Cannon (Carolina Reapers 5)

“I didn’t say your work had no value.” The edge in his tone told me I’d hit him where it hurt.

Good. He deserved it.

He’s doing you a favor.

My fire soothed a bit at the voice in my head. I kept forgetting.

Kept forgetting this situation was for my benefit and not his.

But still, it didn’t give him free rein to stick it to me every time he felt like it.

My cheeks reddened at the train of thought until I was a jumble of nerves with images of a shirtless Cannon making me hot in so many other ways.

“Are there more?” he asked more gently, eying the bags and boxes strewn across the room.

“I don’t need your help. I can get them,” I said, striding past him. I made it to the end of the hallway before he blocked my path.

“Don’t,” he said, hands braced on either wall, preventing me from reaching the entryway of his home.

“Don’t what?” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. A headache formed behind my eyes—a side effect from concocting this massive lie, most certainly. Fighting with Cannon, while most of the time was fun, had become exhausting today, like I was trying to hold my own against a tornado. A silent tornado.

“Don’t push me out like that,” he said. “I’m here. I want to help.” He shrugged, slowly dropping his hands and letting them hang at his sides. “Even if it doesn’t seem like it.”

I knew that. I truly did. I was just tired. So, so damn tired. I’d had to stick our official marriage license in the safe he’d shown me earlier, and part of me was heavy with the lie it represented. The other part? A mess of emotions I couldn’t begin to understand.

I studied Cannon for a moment, my eyes tracing the lines of ink decorating his neck. I itched to get closer, to run my fingers over the artwork covering his body. To understand the choices behind the patterns, the images. To understand the man before me.

“I know,” I finally said. “And I apologize if I don’t seem grateful. I am…indebted to you. For life. And possibly the next.”

A small, low laugh escaped his lips, the sound jarring me with its rawness, like he didn’t do it often enough.

Why? The question burned my tongue.

Why didn’t he laugh more? He had a family of brothers on the ice, had a wonderful sister who loved him, a nephew who adored him, and countless fans who cheered for him. What darkness had sunk its claws so deep in this man that he could find such little joy in life? What fueled the fights and the intimidating-as-hell exterior?

I parted my lips, almost brave enough to ask the questions haunting my mind.

“Why did you put me in the guest room?”

Almost brave enough.

But I knew him better than he thought I did. Well enough to know he wouldn’t let me in or tell me until he deemed me worthy enough. I simply hoped that day would come.

“Rule number five,” he said. “No sex.”

I laughed again. “And you think if I slept in the same bed as you I’d…what? Fall helpless to your spell? Lose myself with desire?”

Fire churned behind those dark eyes, and his tongue darted out to wet his lips.

The desire I joked about roared and thrashed.

“Of course not, Princess,” he said. “You’re much too strong for that.”

“Then why?” I pressed. “I’m your wife, after all. I could stand to sleep next to you. Sleep, and nothing more.”

Was I truly so repulsive to him that he couldn’t even stand that?

His gaze was like a brand as he surveyed me, some inner battle raging inside.

Too long. The silence between us became my every mortification. So I switched back to sass and anger, our common ground.

“Snobbery isn’t contagious, you know,” I said, and pushed past him, heading for the door. I wanted to get my last two boxes and lock myself in my sweet little guest room and pretend none of this was happening. Pretend like I didn’t want to dig beneath the surface with Cannon. Pretend like his proximity to me was anything more than a business arrangement.

Cannon beat me to the front door, his hand on the knob. “I think it’s funny,” he said, swinging the door open.

“What?” I asked when he didn’t elaborate. I followed him outside, where the last of my things awaited. He scooped up the two boxes like they weren’t filled with books and pumps, and paused where I stood at the edge of his porch. He glanced down at me and shook his head.

“That you think you’re the dangerous one.”

I narrowed my gaze, giving him a good glare before he stalked back into the house.

I remained outside, breathing in the fresh air because I knew the moment I stepped into his house, it would become mine for the foreseeable future.