“But what if…” I try to argue.
“Go to sleep.” He leans over and presses a kiss to my forehead. “Please.”
He smells so good. But I need to wind down, and he won’t help with that.
Sighing, I grab my latest romance hand-me-down from my purse on the floor and open it to where I left off. Waving it, I say, “I’m going to read for a while.”
After a minute, I feel Cormac staring at me across the bed.
“I can download the audiobook, and we can listen to it together,” I suggest.
He just stares at me, knowing that won’t end well for him. “No thanks. Keep reading.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“I’ve been inside you. I do know.”
This is going to be an interesting marriage.
Chapter 32
Cormac
Igrab my laptop to tweak Monday’s quiz. Concentrating is impossible, smelling Scarlett’s sweet skin lying eleven inches from me. I have eleven inches for her.
When she starts to snore, I look over at her and see the book has flopped onto her chest. The nightgown shifted, and I see a nipple.
Damn it…
I have to get out of here. Frustrated, I get up and just face the bed for a few seconds. She twists restlessly in the sheets. I remember that war in my body, fighting to sleep while your brain juggles mountains of information you need to memorize and regurgitate in seconds.
For the rest of your life.
A tiny half-sigh, half-whimper breaks from her throat. But right now this second, she’s content. Because of me. Because I married and protected her.
Fuck. That makes me feel good, but I’m anything but content. I whisper, “I don’t think I’ll survive this.”
I tried a relationship once. Ana and I were a disaster together. The pregnancy was an accident. I turned off my emotions since then.
But the part of me that’s been dead for years, the part that wants softness, connection, and warmth, stirs like an animal waking. And that scares me more than withdrawal ever did.
Another rustle lifts my gaze at the bed. She’s turned over, curled deeper into the blankets. And fuck, she’s snagged my pillow and buried her face in the damn thing.
This nearly kills me.
My voice comes out rough. “Sleep, little Ford.”
Her breath shifts again, almost like she heard me.
I turn away suddenly, almost violently, needing space. My vision blurs for a second as I leave the bedroom and shut the door. What the hell was I thinking? Normally, you bring home a wife, and she sleeps in your bed.
That’s canon.
Only… Someone like me and what I’m battling, what I’m hiding, makes that a stick of dynamite.
Outside in the hallway, I knock the back of my head into the wall hard enough to hurt. My pulse is still a fucking war drum. My big hands, tattooed and deadly, but also capable of healing, shake harder than they should.
I scrub both palms over my face, wondering what the hell I do now. This is what happens when you make a major life decision in an hour.