Page 45 of This Wild Heart

“I think they just want to see us together.” Anya pulled at the tie holding her braid together, tugging her fingers through the mass of her hair until it spilled around her shoulders. My hands clenched into fists, tingling from the urge to see if it was still damp from her shower. “Make sure that everything feels right, I guess. That we’re comfortable together.”

“You’re probably right.”

“Are you going to hide from me again now that they’re gone?”

Our eyes met and held, but I didn’t answer at first. “I wasn’t hiding,” I lied.

Anya smirked. “Okay, husband.”

“Don’t look so smug,” I told her. “I’ve never lived with anyone before. A girlfriend, or a partner, or anything. It’s new.” I tapped the sketchbook she’d left on the kitchen counter. “You’re everywhere.”

Anya hummed, her eyes unrelentingly curious.

“You kissed me,” she said quietly.

I wanted to kiss her again. It wasn’t nearly long enough. I wanted to kiss her other places too because the idea that she’d never been with anyone who took their time with her, who never made her scream and shake, was so fucking criminal. I’d never met a woman like Anya before—all she had to do was breathe, and she was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.

It wasn’t even just good sex that she deserved. This woman deserved to be worshipped.

What would it hurt to be the one to do that for her?

It might hurt Anya, I reminded myself. Restraint was the most painful muscle to train. You let it go for too long, and there was no finding it at the moments when you needed it most.

I’d spent years training my body to do what I wanted, and that included telling myself no sometimes. No to the things I wanted, no to the things that sounded fun.

And right now, I had to try to keep this simple and easy. The perfect business arrangement. Wasn’t that what she wanted? Wasn’t it what I needed?

I sucked in a breath and braced myself for her disappointment. “Yeah. We had to do it sometime, right? There’s no way we can be around our families without a little PDA.”

Her throat worked on a swallow. “Pretending,” she said slowly.

“Yeah.” My voice was rough when I said it, and I had to claw the frustration back, because the lie tasted like shit coming up. “I, uh, I should head to bed soon. I need to be at the facilities early to work out.”

I felt Anya’s eyes on me the entire time I walked away.

Chapter 11

Parker

With my tongue pushed into the side of my cheek, I carefully pulled back the towel to check the dough. The house was still dark. The only light I’d given myself was the under-cabinet lighting on the lowest setting. It was enough to see what I was doing, though, and I pressed my finger into the edge of one circle, smiling a little when it bounced back enough. Just shy of an hour, so I hadn’t completely forgotten what I was doing.

Since the oven had already alerted me it had reached the correct temperature, I tugged that open with one hand, then used my other hand to whip the towel over my shoulder before sliding the glass baking pan into the oven.

With the door shut, I crouched down to watch even though I damn well knew that didn’t do anything. I could practically hear Sheila’s voice in my head to start cleaning up the kitchen. It was what we always did when food went into the oven.

Coffee was brewing in the pot, and if I cleaned the kitchen before the pan in the oven was ready, I could be out the door before Anya woke up. What a chickenshit I was. The only clear way I could restrain myself around my siren of a wife was to run for the fucking hills.

With the last of the utensils put away, and the frosting made and sitting in a bowl on the counter, I opened the drawer to the far left to pull out the handmade trivets from my brother Ian.

He’d pieced together different shades of wood, cut to form a perfect circle, a dark dramatic stain on each one, and fitted them around a slice of marble right down the middle. He’d made a few different sizes to match the shades in my house when I moved in.

Fucking show-off.

The smallest one fell out of my hand as I stood, rolling back into the corner of the counter next to the fridge, behind the spot where I kept my stand mixer. My tall ass had to bend over to grab it, and as my head ducked next to the upper cabinet to reach it, she cleared her throat.

“Good morning, husband.”

My head snapped up and whacked the cabinet. “Oh shit,” I groaned.

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