Page 18 of Pirate

“We would still get divorced, right?” she clarified. Her brain felt like mush and she wasn’t sure how much longer she’d be able to manage coherent thoughts. Not the way he kept rubbing his thick cock up and down over her sensitive clit.

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I have no intention of marrying you, Sophia Groveton.” He pressed his lips to the crook of her neck. “But fucking you every chance I can get?” He bit her skin, creating a suction with his mouth. “Fuck, that’s tempting beyond measure.You,” he clarified, “are tempting beyond measure. And I would love to spend every day reddening your little ass.”

Sophia moaned against him, his words a siren’s song. “You want nothing from me?” She hated to ask, but she also had to ask.

She let out a squeak of surprise as she was tossed onto her back. Pirate loomed over her. “Oh, I wanta lot,” he ground his hips against her pelvis, “from you. But your money isn’t one of those things.” He bent down and nipped at the underside of her chin, which was already sensitive from his beard burn. “In fact, if I ever ask so much as a dollar from you, you have my permission to bury me in that mountain grave you once threatened my brother with.”

Sophia let out a chuckle. “Just sex?”

“Just sex,” he clarified.

“No feelings?”

He snorted. “I don’t think you or I are the ‘feeling’ type of people. Hell, we’re not even ‘friends with benefits’ because you and I aren’t friends.”

She couldn’t argue with that. “You have yourself a deal.”

He grinned widely before slithering his way down her body until his wickedly talented mouth found the extremely wet heart of her.

CHAPTER 4

It was a wonder Pirate wasn’t fired from his job. Principal Rockland hadnotbeen happy that he’d missed three days of work unexpectedly. Pirate couldn’t use the excuse of a family emergency or anything else. Hell, he was pretty sure the only reason he still had a job was because of his impeccable attendance record up until that week.

When they got back late Wednesday night, Pirate and Sophia fell exhausted into his bed. Their dogs, Billy the Kidd and Enola Bones, joined them without hesitation. Due to the spontaneity of their absence, neither one had found dog care prior to the trip. Thankfully, Jasmine had a key to Sophia’s apartment and had been able to pick up Enola on their way back into Mount Grove Sunday afternoon. Kidd already lived in the apartment Pirate shared with Jasmine and Jumper, along with Winnie the Pooch, Jasmine’s dog, and Aerial.

It had taken getting a prospect to get Pirate’s spare key to his cage up to Pittsburgh to be able to get his Charger back to Mount Grove, but that had been handled too. While Pirate would like to say that he had taken a taxi to the airport because he knew it would be a faster drop-off and he was thinking ahead, the truth of the matter was he’d been in such a rush to catch up withSophia that he’d forgotten about his cage being in the bridal shop’s parking lot until he’d already been in a taxi on the way to the airport. With his keys in his pocket.

Not exactly his most brilliant move, but not his stupidest either.

The night they’d returned from San Francisco, Pirate had been too tired to argue with Sophia about lying down in his bed beside him. It honestly hadn’t even occurred to him that it was weird she’d done so until she was already lying there. When he’d tried to say something, she’d grumbled, “Just go to fucking sleep,” before promptly doing so herself.

She’d still been passed out in his bed when he’d left for work the next morning. Pirate had tried to wake her, but the woman wouldn’t budge. He had no idea what she’d told Jumper or Jasmine that morning after waking up, but they never questioned him about it. Maybe she’d been able to sneak out before anything had happened.

That was also the last time she’d slept in his bed. Over the next two weeks or so, they’d met up at random times, fucked, and then gone on their merry way. Sophia still showed up randomly in his apartment. Other than them fucking like bunnies, life seemed to have gone on as if their trip to Oahu and San Francisco had never happened.

As there wasn’t a waiting period in California, their marriage was effective almost immediately. There’d been no way to stop it before it was officially filed. And the fact that Sophia had started having to wear turtlenecks to hide the evidence of their amorous activities, an annulment was definitely out. Pennsylvania law required a ninety day waiting period before divorce proceedings could start, even with mutual consent.

So they would still be married when Jasmine and Jumper said, “I do”, even though no one knew.

Unfortunately, when Sophia and Pirate had agreed to keep their accidental marriage a secret, they had not taken Keys into account.

Pirate hadn’t even been back a full day before Keys confronted him. But thankfully Keys was good at keeping secrets and understood Pirate and Sophia’s desire to not upstage Jumper and Jasmine as they neared their big day.

“I don’t get it,” Keys said when they were about a month out from Jumper and Jazz’s wedding day and thirty-three days into the ninety day required waiting period. Keys and Pirate were playing a game of pool atDemons on the Rocks. Keys was a hell of a shot…for a computer nerd.

Pirate bent over the table, lining up his pool stick. “Get what?”

“So you’re getting a divorce but you’re still sleeping together? I mean, even with getting the divorce, why keep the fact that you’re sleeping together a secret?”

“Because it’s not that big of a deal.” Pirate took the shot, narrowly missing pocketing the solid ball. “And we aren’t dating.”

Keys walked around the table. “Okay, then let me rephrase:whyaren’t the two of you dating?”

Pirate shrugged. “Because we don’t see each other that way.” He felt his phone vibrate in his back pocket. Pulling it out, he grinned when he saw it was a picture of Sophia in front of her bathroom mirror in nothing but a towel wrapped around her hair.

Sophia: You bastard! Look how many marks you left on me! I have to dress like a nun to hide them all!

Pirate: That sounds like a YOU problem. Not a ME problem.

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