Axel (Carolina Reapers 1)

She swallowed, her eyes widening slightly. “There’s been no one since Devon.”

“Thank you for telling me,” I answered, tucking a strand of black silk behind her delicate ear.

“There were three before him. My high school boyfriend, a mistake in college, and a guy I dated for two years before we broke up.” Her forehead crinkled. “He got into Johns Hopkins, and I had a job in Seattle, so I went there instead.” She forced a closed-lip smile. “I’ve never been the girl to follow the guy. My mother did that too many times, and it resulted in her never holding down a steady job, which meant she couldn’t support us. It was awful. And she didn’t care about me. Just them. So she left me. And I became the girl who chooses herself and loses everything else,” she whispered.

“You’re not going to lose me,” I assured her. “And I’ll never make you choose between my career and yours. What you do is just as important.”

“You just make a few million more a year than I do.” She grinned.

“Spend whatever you like,” I told her, kissing her forehead. “I have zero use for all of it.”

Her eyes lit up, and I suddenly wondered if she’d hidden a shopping addiction I didn’t know about. “Actually, I had an idea.”

“Did you?” I asked, trying to ignore the way she shifted against me. I would happily do nothing but hold my wife in my arms until I died if I thought it might help in my cause of winning her heart. But holding her this close night after night might also be the death of me.

“I did,” she admitted with an impish smile. “I already talked to Silas about availability dates, and I was thinking that maybe this summer we’d give the kids at your camp a brand new bag of gear and pay all their hockey fees for the year.” Her eyes danced as my heart expanded so big in my chest that I thought I might explode. “Silas agreed to donate the new helmets to your camp kids!”

My brows knit together as I studied Langley. Her eyes were bright with excitement, her cheeks flushed, and her smile so beautiful that it physically hurt.

“What?” Her smile slipped. “If it’s a bad idea, or too expensive, I can look for sponsors.”

I crushed her lips against mine, kissing her hard and deep. My wife had just made plans with me for the summer. Four months after our agreed-upon divorce date. She was looking at our future and using words like we.

She was breathless when she pulled away. “I take it that you think it’s a good idea?”

“I think it’s a great idea if you’re going to come hand them out with me.” My voice dropped, sounding like it had been dragged over gravel.

“Well, yeah.” She grinned. “I kind of like those kids, and your program is phenomenal, Axel.” Her fingers started to draw lazy designs on my chest.

I felt my self-control fray to one lonely, thin string.

“You care about the program,” I said slowly.

“Of course I do,” she whispered, and one of her hands stroked across my trimmed beard. “I care about you.”

I could have sworn I heard an audible pop as that last tether on my control snapped.

My hand tunneled in her hair, and I took her lips in a primal, carnal kiss as I rolled her underneath me. Her thighs opened, and I settled between them, letting her feel exactly how badly I needed her.

The kiss was hot, wet, and fucking explosive. Langley’s fingernails bit into the back of my neck as her thighs shifted against my hips, her knees rising on either side of me. My tongue took her mouth over and over again, plunging deep, then retreating to lure hers to do the same. My girl gave as good as she got, kissing me with abandon, sucking my tongue into her mouth and groaning when I gave her what she asked for.

Pure pleasure flooded my system. I was going to come from just kissing her.

She writhed under me when I sucked on the patch of skin where her throat met her collarbone. “Axel,” she whimpered, but I didn’t stop.

I kissed down to her neckline, then lowered her gown so one perfect breast filled my vision, her nipple already pebbled as it met the air.

She gasped as I swirled my tongue around the bud, and then her hands moved to my hair when I alternated flicks of my tongue with deep pulls of my mouth at her breast. My teeth grazed her flesh, and her moan of appreciation shot straight to my dick.

My beard left her skin rosy as I switched to her other breast and gave it the same treatment. “I’ve stared at these for months,” I admitted against her flesh. “Every minute I didn’t think you were looking, I studied your body and planned what I would do to you the minute I got my hands on you.”