Page 41

Chapter 41

Liam

I shouldn’t have taken her against a trashy brick building. What was I thinking?

Clearly, I wasn’t.

Pure, unrelenting need coursed through my body with her pleas to be touched and I wasn’t strong enough to resist.

Every whimper, each sound she made, I devoured, wishing I could keep anyone from hearing her breathy moans but myself.

Her eyes widen when they land on me, taking in what we’ve done.

I snort internally. Involved my ass. I’m obsessed.

My wife , I say to myself as I stroke her cheek.

Looking around, I help Fleur with her pants while doing up my own and planning the quickest escape to the truck. Darrin will be pissed, but I don’t care. Having Fleur in my bed instead of a backlit alley is all that consumes my thoughts. I need more of her, right now.

Fleur worries with her shirt, tucking it into her jeans while avoiding looking at me. “Are you okay? I’m sorry if I pushed too hard … it’s not something I usually do.”

“Fleur, look at me.” And she does, a blush staining the rounds of her cheeks. That won’t do. “You never need to apologize to me. I want your hands on me as much or as little as you want.”

The pink on her cheeks deepens to a blazing red and she smiles, rubbing her shoulder.

I check in with Darrin and Goff, letting them know I’m going back home, and I load Fleur up into the truck.

She’s content and quiet on the way home, and I wish I could pull her thoughts from her. Head leaned against the window, she stares up at the stars.

She’s beautiful.

I want this life with her selfishly. Her in my truck, relaxed. Her in my bed, pleased. Fleur in my arms, loved.

I pause on that word, jerking my head forward.

Shit. I love her.

Pondering this until we hit the gate, I barely hear Fleur ask about food and I end up pulling into the wrong cabin, the one down from us.

When I finally park at the right place, Fleur throws me an inquisitive gaze, her lips twisting into a sweet smile.

“Race you to the shower,” she blurts, diving out of the truck.

I chuckle, watching her hair bound behind her head and through the door.

While she showers, I do everything in my ability to distract myself from her. I eat several hardboiled eggs, drink way too much for only having one bathroom, and switch out some laundry I’d left sitting in the washing machine earlier.

After relieving myself in the woods, I come back inside with the itch to draw. Especially after Fleur’s request to draw that moment. To occupy the last few minutes with Fleur in the bathroom, my hands trail over the charcoal pieces I have as I imagine drawing the pleasure on Fleur’s face. My body hums.

I’m drawn out of my plotting when Fleur clears her throat, and I drop my materials back against my desk to see her standing there in a towel.

“Your turn,” she says, and it takes all my willpower not to turn that comment into something more meaningful.

She pads into the bedroom, and I rush through washing away the establishment’s stench from my body and finish up getting ready for the night.

I climb into bed next to her, noting how right it is that she’s here. Tossing a few pillows to be closer to her, I say, “You’re in my bed every night from here on out.”

Thanks to her, I’ll never be able to have another woman in my life.

She snickers, her hand ruffling my hair. Her eyes ping-pong back and forth between mine like she’s searching for something. Before I can ask her, she frowns and plants a kiss to my lips, lifting the sheets to slide closer to me.

She interlaces her fingers with my right hand, her thumb gliding over each of the tattoos across my knuckles. “What do all these mean?”

I smile and nip at her lower lip before bringing our hands up and in front of our faces. The letters on my knuckles spell RIDE.

“I had a friend, Ford. He rode a sweet motorcycle, had lots of tats, and I thought he was the coolest dude ever. He was a couple years older than me, and I looked up to him. Being the oldest in my family and always wearing that title, it was nice to have someone else to lean on, in a way.

“Anyway, he was the one who talked me into getting my first tattoo, and it grew into a sleeve. Most of them are of nature …” I turn, showing her the forest of pines banded around the top and the mountain range I looked up when my sister sent us the one and only photo from where she ran off to. Fleur’s hand slides over the wolf’s head, and riverbed with a motorcycle parked beside it.

“Your skin is like a canvas of your drawings. It’s almost like you touched the paper and the ink crawled up your arm.”

I smile. “I prefer black and white. No color. That’s why I draw in charcoal or pencil. Or why my ink has no color.”

I shiver when her fingers drag up my left arm. “And do you plan to get this arm done?”

I shift my focus from her captivating lips to where she caresses my tattoo-free arm. The question lingers there. I hadn’t thought much about it. It seems like that would be the next step, but as I study my arm, I have a thought.

“I think I might get something on this arm.”

I don’t expound, and she doesn’t ask. Instead, her face falls to my neck.

I massage the drawstring knot of her pajama shorts between my fingers, eyes rolling back as she trails kisses over my bare shoulder. With a hunger in her eyes that rivals my own, she pushes me back, climbing to straddle me. Hell, she’s beautiful.

My heart kicks up and I fist my hands at my sides to keep from turning her over and rushing this along. I want her to feel in control—to take what she needs.

Her hair falls over her face, damp from the shower as she presses revenant kisses on my chest and teases the band of my sweatpants with her fingernails. This is punishment for what I did to her earlier, I’m sure.

“What’re you doing?” I stutter.

“What I do best. Distracting.”

Fleur is a welcomed distraction over the next week. I haul her into my bed as much as possible, only leaving the cabin periodically to check in with Darrin when absolutely necessary.

The farmer’s market is today, and Fleur’s managed to bribe me out of bed to take her. Even told the guys I’d drive the truck to gather our pickup instead of stacking the crates on the bikes.

A rush of adrenaline spikes when I catch the view of Fleur in her hat, leaning over to smell the flowers at Mrs. Hinz’s booth.

Fleur laughs at something Mrs. Hinz says and I smile. Her hair hangs loosely around her face, contained only on top of her head by my hat that has since turned hers.

Her cutoff jean shorts are driving me insane and anytime she dips out of sight, I panic.

This girl’s got me in her crosshairs.

I’m less and less motivated to complete my mission, paranoid about how I’m going to tell Fleur. Selfishly, I don’t want this to end. What we’ve found together—I’ve never had this.

Knowing Fleur has been hurt in the past, that she was so involved with someone they spent nine years together; I’ve never had a long-term relationship before. I don’t know what I’m doing. I do know I don’t want to hurt her. Therefore, I have to find the time to tell her.

Fleur admires a bunch of daisies. Eyes closed and beaming, her nose flares as she inhales, and I shake my head. Each step toward her eases my fixation. When I finally reach her and wrap my arm around her waist, the sharp, consuming need to be by her side dulls.

“We’ll take them all,” I say to Mrs. Hinz, whose eyes light up, having sold more in a single transaction than she could’ve hoped for all day.

Fleur leans into my chest and tilts her head up to study me. “Didn’t know you to be such a flower fan.”

“I’m a Fleur fan. Same thing.” I wink at her, and she sighs. Her body melts into mine despite being in public. People glance our way, but Fleur pays them no mind. In fact, she seems perfectly content with me in public, and I’m in awe of her ability to block out the few disgusted stares. They’re all for me, though.

I slide my hand into her back pocket possessively while Fleur takes the bunch of daisies wrapped in brown paper and tied with white twine in her hands.

“Thank you,” she says, looking at me through those long, heavy lashes.

We move down a few booths as Fleur looks over the crafts and produce. The smell of barbeque makes my stomach growl, and I have half the mind to grab my wife by the hand and yank her to the nearest food tent.

“I kept them, you know.”

Fleur’s voice is low and it breaks the peaceful silence between us.

“Kept what?” I ask, confused.

“The daisies you got me the night of your parents’ dinner. I stuck them in one of the books River gave me.” She fiddles with a few homemade spoon rings on the table in front of her.

I smile, unsure why she’s telling me this. To be honest, I hadn’t thought much about what she did with the flowers. I assumed they withered away from being in the truck.

“Did you now?”

She gives me a pointed look, but it softens into a serious vulnerable expression. “I don’t want to forget this.”

“Do you plan on it?”

“No, but what if this is all because we were forced together? What if we’re just reacting to something that?—”

“Stop.” I can’t hear this because it couldn’t be further from the truth. I had my eyes on Fleur long before she came to the compound. “Do you feel like this”—I pull her hand to my chest—“is forced?”

“No, but how can this feel so right when it was born out of something so wrong?”

“Don’t over think it.” Please, I say to myself.

Pulling her into my arms, I wrap myself around her in the middle of the sea of people milling down the grass aisles and weaving through tents. I press my lips to her forehead. “Trust me, Fleur.”

We finish at the farmer’s market and load up the back of the truck to head back to the compound. I need to hear from Wilson, but part of me hopes I don’t. Instead, I focus on Fleur, and when dinner is over, I strip her down in the kitchen and chase her to the shower.

Her laughter rings throughout the cabin.