Page 20 of Her Fantasy Husband

“You live with a guy?”

He sounded…outraged. But she was probably mistaken. Why would he care? Still, she hurried to put him straight. “Notlivewith like that—he’s a friend. I met him on the Heath one day, and he told me he’d been thrown out of his flat when they found he had a dog. I said he could stay at my place. He looks after the garden.”

She breathed deeply and let the atmosphere soothe her as it always did. Night was falling, though it never got totally dark here, with light filtering in from the city beyond. She shifted slightly so she could see his face. “So talk.”

…

She’d loosened her hair, and it hung about her shoulders in a mass of dark red curls. Her lipstick had long since gone, leaving her lips naturally pink and full. His mind filled with the memory of how they tasted of honey and lemons and spice.

His gaze lowered to the V of her wrap around dress, the black framing the creamy swell of her breasts, the material thin enough so he could see the points of her nipples.

Don’t go there.

Her knees were drawn up under her and she shifted, giving him the briefest glimpse of the pale skin of her thighs.

Or there.

But she was wearing stockings—so not playing fair—and his dick jerked in his pants.

Not good news.

Something about her made his mind shift to sex. Or maybe it was that everything made him think about sex at the moment. Perhaps they should have gone to a crowded bar after all.

And what was she thinking of coming to a deserted place like this with what was, after all, almost a virtual stranger? A man who had married her for money—hardly a recommendation of upstanding character.

While he watched, she ran one fingertip up the run in her stocking, and his traitorous dick twitched again. Shit, he was getting hard and she hadn’t even touched him. Time to get this conversation done so they could get the hell out of here. He might want sex, but sex with this woman would be a mistake of huge proportions. Massive. She wasn’t the no-strings type. In fact, she was nothing but strings, and if he wasn’t careful she’d have him tied up so tight in those strings, they’d strangle the life out of him.

He cleared his throat. “I want an annulment.”

She’d been studying the ground, but now she looked up, her eyes glowing gold in the dim light. “And I need to stay married.”

“It can be a quiet annulment. No one will know.”

“I somehow doubt that. It would be a matter of record, there for anyone who looked. And believe me, theywilllook.”

He wanted to ask why, but at the same time he didn’t want to get embroiled in her problems, in her life, which he was guessing was a whole lot of mess. And he didn’t do mess. He’d taken responsibility for another person once. It hadn’t turned out well, and he planned never to repeat the experience. Since he was seventeen, he’d worked hard to keep his own life nice and tidy and ordered.

A small hand rested on his thigh, and a shudder ran through him.

“Please, Josh.” Her voice was soft and pleading. “I’ll stay out of your life. You won’t even know I exist. We’ve managed this long. Just six more months. You don’t have to stay around—I’ll tell everyone you have an overseas assignment. Then, when you come back, we can get a nice quiet divorce.”

He hardly heard the words. He was fighting his own response to her closeness. That’s all it was. She was close, and he was suffering the effects of five years of abstinence. And for some strange reason, here was the one woman his crazy conscience seemed to believe he was allowed to touch. The hand shifted on his thigh, and the blood pooled in his groin. He suddenly became aware they were alone in the deepening darkness, hidden from the world. He didn’t want to be aware of that. She’d edged a little closer so her arm brushed his, and if he glanced sideways his gaze snagged on the swell of her breasts.

He’d been fighting his awareness of her all evening. Actually, longer than that. Since she’d pulled that stunt in her office and leaped into his arms. Kissed him. Stuck her tongue in his mouth.

He was in trouble, his dick already hard and raring to go.

No. Dammit.

He was stronger than this.

“Josh?”

He realized he hadn’t answered her, and she was looking at him expectantly. But his brain wasn’t working, and he didn’t want to open his mouth and say something he would later regret. He brushed off her hand and pushed himself to his feet. He needed to walk away, but he couldn’t leave her here. Reluctantly he turned and held out a hand.

“I’ll think about it,” he muttered. It wasn’t true. He’d already thought as much as he was willing to. He wanted free of her before he got further tangled up in her problems. But he wasn’t sure he could face her expression if he told her that right now. She looked so…hopeful.

She put her hand in his, and he pulled her to her feet and then dropped it abruptly.

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