Dangerous Exes (Page 43)

“Exactly. See? Pro.” I chuckled under my breath and moved to the con side. “Moving too fast.” She sucked in a breath. I looked up again. “I’m going to put down the good and the bad, that’s fair, right?”

A slow nod from Isla was all I got.

“Pro.” I went back to the column. “Already moved in.”

“True.” She walked around the island and joined me. “And moving twice within a year is really stressful, let alone a month.”

“I would hate to stress you out,” I mused, focusing on her parted lips and the way they beckoned me to taste.

“Okay.” She quickly looked away and tucked her hair behind her ears. “So what’s the next con?”

I cleared my throat and very slowly wrote the word trust.

She eyed the word like a disease.

I highlighted it in yellow. “You don’t trust me, you want to, you don’t.”

“It’s not you,” she said in a small voice. “It’s men in general, powerful men, beautiful men who could have anyone they want. Men who are used to getting everything, men who want for nothing. Men who would take my heart and crush it without thinking about the tenderness a heart like mine needs.”

It was the most I’d ever gotten out of her.

“Isla.” My voice lowered. “I hate to look more arrogant . . . but I know exactly what to do with your heart.”

A little gasp fell from her lips. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” I answered. “I don’t want to hold your heart, Isla . . . I don’t even want to own it . . .” I brushed a kiss across her lips. “I just want you to share it with me.”

Tears filled her eyes. “You aren’t supposed to say things like that to me.”

“Why?” I reached for her hand.

She squeezed my fingers tight. “Because this is all going to come crashing down on us, we’re getting lost in something that’s not real, and in the end, someone’s going to get hurt.”

I hated that we shared the same fears, hated that she made complete sense. It was insane, and yet I wanted the insanity. I didn’t want the perfect engagement to the perfect woman, with the perfect allotment of time between every monumental thing in our lives.

“So we’re back to trust.” I fought like hell to keep the annoying thought from popping up in my head, the one that said she had a valid reason not to trust me, but I wasn’t that same man.

I didn’t want to be.

She released my hand and went over to the stove.

I grabbed two plates and offered them to her.

We worked in silence.

Her hands shook as she dished out her secret sauce and vegetables, and when the shaking increased, I finally just took the food from her hands and spun her around to face me.

She stared straight ahead at my chest.

“Playing it safe doesn’t guarantee you don’t get hurt.”

“It’s better than living dangerously,” she argued.

I captured her bottom lip then whispered against her mouth, “Hate to break it to you, but you were living dangerously the minute you proposed.”

She gasped. “I did not propose!”

“You did. I mean I did the one with the ring, but you’re the one that started this, Miss I-Don’t-Live-Dangerously.” Had her there.

She glared.

I kissed her mouth again.

She didn’t respond, still glaring.

And then I wrapped my arms around her and backed her up against the counter. “Admit it, you don’t hate me.”

She gave in, sighing against my body. “I’m having a hard time conjuring up anything but lust and need. You’ve been shirtless for at least eleven minutes.”

“Keeping time?”

“It’s been a good eleven minutes.” She grinned.

“And if I take off my jeans?”

She reached for the front button and slid her hand inside. “I think my enthusiasm matches yours.”

“And you think you play it safe. How cute.”

She squeezed me. Hard.

I flinched and then chuckled as I reached for a breast and said, “Two can play that game.”

“Tit for tat.” She released me and then climbed me like a fucking tree, wrapping her legs around my waist as her tongue slid past the barrier of my lips.

God, this woman.

This. Woman.

I dug my fingers into her ass, walked her over to the closest guest room, and opened the door.

“Jessie!” she hissed. “It’s bad fortune!”

“It’s a bridal bed. You’re my bride. Now strip.”

“I swear if we find any more chickens . . .”

“Only cocks in here, sweetheart.” I laughed and then nearly tripped as she threw a pillow at my face.

It smelled like her.

Sweet.

Her shirt was gone.

Leggings stripped.

Nothing but a thong and a smile.

I crooked my finger.

She pounced first, launching herself in my direction so fast that I had to brace myself against the wall.

We never made it to the bed.

I was inside her before I could count to three.

And she was screaming my name before I could breathe out a four.

I never wanted to leave that room.

My chest ached when I thought of all of the times I’d put up with a wife who loved herself more than she loved me, and now I knew what it felt like to be part of a team.

To want someone so badly.

And know without a doubt it’s returned tenfold.

I love you.

I said it in my head.

I meant it from the heart.

But it was too soon. Although we’d technically met a year ago, I had only really gotten to know her in less than two weeks.

It was because I was a man starved.

A man who’d been living a life of gray and was finally introduced to red—Isla.

I never wanted to go back.

She lit me up from the inside out, coaxed a slow burn of desire that refused to extinguish.

She was fucking mine.

She just didn’t know it yet.

Chapter Forty-Six

ISLA

It was almost impossible to concentrate on work. Jessie’s words, his promises, the way he held me the night before. All of it played like a bad rom com in my head until my temples pounded.

I analyzed.

I didn’t want to.

It was in my nature.

I looked at every angle.

And all I did was go in circles over and over again.

“Isla?” Blaire snapped her fingers in front of my face. I straightened and forced a smile. “You’ve been staring at your computer screen for twenty minutes.”

“I’m researching,” I lied.

“It’s black. The screen.” Her eyebrows shot up. “So unless you’re researching black computer screens and why they exist, you’re daydreaming.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m just . . . tired.”

“From all the Jessie sex?”

Abby tilted her chair backward and eyed us. “Jessie sex?”

“Phone’s ringing!” I yelled.

Luckily the phone rang at the perfect time.

“This isn’t done!” Abby called back to me.

I laid my head on the desk. “Why is he so hot? Why?”

“There, there.” Blaire patted my head and then took the chair next to me. “Well, it’s probably because he’s out to get you. He’s being hot on purpose, damn him.”

“Shut up.”

“Hey, you’re the one marrying and sleeping with the enemy . . . in a dragon bed. But we won’t discuss all the reasons that’s weird, we don’t have enough time.”