Knowing better than to argue with his wife, and already deciding that her fucked up family wasn’t worth fighting about, he settled for sitting on the couch by his wife’s side and taking her hand in his while they waited for her father to cut to the bullshit and get this over with.
He didn’t keep them waiting long.
“Take this and leave my daughter alone,” Mr. Blaine said, pulling out a blank envelope and handed it to Jason.
Keeping his gaze locked with Mr. Blaine’s, he opened the envelope and passed it to Haley, who took it into her trembling hands.
“It’s a hundred grand,” Mr. Blaine announced when it became obvious that Haley couldn’t make out the numbers on the check.
“I’m more than willing to double that if it means saving you from this mistake, Haley.”
“I’m not interested in your money, Mr. Blaine,” Jason said, plucking the check out of Haley’s hands and handed it back to Mr. Blaine, who only seemed angrier as he pointedly stepped away, refusing to take the check.
“I’ll triple it.”
“For God’s sakes! If they need money, I’ll give it to them,” Grandma said with a huff as she reached for her cane, but Jason wasn’t having that.
“Chris,” he said, keeping his gaze locked on Mr. Blaine’s, “please take Grandma home and remind her that if she ever suggests giving us so much as a penny again, that I will pull her over my knee and beat her with her cane.”
Instead of arguing, which he’d realized that she liked to do a lot by this point, Mrs. Blaine simply smiled as her helper rolled her out of the house.
“I’m not interested in your money or your family connections, Mr. Blaine. I married Haley because I love her and plan on making her happy. If that’s not good enough for you, then I’m sorry, but there’s nothing that you could offer me that would make me walk away from the best thing in my life,” he said, letting the check drop to the floor when Mr. Blaine refused to take it back.
“It’s been a very long week, so if you don’t mind, I plan on grabbing a shower and turning in early since I have a hell of a mess to clean up in the morning.”
With that, he leaned over and kissed the top of Haley’s head, praying that it wouldn’t be the last time, and forced himself to walk away, knowing that he had to give her the freedom to handle this situation. No matter how he felt about them, this was her family and he would never do anything to come between them.
So, if having Haley in his life meant that he had to put up with boring dinner parties, bullshit dinners and uncomfortable family gatherings, then that’s exactly what he would do for her. He’d keep his mouth shut, show her parents the respect that his had taught him and simply be there for her.
With that depressing future weighing heavily on his mind, he walked down the hallway, took a shower and climbed onto her bed all while waiting for her to say or do something that told him that she needed him. When nothing came after a few more minutes, he closed his eyes and resigned himself to enduring more of her family’s bullshit.
“He’s gone,” Haley whispered sadly as she joined him, curling up against him.
“Are you okay?” he asked, turning over onto his side so that he could take her in his arms.
“I’m fine,” she said, focusing all of her attention on running the tips of her fingers through the sparse hair covering his chest.
“I’ll go talk to him this week and try to fix this,” he promised her even as he had to resign himself to the fact that he would have to do it without giving in to the urge to beat the shit out of his new father-in-law.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Haley said with a careless shrug that he was buying.
“Oh,” he said, tucking a loose strand of her hair behind her ear, “and why’s that?”
“Because I’m pretty sure that my family just disowned me,” she said firmly seconds before her body started to tremble against his and the soft sobs that she was trying to hold back finally found an escape.
As he held her in his arms, his heart breaking right along with hers, he swore that he would never let her suffer like this ever again.
“Jason?”
“Hmm,” he murmured, kissing her shoulder as he shifted so that she could curl up on her side, facing away from him.
“Can you do me a favor?” she whispered even as she grabbed his hand and hugged it to her chest.
“Anything,” he swore, knowing that he would do whatever it took to make this up to her.
“Put an end to this honeymoon from hell, please.”
“Consider it over,” he swore with a small smile as he leaned over and kissed her shoulder, more than happy to put this bullshit behind them and move on with their lives.
“Jason?” she whispered as he closed his eyes, more than ready to put this day behind him.
“Yeah?” he managed around a yawn.
“I-I don’t think it’s over yet.”
“Why do you say that?” he grumbled, struggling to open his eyes.
“Remember the kitty?”
“Yeah?”
“I can’t be sure, but I think he’s sitting on the edge of the bed and it looks like he’s about to-”
*-*-*-*
“Son of a bitch!” she heard Jason snap as he stumbled wildly around the room and as much as she would have loved to help him, she just couldn’t seem to stop laughing.
“S-stop fighting it,” she managed to get out as she was forced to reach out and grab onto the edge of her bureau when her uncontrollable laughter and the cramp in her side threatened to drop her on her ass where she would no doubt continue to laugh her ass off at her husband as he struggled to free himself from the fluffy orange puff ball latched onto his back.
“That’s it!” he snapped, sounding seriously pissed off, which given what they’d gone through over the past couple of days, that was saying a lot.
Pressing a hand against her side as she struggled to catch her breath, she watched as Jason’s blurry figure stormed across the room to the bathroom. A few seconds later the sounds of the shower starting and a cat hissing in outrage filled the otherwise quiet room. Before she could catch her breath or check to make sure that he was okay, he was coming for her, picking her up and tossing her on the bed.
“W-what are you doing?” she managed to get out between giggles.
“Putting an end to this goddamn honeymoon,” he snarled as he ripped her panties clean from her body.
“What are you-oh, my God!” she gasped as he buried his head between her thighs.
“The honeymoon is fucking over,” he bit out, sliding a finger inside her as she lay there, struggling to understand what sex had to do with anything.
“You are mine,” he snarled possessively against her clit as he teased her to the point that she really didn’t care that he was having some sort of psychotic episode, not as long as he kept doing that thing with his tongue.
“Jason,” she found herself moaning his name as she threaded her fingers through his hair, encouraging him to continue even as she sent the silent warning that she would be forced to kill him with her bare hands if he so much as thought about stopping what he was doing.
“So fucking sweet,”
he growled against her skin, leisurely licking her out as she continued to run her fingers through his hair, needing something to do while a pleasurable buzz spread over her body, leaving her barely able to moan his name.
“I love you, Haley,” he whispered softly as he suddenly moved up her body.
She wrapped her arms around his damp shoulders, spread her legs and gasped when he slid inside her. She pulled his face down and kissed him as he moved inside her with firm, hard strokes, clearly