Page 133 of Catcher's Lock

“My students helped. That invite-only ‘workshop’ I told you about? The lot is a rental,” he continues, following as I circle the perimeter. “We couldn’t afford anything closer to town.”

“Are you kidding? We have our own circus. It’s fucking incredible. Now I feel like an asshole for giving you a vibrating butt plug.”

“And a tattoo. Besides, it’s not a circus yet. This was the easy part. Wait until it’s up and running before you thank me. You might regret everything in six months.”

“Haven’t you figured out by now that I’ll never regret anything I get to do with you?” I wrap my arms around his neck and tilt my face for a kiss.

“Hold that thought,” he says, placating me with a peck before disentangling and crossing to the king pole. He squats in the packed dirt and plugs his phone into a small speaker. As he stands to make his way back to me, his favorite cover of “Rewrite the Stars” starts to play.

“This is unbelievably sappy,” I inform him, taking his offered hand. “We already had our first dance.”

“I want a second one,” he says with a shrug, and pulls me into his arms. We spin in slow circles while Michael Gerow sings about changing love’s fate, and it might start out sweet and romantic, but by the second chorus, his hands have drifted to my ass, and we’re doing more kissing than dancing.

His back hits the center pole as the music fades, and I lean away to admire the mess I’ve made of him—flushed cheeks and swollen lips and blown-out coffee eyes.

“Are we going to christen our new tent now? Because I’ve been dying to peel you out of that tux all night.”

“Oh yeah?I’vebeen dying to fuck you in those pants.”

“We’ve talked about your whole clothes-as-bondage kink, baby.”

“First of all,” he says, shrugging out of his jacket. “I don’t pick your wardrobe, so you have no one but yourself and your obsession with skintight clothes to blame. Second of all, I don’t recall any of those conversations involving complaints.”

I married a smart-ass.

Not that he’s wrong—I would never complain about anything related to Joshaorhis dick. And after four years of wilderness sex, I’m an expert at getting cum out of leather.Poor Bonnie. Who knew my careful, quiet genius would grow up into a sex god with a filthy mouth and a control kink?

“Maybe I’ll build our first show around a selkie myth,” I tease, tugging his shirt free of his slacks before starting on his buttons. “Think you could build me one of those onstage pools? I could do a flying pole act in a wetsuit.”

He blinks down at me, and I give him my most innocent look—through my lashes.

“Ithink,” he says, hooking two fingers under my jaw and tilting my head up, “that sounds very dangerous for someonewho wants to get anything else done around here.”

“I’m going to be theboss, Rocket. I can’t have my tech minion giving the rest of my crew the idea that I’m merely a sex object. I expect to be taken seriously in our circus.”

“I’m about to seriously take you right now,” he growls, but affectionate amusement sparkles in his eyes. “We can discuss the ‘minion’ label once you’re on your knees with a mouth full of cock.”

“That sounds counterproductive. At the very least, you’re setting yourself up for a one-sided conversation, and I know how much you value my opinion. We’re partnersandhusbands now—we need to make these critical decisions together.”

“Critical decisions about my cock in your mouth?”

“Yes. And—oh.” A shiver runs through me when he drags his knuckles along the skin above myverylow waistband.

“And?”

“And,” I say, patently breathless, “I’ve decided to let you have this one. On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“Afterward, I need you to fuck me in my bridal bondage pants.”

He leans in to rub his jaw up my neck, the faint rasp of stubble wreaking havoc on my nerve endings. “Anything for my sexy, brilliant husband.”

Anything.

He means it, and he’s proven it again and again. Sometimes I still can’t believe I caught the one person in my life who saw past the broken to the boy underneath—a man who crawled into purgatory to climb out at my side.

Thank fuck I was smart enough to keep him.