Steele (Arizona Vengeance 9)

“Stop it,” I reprimand, batting down his arms. “You’re acting like a fool.”

“Because I got the girl,” he says smugly, nodding.

“You don’t have me yet.” My voice is prim, and I place my clasped hands on the table.

“Point taken,” he says somberly and then puts an arm on the back of my chair, eyes going serious. “So, what happened?”

“I called it off,” I admit to him. “The night you gave me the ring, and well… other things.”

He grins. “It was a good orgasm, right?”

“You know it was,” I say in exasperation. “But the minute we went back to that level of intimacy, it wasn’t fair to David because I wasn’t going to go there with him. When I let you touch me, I was committing myself to giving you a shot to put our marriage back together again and I’m pulling for you, Jim. I’m pulling for us. David has no place in my life right now when I want my marriage to be saved.”

Jim’s expression softens, his voice respectful. “I’m sorry if he’s hurt by it. But you’ve always had so much integrity, Ella. You did the right thing not only for you, but also for him.”

“Yeah,” I murmur thoughtfully. “I know that. And he appreciated my honesty, wished me all the best. It was about as smooth as a breakup could go.”

Jim leans to the side and pulls his phone out, holding it up for me to see. “I need to make a quick call to the hitman I hired to take David out.”

I tip my head back and laugh. Jim winks, then puts his phone down on the table, and from a glance, I can tell it’s blown up with texts.

“You’re a popular guy,” I say, nodding toward his phone. “And I can bet about half those texts are the guys from the Royals, wanting to hang with you tonight.”

“You would be correct, sweet and intelligent wife. They’ve been hounding me, but I told them that while I loved them and missed them, I had far more important things to do, such as hanging with my beautiful wife.”

“Did you really?” I ask in amazement.

“I really did,” he says, but looks disappointed at my awe. “Ella… I’m going to tell you something that might be hard to understand. While I know you didn’t feel it much of the time, particularly during the last few years of our marriage, you have always been my number-one priority. You’ve always been my greatest love. You’ve been my best friend, the person who makes me smile the most, and the only one I could ever tell all my secrets to. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, the best mother to our daughter, and if I had to pick one person to spend my life with on a deserted island, it would be you. So while I may have been off doing things I felt were critical to my career, spending more time away from you, I never did those things because they were preferable to you. They were necessary to my career, but never at the expense of making you feel invisible. The only thing I can tell you is that any time I’m away from you, I’m still thinking about you a million times a day. Maybe if I’d just let you know that, you would have been a little more secure in how I felt about you.”

Slack-jawed, I stare at my husband. Jim has never been a man of many words, preferring action instead. But damn if that didn’t make me fall deeper in love with him. It helps more than he could ever know that maybe I was more cherished than I had thought.

The waitress appears with Jim’s grilled chicken salad and we break apart, having leaned very closely into one another as we were talking.

Even after the salad is deposited and the waitress leaves, I find myself still very moved by his words. I also think about our moment in the gazebo after he gave me my promise ring. Glancing down at it, I remember the way his mouth feels on mine and how he smells and tastes. How his finger felt inside of me and on me, and well… the combined effect of those memories and his efforts so far make me feel all kinds of… yearning.

“After you finish that salad,” I suggest, picking up my beer and preparing to take a sip. “Maybe you and I could go back to the house and fool around.”

Jim had just picked up his fork and knife to cut into the chicken and his eyes snap to me, utensils hovering over his meal. “Are you serious?”

“Why not?” I say with a casual shrug, but we both know there’s nothing casual about my invitation.

“Because I never dared hope you might be willing to take this a bit further right now,” he admits to me. “I’m okay if you want to go slow.”