Page 62 of Dirty Mechanic

I nod, but it’s not enough. A lump catches in my throat, thick with everything I haven’t said. Everything I should have. The forged divorce papers. The risk. The fact that we might’ve married on a lie.

Please let them have gone through.

Please let this be real in every way that matters.

Because tonight, I don’t want guilt clinging to my skin. I want to be his. Completely. In truth and in heart, even if I’ve falsified the paperwork.

“It’s not you,” I whisper.

His hands pause, but only for a second. Then one of them slides up to cradle my cheek. His thumb sweeps across my jaw, patient and sure.

“I know,” he says gently. “But it’s us now. You’re not carrying anything alone anymore.”

A single tear slips down my cheek. Not out of fear. Out of sheer, overwhelming relief. I close my eyes and lean into the warmth of his palm.

“I just…” I open my eyes and find his. “I can’t believe this is real.”

“It is,” he whispers. “You’re my wife now. Mine. And I’m yours, Annabelle. Always have been.”

Those words shatter something inside me. Not like glass, sharp and painful. Like ice thawing in spring.

“I’ve never wanted anything like I want this,” I murmur. “Never.”

He kisses me like he’s reading my soul with his lips. His mouth moves against mine in soft, deliberate presses, no urgency, just a quiet claiming. The kind of kiss that says, I’m not in a rush to have you. I’m in this until the end.

His hands dip under the hem of my dress. I raise my arms, and he lifts the fabric with the kind of care usually reserved for museum glass or antique lace. It flutters to the floor in a sigh.

I wait for the sting of shame to come. For the voices in my head to tell me I’m broken or not enough.

But all I feel is his gaze.

It lingers on me like a caress, soft and burning, all at once.

“You’re so goddamn beautiful,” he rasps, brushing his fingers over my waist, then the swell of my hip, the curve of my stomach.

He touches me like he’s mapping out constellations. Like every mark and stretch and freckle is a star in a sky only he sees.

I reach for the hem of his shirt, tugging it up, my fingers grazing his stomach as it lifts. He shrugs it off. My breath catches.

Derek is broad and solid, all working-man muscle and sun-browned skin. There are scars, old ones and faded, but I know them all. I trace one just under his ribs, the one he got fixing his neighbor’s tractor as a teenager.

“I used to dream about this,” I whisper.

His mouth curves, wicked and sure. “And I tend to make all your dreams come true, Honeycrisp.”

I laugh, soft and breathy, but it dissolves when he shifts closer, his body heat wrapping around me.

He leans over, pressing a kiss to my shoulder. Then lower. Over my chest. Down the line of my ribs. Each kiss is a promise. A benediction.

“I love you,” I whisper, the words slipping out like breath.

He stills.

Then he lifts his head, eyes blazing. “Say it again.”

“I love you, Derek Fields.”

His kiss this time is wild. Less cautious. More hungry. His hands slide down my thighs, grip my hips, drag me closer. Our bodies slot together like they’ve been waiting years to realign.