Page 30 of Married to Number 22
I groan but he isn’t fazed in the least.
“—it’s just that the girl beside Mrs. Black is next level.”
“And now we’re doubling down on the not cool,” Gray says, rolling his eyes.
I can’t say he’s wrong—hearing another man say Luna is hot pushes a button inside me I didn’t even know I had. Certainly, I’ve never cared enough about any of the women I’ve dated over the last decade to be annoyed at the thought of someone else wanting them.
But Smitty noticingmyLuns? Yup. That certainly pisses me off.
And I don’t give a fuck that he’s happily married.
Because Luns has made me go full caveman:Woman mine. Kill all who look at her.
Only, this is Smitty—pushing the envelope is his superpower—so I table the prehistoric rage that will only have him pestering me more and get back to typical locker room shenanigans—giving each other shit.
“I’m glad you think my mom is hot,” I say dryly.
“Notice how he didn’t say anything about the woman,” Smitty—not wrongly—points out.
Partly because of those caveman feelings…and partly because I don’t know how to begin to explain Luna.
A childhood friend? My first love? The woman I want to make…
Mine.
Because that’s the truth I feel deep inside me, even after all these years.
But that’s also about a dozen steps ahead of where I need to be.
First, I need to get to the truth of the marriage contract. Second, I need to figure out why those shadows are clinging to her eyes—because it’s not just her loss of Grams. There’s more to the story, more I need to pull out of her, sothird, I can see about making her mine.
Forever.
I know I’m not going to be content with stolen kisses or hesitant caresses, not going to be content with one night, one week, or even one month.
This is Luns.
And even after a decade apart, nothing’s changed for me.
Focusing on the now, I put my hand out for my phone, a silent demand to Smitty to cut the shit and focus on the game ahead of us.
A demand he ignores—both on the cutting the shit partandthe focusing on our freaking job portion of my warning.
Instead, his eyes go back to the screen and he whistles again. “Someone’s got your name on her back, bud.”
“What?” I frown.
He tosses my cell over to me and I nearly drop my hot dog trying to catch it.
But I manage to save both.
The picture on my phone’s screen, though, has my dog slipping from my fingers, splatting to the floor, ketchup spraying on my skates.
I barely process that.
Because I’m staring at the next photograph from my mom that’s popped up, at the playful look that Luna’s tossing over her shoulder, gorgeous gray eyes staring directly into the camera, smile wide and beautiful…and my name emblazoned across her shoulders.
Fuck, I like that.
