Page 80 of Heart & Hope

Fuck.

I try it on for size again, to be sure.

I imagine getting home from a long day in the city office to find my corporate king husband chopping up veggies on the wooden board. His back is to me as I say hello, his hair disheveled as he runs a hand through it, the veins in his forearm popping.

I swallow.

Heat pools in my belly as the water swirls around my ass on the shower floor, sending my toes tingling with its delicious heat... Wait, maybe that’s my husband having that effect onme? Maybe I can do this? Fall in love and be happy with some city guy.

I slap a hand over my mouth with a gasp.

Rule number one.

Obliterated.

I close my eyes, homing in on my fictional husband in our imaginary east side apartment. I dump my bag on the sofa table and pad to where he stands. And when I slide my arms around his waist and bury my face in his back, he smells so familiar. His body so well traced. I know every inch of this man who is mine.

He spins in my hold, dropping the knife to the counter. And when his rough hands cup my face and his mouth dips to my own, his green eyes and dark blond hair steal my breath.

Oh god.

I can’t even come up with an imaginary future guy who isn’t my current fake husband.

Ruby Robbins, you are so fucked.

And . . . so worked up.

I slide a hand over my breast, rolling the nipple. The other drops to my center, slick with need for the man who inserted himself into my made-up scenario. The same man who is downstairs, that my heart has latched on to like he’s the fucking air I breathe. I run a circle over my clit and let my head fall back to the tile with a thud. I don’t even care.

I moan, imagining Reed’s hands on me, his mouth on every place I want him right now. Arching my back, I slide two fingers inside, and I can’t help the cry that slips through my lips.

Oh, fuck.

“Rubes? Baby? You alright? I heard a thump.” Reed’s muffled voice calls from somewhere on the stairs.

Oh shit!

“Ah—I’m, I?—”

The bathroom door opens, and a heartbeat later, his eyes dip to where I sit on the floor. Then drop lower again.

Heart thundering, my breath stops.

Chapter Nineteen

REED

Zero to one hundred in less than a heartbeat.

That’s what Ruby touching herself does to me. And it takes every last ounce of control I fucking have to stay rooted to the spot outside the shower door.

But when she doesn’t move, slipping her fingers in further as she holds my gaze, I’m pretty sure I am as close to combustion as humanly possible. I want to taste her. I want to hold her. I want her wrapped around me, riding my now rock-hard cock until we both unravel.

“I can’t do it, Reed,” she rasps.

I swallow past the stone cutting off my air supply as she pulls her fingers out and pops them in her mouth.

Jesus fuckin’ Christ.

---