almost the entire left wall of my bedroom was a wrap-around, floor-to-ceiling window. It was a nice detail, but it meant installing the best blackout blinds money could buy. Therefore, the sunlight no longer woke me.
Like the past four mornings, my London body clock alerted me before my alarm did. I groaned at the time and since I knew there was no way I’d fall back asleep, I got up to shower and used the time to fantasize about walking upstairs and getting into London’s shower with her.
It took the edge off but nowhere near enough.
