Page 36 of Heart & Hope

“Thanks. Some days it doesn’t seem like I’m getting anywhere. More like I’m spinning my wheels on someone else’s hamster wheel.”

“One day, you’ll be the hamster wheel master.”

She laughs, tossing her head back into the pillow, and I can’t help it when my knuckles brush her cheek and tangle in a strand of her hair before dropping beside her. Her laughter dies out, but her eyes burn into mine through the dark between us.

I pull my hand back.

My chest heaves.

Keeping time with hers.

“Ruby,” I say, but it’s raw and too soft. She makes a job of straightening out the duvet and pulling it over her shoulder as she rolls over to face me. Her lips are pursed together before she closes her eyes with a little shiver. “Night, Reed.”

I sit up and tuck her blankets into her sides, two hands at a time, down her sides. “Snug as a bug in a rug.”

She giggles, and it sends the heat in my core surging around my body. “Night, baby.”

A smile blooms over her face, but she flattens it as quick as it appeared.

“Night, Reedsy.”

I lie on my back and stare at the ceiling, hands by my sides. It takes a solid hour to calm down enough to fall asleep.

When I’m dozing off, she touches my forearm with one of her arms, now out of her snug cocoon. “Reed?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“I want you to be happy.”

A stone forms in my throat as I drag in a ragged breath. “I want that for you, too, Rubes.”

When I wake up early the next morning, Ruby’s sweet ass is pushed up against my rock-hard cock, her hair plastered over her face, arms hugging her pillow. I lie on the edge of the bed,on my side. And it takes everything I have not to wrap my arm around her belly and pull her into me.

Because right now, that’s all I want to do.

What I wouldn’t do to wake up with her, like this, every day, for the rest of my days.

Somehow, nothing else would matter.

And I could take on the rest of the world, and whatever it threw my way.

Chapter Nine

REED

Isit on the end of the hotel bed, dressed up in a suit and bow tie. If my buddies saw me now, I’d be the laugh of the town, or at least the bar. I can just see the look on Mack’s face if he knew where I was and what I was doing. I spin the wedding band on my finger, staring at the carpet.

The bathroom door opens, and Ruby steps out.

The air in my lungs disappears as I stand. Electricity flings through my veins, sending my heart into a gallop as I run my gaze over her in those red heels she loves. The black dress she wears molds to her shape, the sweetheart neckline highlighting her breasts, small cap sleeves, and the skirt finishing above her knee. She’s all class.

Her hair is curled and swept around her neck to one side. Her brown eyes, smoking with a little eye shadow, render my voice useless.

And when she smiles at me and spins for me to see the low-scooped back that shows off the small of her back, a keening noise slips from my throat. She laughs and comes back around with an elegant wave of her hands. “Think it will earn the Mary-Sue stamp of approval?”

I take a step toward her. “Baby, you look...”

She closes the distance between us and fixes the bow tie I didn’t realize needed fixin’. The ring on her finger shines. Another one with a small cluster of diamonds sits beside it. That’s new. And more legit, I guess, and I kick myself for missing the chance to fix that little issue myself.

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