Overnight Wife

“We can’t,” I whisper when we break apart. “Not here.”

“I know.” His eyes flash, and there’s more in them than just desire and excitement. Something I can’t put my finger on…. “After this weekend,” he murmurs, “everything will change.”

My stomach flips again, though I don’t even know what he means. Are we going to annul this after all? Are we going back to Vegas to fix our mistakes? Or is it something else?

“John…” I don’t know what I want to ask. Where are we really going this weekend? That seems like a question he’ll refuse to answer. Or maybe just What’s on your mind?

Before I can put words to it, though, he silences me again with another kiss, hard and fast, before he almost pushes me away from him, my body tilting back into the door with the force of it.

“Go,” he says. “Get back to work. We need to work overtime if we want to take the whole weekend off.”

I frown, confused by the sudden shift. But I listen to him anyway, backing away slowly, waiting until he’s back at his desk, arms crossed on top of it, before I risk opening the office door again, running a hand through my hair at the same time and hoping it’s not mussed from our kiss, from his hands running through my hair and cupping my body against him.

All I want to do is slam the office door shut and lock it behind me. Slide under his desk of his and go down on him, tracing my tongue along the length of his hard cock over and over, sucking him into my mouth until he gives in and tells me what’s going on. Until he tells me where he’s taking me this weekend and why the idea of it has him so keyed up—acting so hot one second and cold the next.

But I can’t do that. Not here. Not while everyone else we work with is still in the office, and while I have Lea’s warning fresh in my mind—plus that memory of John’s ex with all her things flung everywhere, leaving in a car… I need to be clearing my head of him, not clouding it further.

So I open the office door and slip out without another word, closing it tightly behind me.

I don’t make it more than a few steps from the entrance before I spot Bianca across the office floor. Her eyes catch mine—was she staring? Watching the office, listening to us in there? My stomach clenches all over again, for a different reason this time.

But then she flashes a sweet smile and turns back to her own desk, and I shake my head. I’m just being paranoid. Imagining things. That’s all this is.

The only people in this office thinking constantly about John and me are the two of us. So I smile back and retreat to the workroom, shoulders squared, head up. Whatever’s going on between us, maybe this weekend will bring more clarity.

And if not? Well, then I’ll still have enough time to make the annulment deadline afterward. I try to ignore the heavy knot in my gut at the thought of that. It’s for the best, I tell myself. Lea is right.

I need to be practical about this.

9

John

Today is the day. I stare at myself in the rearview mirror of my car, waiting. I haven’t hit send on the text to let Mara know that I’m parked outside. I needed a minute to myself. A minute to wrap my head around what I’m about to do.

If I do this… if I take her with me today… Everything will change. And who knows how she’ll feel by the end of this, or what she’ll decide to do.

But it has to happen. I need to do this.

So why do I still feel so guilty about it?

Because this is the wrong way to do this, whispers a little voice at the back of my mind. A voice I ignore, as I hit send on the text I’ve already written. I’m outside, Mara. I didn’t tell her anything about this weekend—I didn’t want to scare her off, or worse, make her feel sorry for me. But I did let her know to pack for warm weather, and the moment she steps out of the lobby of her apartment building, I see that she’s done just that.

It takes all of my self-control to stay seated in the car and not jump out to grab her right away. Because she looks incredible. Every step she takes makes the blue flowing skater-dress she’s wearing flow around her calves, each swish flashing just a hint of thigh that only makes me want more.

It’s more dressed up than I’ve ever seen my jeans-and-T-shirts girl, and it makes me want to tear that dress right off of her. She climbs into the passenger seat with a smile and a wave, and before she can get a word out, I catch her around the waist and drag her toward me, kissing her cheek, her jawline, her neck.