Page 36 of Inconvenient Marriage
He’ll expect a kiss, too. That’s what he said. A kiss ‘hello’, a kiss ‘goodbye’, and who knows what else.
And I don’t know what I think about that, either.
ELEVEN
HIRED
SEBASTIEN
If there’s one thing you need to know about a Reynolds, it’s when we fall, we fall hard.
I already knew from the moment I was reunited with Annaliese that she was mine. What started as obsession has quickly turned into something more, and I now wear evidence on my skin so that I never forget—and I don’t just mean the wedding band that I’m proud to wear beneath my motorcycle gloves.
I used to tease Adrian for how whipped Loni made him. If he had any clue what I was doing, he’d give me the biggest ‘I told you so’. Good thing no one else knows… except for Connor, but considering the trouble he had convincing Haven that he worshipped her, he’s probably the only one of my bros who understands. At least Adrian and Loni had history. The history that I have with Annaliese revolves around me being a manwhore and her trying me on for size just because she was trying to forget another man.
There’s no other women for me. No men for her. It’s just the two of us, even if my wife… she doesn’t quite know that yet.
You see, according to the Order’s bylaws, once a week, the Owed and the Offering he married are supposed to sleep in the same bed. Even though she keeps insisting she’s not necessarily an Offering because she was supposedly dropped down to a Used, that’s not the reason why I don’t enforce that clause in the Order’s manifest.
Nope. The reason I don’t enforce it is because we’ve been spending the night in the same bedeverynight since our wedding.
That’s on me. I told her that I wanted her to be safe. I wasn’t lying. I’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt her, but when I looked around her apartment, trying to figure out what sort of security measures she had, it’s because I was already trying to figure out how I could get back in.
When she made the comment that she has a chain lock when she remembers to engage it, I can tell you that Annaliese… she doesn’t. I brought a pair of wirecutters with me if that’s what it took, but I never even needed them. A simply lockpick kit to break in through the shitty lock was all it took to let me in.
I didn’t touch her. I’m not that kind of perv. When I have my wife again, it’ll be because she panted my name, begging me to fuck her. It’ll be when I know she’s ready to fully be mine. But ever since she proposed marriage and, fuck me, I really, really liked the idea of being able to call Annaliese Crawfordmine, I haven’t been able to sleep that well.
So I thought: what if I stretch out next to Annaliese in her bed? I’ll know she’s safe… I’ll know she hasn’t returned to the man who had her running to my arms in the first place… and I’ll see if I could find some semblance of peace that I’ve been missing for a long ass time.
It helps that she’s a super deep sleeper and I wake up at the drop of a pin. Any time she shifts, I’m up, and by the time she’sstirs enough to get up, stumble to the bathroom in the dark, I’m already crawling under her bed.
Hey. I dress in black, I’m stealthy as fuck, and a good girl like Annaliese never expects to have a man sneaking into her bedroom to sleep next to her so she never looks. Instead, she rubs her eyes, shuffling out of the room, oblivious to the fact that the only way I can sleep at all is beside her.
I have an internal alarm clock. I’m up by dawn every day, slipping out of her apartment. It’s easier now. I borrowed her keys that first dinner at Guiseppe’s, then went to get a copy made. Since then, I don’t have to break in. I unlock the door, locking it again by the time I leave, and if any of her neighbors notice… well, Iamher husband.
That’s not all my sudden obsessiveness has led me to do—or the only thing I borrowed. As organized as Annaliese is, she’s too damn trusting. As soon as she left her phone out, I installed a tracker app so that I always know where she’ll be. I stuck another track to the underside of her car.
I’m going to burn in hell for it, but as far as I’m concerned, she gave me permission to protect her when she stood in front of Father Francis and said ‘I do’.
She said ‘I do’. So did I.
And now Iwill.
I’m so fuckingdesperate to have the real Annaliese let me in.
Oh, there are glimpses. The woman I can’t stop fantasizing about, who sat by me at the Last Prayer, and followed me to the bathroom. The no-nonsense woman who walked into the King’s Court, proposing marriage to whoever would listen. Thedetermined woman who walked into my living room with a pair of binders and a plan.
But, more often than not, I’m treated to the ice queen. Prim and proper and perfect… the way she does her make-up whenever I see her, not a single strand out of place, the dresses that flatter yet do so much to hide her mouthwatering figure… for someone who insists they’re not an Offering, she does a good job of pretending to be one.
And that’s not fair. I know it’s not. Someone did this. Someone took a firecracker and broke her until she was just another woman in the Order. At least, theytriedto. Knowing there’s something under that carefully cultivated facade… it’s why I’m so obsessed. It’s why I’m so hungry.
It’s why I want her so badly.
I want to be the one she opens up to. The one she shows her real self to.
No matter what it takes.
It isn’t long before I notice that the only time I really see Annaliese come alive—when I’m sure I’m witnessing the real Annaliese, not the Offering she once was—is when she’s doing something that has to do with a binder. Our marriage agreement… the wedding plans… when she gets to organize and plan and make shit happens, she’s fuckingradiant.
