Page 49 of Bad Boy Husband

JAMESON

“Do you think they’ve got us on a clock?” Sadie whispered against my mouth, her body melting into mine as she opened her eyes to look at me. “I’ve missed you, too. Think they’re going to give me a chance to show you how much?”

A low groan vibrated through my chest. She was so soft against me and she felt so fucking good. She always did, but with the wedding tomorrow, she felt even better because she was almost mine .

“Don’t do this to me,” I warned her, my voice already getting rough. “Don’t tempt me.”

“Why?” She flashed me a small but devilish smile, gently scraping her fingernails across my back. “It’s only been a couple days. It can’t be that bad.”

I arched an eyebrow at her. “I know. It’s not that bad. It’s worse.”

She chuckled, but the sound was a little husky. A bit more breathless than usual. “We have our whole lives together. What’s one more night apart?”

My fingers dug into her hips as I dragged my nose along the length of hers, breathing her in and feeling her breath catch in her chest. “One more night apart is one too many. You’re sure you want to do this?”

“Yes,” she whispered, but she didn’t sound entirely confident as I sucked her earlobe into my mouth, nibbling it gently between my teeth. “Jamie…”

“Hmm?” I moved my mouth down to her throat, planting hot, open-mouthed kisses on her skin and feeling her pulse leap under my lips. “What is it, baby?”

“We can’t do this. Not here.”

“Why not?” I murmured without lifting my head away from her, trailing kisses to her collarbone as my hand ran under the hem of her dress up her thigh. “Locked door, remember?”

As my fingertips brushed the edge of her panties, I caught her chin in my free hand and angled her head up to claim her lips with my own. Need coursed through me like a living being, my cock straining against my fly and every part of me attuned to her.

She kissed me back, moaning into my mouth as she pressed herself against me. For a couple minutes that were much too short, we made out like this was another stolen moment in our youth, but then she suddenly broke away from me, her cheeks flushed and her chest heaving.

“I’m just going to go before this gets out of hand,” she murmured. Smiling, she blew me a kiss. “I’ll miss you, Jamie. See you tomorrow. I’ll be the one in white.”

She disappeared before I’d even responded and I groaned, scrubbing my hands over my face and trying to get a damn grip. I was still trying to slow my heartbeat when I stepped out of the library.

Sadie had left me wrecked, kiss-drunk, and horny as hell. Her scent clung to my collar like a dare to go up there and claim what was mine, her lip gloss smudged just faintly near my jaw.

I didn’t bother wiping it away. There was no point in pretending I wasn’t already hers and I didn’t mind who knew what we’d done in there.

As I strode down the hallway, I heard my mother corralling the women upstairs like a general.

“Sterling, just go, darling. Laney and the baby are perfectly safe with us. Sadie, stop looking for him. He lives on the property. He’ll be fine getting home.

Both of you, butts upstairs. There’s a surprise waiting for you in the guest room. ”

I chuckled, catching a glimpse of my dad leaning against the doorway, watching her with a surprisingly soft smile on his face. Sterling muttered a few more protests, but finally, I heard Harrison dragging him away.

“Come with me, man. I’ve got exactly what you need. A bottle of tequila from the actual town, Tequila. You need to taste this stuff. It’s just one night, and trust me, if you don’t have your wife to keep you warm, this is what you want. Where’s Jameson?”

I sighed, torn between heading home and calling out to let Harrison know I would meet them in his wing, but as I passed the living room, I stopped walking. Callum was still on the back patio, his legs kicked up on a bench, and he was sipping scotch like a man twice his age.

Turning on the spot, I crossed the living room and headed out to join him. Callum tilted his head when I sat down and then poured me a glass from the bottle beside him without a word.

“Thanks,” I said as I took it, immediately bringing it to my lips but not sipping just yet. “What are you still doing out here?”

He swirled the ice in his glass, his gaze catching on the lip gloss I could still feel on my jaw. “You look like you just got away with something.”

“Maybe I did.”

He snorted, but there wasn’t much heat behind it. “Lucky bastard. Why’d you let Mom and Laney take her from you?”

I stretched my legs out ahead of me and tipped my head back, looking up at the stars. It was a good night. Much too good to be wasted on brooding. “Sadie wanted to stay with them. She thought what they were doing was romantic.”

“Ah.” He let out a tight chuckle, the light he’d always had in his eyes disturbingly missing. “Hey, at least this will be your last night in that big house alone, am I right? You ready for that? Living with her for the rest of your life?”

“Yes,” I said without hesitation, but I refused to let him off the hook.

Mom always joked that Callum was her wild child, her loose cannon.

The guy was a living ball of energy who’d never met a sport he couldn’t play, a woman he couldn’t charm, or a deal he couldn’t close.

Brooding wasn’t like him. I hadn’t even known he could sit still long enough to do it.

“Okay, your turn. What’s going on with you? ”

He shrugged. “Nothing.”

“Try again.”

After a brief pause, he sighed, replying without looking at me. “Do you think I should do it? What Harrison said, I mean.”

I let out a bark of surprised laughter. “Are you talking about putting an ad in the paper?”

“ Desperate heir of powerful family seeks emotionally stable partner to tolerate luxury and occasional social events. Must like dogs and media scrutiny .” He said it like an ad in the paper, his voice as dry as unbuttered toast. “Should I throw a little something in there about a willingness to put up with a future mother-in-law who enjoys springing spa trips like traps?”

“Nah.” I laughed. “You forgot to include, ‘ Has all his hair and an excellent skincare routine ,’ though. Maybe also something about meddlesome brothers who won’t let shit go.”

He cracked a brief smile. It didn’t last long, but it was real. Just a flash of the guy he really was, but who seemed to be buckling under the expectations of the almighty Westwood name.

“I’m serious though,” he said, quieter now. “Harrison’s probably right about how he’ll be the odd one out. He’s the baby. At the very least, Dad will wait a few years, give him time to see if he’ll settle on his own before he pushes him into this.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Callum fixed his gaze on a light out in the garden. “The thing is, I think he’s a little bit jealous.”

“Harrison?” I frowned. “Jealous of what, you?”

“No, you.” He paused for a beat, but then he sighed.

“He’s playing it cool. Frankly, he hasn’t been home for long enough to have seen what you went through with all of this, but I think he wants what you have.

Maybe not the dogs but the real thing. Someone to stand in his corner.

He might even end up married before I am. ”

My eyebrows arched, but I still wasn’t going to let him get away from this. He was the one out here, looking like the fire in his soul had been extinguished. Not Harrison.

“How about you?” I asked, slowly turning the glass in my hand. “What do you want?”

“Dad’s really starting to get on my case about it,” Callum said. “Family legacy. Optics and all that bullshit. You know how it is.”

“Yeah, man. I do.” I chuckled humorlessly. “He’s easing up on Sadie, though. That’s progress. Proof that he actually does care about what makes us happy.”

“As long as what makes us happy comes with a five-year business plan.”

We lapsed into silence for a beat. The scotch helped to take the edge off, but Callum was clearly starting to feel the bitterness I’d also suffered from when Dad had first issued the same ultimatum to me.

Harlan wasn’t wasting any time, his expectations shifting from one of us to the next as he piled on that invisible pressure until he’d pushed us to our breaking points.

He was serious about retiring next summer and he wasn’t going to stop until we’d all shaped our lives into what he thought they had to look like before he stepped down.

“Listen,” I said, leaning forward and turning until I was facing him fully. “I felt the exact same way you do right now. Sterling and I even had an argument about it that nearly ended things between him and Laney, but you can have love and the five-year business plan.”

He exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck. “It was different for you, and Sterling just got lucky, man. What are the odds of it happening again?”

“I’d say they’re pretty good.” I hesitated for a moment to get my thoughts in some kind of logical order.

I didn’t want to get into this with him the way Sterling and I had before.

I had grown a lot since then. “Unlike with traditional arranged marriages, Dad is letting us choose our own brides. He and Mom are willing to set us up if that’s what we want, but he doesn’t really care who you marry, as long as you marry someone. ”

“And as long as she doesn’t pose a threat to the family,” he said. “Oh, and she has to come from a good family herself, preferably one they already know, and God forbid, she has a reputation that’s less than immaculate.”

I chuckled. “Hey, come on. Be fair. I didn’t like the way they felt about Sadie at first any more than you did, trust me, but they really have come around. I don’t think they really care much about her coming from a good family either. They want us to be happy. Just, uh, happily married .”

“Yeah.” He glanced at me again. “Hey, do you mind if Winkle stays with me again tonight?”

“Of course not,” I said. “I wasn’t even surprised when you didn’t bring him back after we got home.” Downing the rest of my drink, I clapped him on the shoulder and stood up. “I should turn in before Harrison feeds me some of that tequila. The last thing I need tomorrow is a hangover like that.”

“See you at the altar,” Callum said. “Good night, bro.”

“Don’t be late,” I warned, then went home to my empty, dark house, walking into a silence that was louder than I remembered.

Hooch trotted up and I smiled, scratching behind his ears. He fell into step beside me as I made my way to the kitchen. I walked in to find it as clean as a whistle, sterile enough to perform surgery on the countertops.

And I hated it. This was what my life had been like before her. It wasn’t what I wanted anymore. I stroked Hooch’s head and smiled when it hit me that it already wasn’t my life anymore.

A dog bowl in the corner and a few pellets of kibble on the floor proved it. As did Hooch’s blanket in the living room and the scarf hanging over the back of my couch.

This was Sadie’s home now too. Tomorrow, she’d be mine and that knowledge made every quiet second of tonight feel like something worth remembering. Tomorrow, she and I were beginning a new chapter.

Thank God. Bring on the chaos. Never thought I’d ever even think this, but I’m ready. Bring. It. On.