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until death

Ayla

“I have a dinner tonight with a client. Will you come with me?”

It’s the way he says it. It’s not about dinner at all. It’s dripping with sex and innuendo and, I’m not going to lie, it’s tempting.

What does it say about me that after the day I’ve had and how messed up my head is, I’m drawn by the way he asks me to dinner? Seriously, I’d planned a book and a bath and some much-needed recharge time after this morning. But I can’t deny I’m curious about his work.

“And if I say no?” I drop my purse in the mudroom along with my camera bag. It’s the first time I’ve carried it today—a fact that’s not lost on me.

His voice sounds nearer to me than I expected as his warmth suffuses my back. “Surely there’s a way to convince you to join me.” He kisses me just below my ear, forcing a shiver to race through me.

“You’re not fighting fair.”

“You think so? When you look the way you do? With that fiery attitude that makes me hard?” His breath tickles my neck as his voice gets impossibly closer.

His words are a caress, but he doesn’t touch me.

“My gorgeous, tempting wife. Nothing about you is a fair fight. Stunning, captivating, brilliant, sexy as fuck. You’ve already won.

I’m just trying to play on the same field. ”

I suck in a breath. I’m playing with fire and I know it. And right now, I’m wondering if it’s worth getting burned.

“Says the hottest man in the mountain time zone,” I offer on a grumble.

His body melts into mine, heating me from my shoulders to below my ass. “Princess, are you hitting on me?”

When I don’t answer, he continues, “Have to say, I like it. I’m a sure thing, by the way.” He wraps his left arm around my waist and lifts his hand until his wedding ring glints in the light for just the two of us to see. “I’m yours… Until death.”

Dinner did not go well, and our trip home is proving to be equally as challenging.

The passenger seat of the Navigator is not so far away that Christian doesn’t reach over and grasp my bare knee through the slit of my dress. His thumb flirts with the top of my thigh, so I squeeze my legs together, not missing his intake of breath at the gesture

“Tonight reminded me of the night we first met.”

I say nothing.

“I know I shouldn’t, but I’m going to tell you anyway, from my perspective anyway.”

That gets my attention, and for the briefest of moments, I look his way before snapping my eyes back to the road.

“You were in red that night too. Some childhood fantasy of Jessica Rabbit come to life. A man had cornered Halley in a dark hall at Rondelé downtown. I was there for some stuffy fundraiser in the lower ballroom. You were there schmoozing for your business at the upstairs venue. I went to the restroom if only to escape the world’s most boring conversation and found you in a poorly lit hallway like an avenging angel ready to kill the asshole who’d trapped her.

She was scared. And Halley isn’t scared of much as you know.

And you were…” He pauses, his face with a fa r-away look like he’s back in that hallway.

“Glorious. An avenging angel is the only description I can come up with. You loomed over that situation, no fear, no thought of your own safety, just violent rage. You wore a red sequined dress, and your hair was down and wild.”

My jaw clenches, picturing what he describes. My anger simmers just under a full boil.

“He turned on you.”

I whip to face him, and the hand on my thigh squeezes in reassurance. His pinkie sneaks out to draw a small circle on the inside of my leg, but it’s gone before I know it.

“So I turned on him. At first, I think you were angry that I put myself between the two of you. Your exact words were ‘I can handle myself, thank you very much. I don’t need a knight to save me.’ Seriously, your first words to me were you telling me off.”

A small smile breaks across my lips. “What did you say to that?”

“I said, ‘I have no doubt you can, but at least allow me to take out the trash.’”

“That’s cheesy.”

“Princess, you’d rendered me practically speechless.

I can’t tell you how utterly gorgeous you were.

You were enough to bring any man to his knees with your beauty alone.

But your passion, defending a woman, not being helpless or not caring how vulnerable you were?

It was the perfect cocktail—or rather, aphrodisiac—to bring me to my knees. ”

“So how did you ask me out?”

“Ask you out? Cute. You turned on me, whipped your finger into my face and told me off. I was hard as a rock, fighting not to take your mouth so I could claim you for myself, and you railed on me. You accused me of working with the asshole to trap the two of you. Then you threw a punch.”

“I what? I don’t know how to fight.”

“No, you don’t, but you sure were willing.

You missed. I’m glad for it. Not because your form was good, but because all the emotion you had behind it would’ve hurt like a bitch.

Your momentum threw you around, your back to my front, so I wrapped you up.

Your smell and your sweet body pressed into mine didn’t do a thing for my raging hard on, which, I might add, you mentioned loudly… to my horror.”

A laugh escapes me. “That sounds like me.”

He exits the interstate to head toward the house, his face lit in the glow of the dashboard. “Your hair was in my face. The scent of you surrounded me, and for one brief second you froze. I whispered in your ear and let you go.”

“What did you say?” The words come out in a whisper in the near-silent car.

He pauses at the stop sign longer than is necessary, turning to face me.

“There are a thousand things that I could’ve said.

Things that were sexier or funnier. But I’ve told you I was struggling to find words and that all the blood had left my brain for my cock.

So I went with, ‘Save the fight for your friend. I’ll be here when you’re done taking care of her.

’ I kissed your exposed shoulder. I couldn’t not. And I let you go.”

He slides into the driveway, lifting the garage door.

“So, how did we… hook up?”

He turns off the car and twists to me. “I had flowers delivered to your house the next morning. It took some digging to find someone who knew you and where you lived. Along with the flowers I sent coffee and bagels. I had no idea coffee was your love language at that point. It was simply the earliest way I could reach out. Your face haunted my dreams, your smell permeated my thoughts, and your body starred in my fantasies. I wasn’t going to wait twelve hours, much less two days to call you. ”

“I was that easy?” I exit the car, meeting him at the hood. He places a warm hand low on my back, ushering me into the house.

“Wife, nothing about you is easy.”

My spine goes rigid, and I clench my teeth.

He softens his voice, as if he hasn’t just insulted me, and reaches out to cup my neck. I channel that avenging angel he spoke of and fight to keep my feet exactly where they are.

“I don’t want easy, Ayla. I never have. I love the fight you have in you. And not because I want to break it or because I like conflict. But because I need an equal.”

My body softens as he dips his forehead to mine.

He kisses me gently, pulling back, to stare into my eyes.

I don’t know what he’s looking for and, quite frankly, I don’t care. I need to slake this lust, need to quash the emotions that churn like the tide inside me, so I slide my arms into his suit jacket and tug.

He slants his mouth over mine and takes, his tongue warring with mine for dominance. Until there is no battle, there is only him claiming me. I only pull back when my moan is so loud it echoes off the walls.

He’s flush to my body, but pulls me even tighter, bending me backward over the arm at my lower back.

My nails skim his hairline, biting into flesh as I hold on. The heat of his cock pressed against me causes warmth to pool low in my belly.

He twists my hair around his fist and tugs, prompting a bite of pain in my scalp and eliciting a gasp of pleasure from me. My eyes pop open and stare into his, full of blatant carnal hunger.

The harsh sawing of ragged breaths is the only thing to be heard as we stand staring into each other’s eyes in a silent battle and screaming desire.

One second, I’m lost in his black eyes as his warm, strong body presses into mine.

The next, the rack of the metal slide splits the air.

Everything happens at once— I glance over his shoulder, the alarm screams, his phone buzzes in his pocket…

… and a gun fires.