Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 96850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
“Did I ever tell you about the time I had to wait three days to marry my wife? I got so impatient I called my teammates overpaid egomaniacs and got a right cross for my trouble?”
She leaned forward to feed him a cracker and he bit in while looking her in the eye and smelling his soap on her skin, deciding he’d never been treated to a finer meal. “Even the calmest among us has a breaking point,” she said quietly, sitting back with flushed skin, probably due to the fact that he couldn’t hide his wonder and appreciation.
Eve thought nothing shook him? Madden wanted to bring up the fight he’d almost gotten into a week earlier with that son of a bitch who’d suggested she make house calls, but he didn’t want to remind her of that. Even thinking about it made his scalp prickle with anger, so he could only imagine how the memory would make her feel. “You don’t lose your cool very easily, either, Eve. What’s your breaking point?”
A beat of silence passed while she chewed a cracker. “Apart from a threat to the kids, I don’t think there’s anything that could make me show that I’m at a breaking point.” She wet her lips. “But that wouldn’t mean I’m not cracking on the inside.” She paused. “That doesn’t mean I haven’t cracked a million times on the inside.”
“You can show me the cracks anytime you need.” Not reaching for her in that instant sent a ripple of pain through his shoulder, he tensed so quickly. “I’ll hold you together until you can manage it yourself.”
Eve’s smile was a little bittersweet. “You might not realize it, but I’ve shown them to you more than anyone over the years. Probably because you showed me your own.”
For the first time that night, she withdrew slightly, as if realizing she’d revealed too much, gathering up the box of crackers and the plate holding the knife and marmalade, walking across the bed on her knees to set everything on his side table. “I think it’s time to switch to heat on your shoulder. They gave you that heating pad at the hospital, right?” Madden struggled for a moment with letting Eve care for him, but ultimately dipped his chin. She said, “I’ll grab it. Do you want another ibuprofen?”
“No, love.”
She stood at the foot of the bed now, looking so sweet and unguarded in his oversize shirt and bare feet, the urge to wrap his protection around her was growing. “Do you want anything at all?” she asked.
Madden shook his head no, but that was a lie. He just didn’t recognize it until Eve had left the room and the life, the magic, left along with her. Maybe it was the strange quality of the day, but he was suddenly in need of proof that Eve being there wasn’t all in his imagination. He stood abruptly, unwrapping the plastic holding the ice pack on his shoulder, letting it drop as he followed her into the living room, his stride slowing when he saw she was sitting cross-legged in the dark, going through the hospital bag.
Not a fantasy. Real.
He leaned against the wall outside the bathroom and watched her, the moonlight turning her hair silver, highlighting the curve of her cheek.
I can’t believe that’s my wife.
The combination of lust and idolization was a potent one. It made his heart feel like a big, unwieldy thing, while his body primed itself. Made his breath short and coldcocked him with yearning. Just by looking at her. She’d probably never know the extent of how deep his obsession with her ran, would she? How could he even begin to describe it to her?
He couldn’t.
His body ached to show her, though.
And so when Eve padded back in the direction of the bedroom, Madden intercepted her in the dark. Swallowing her gasp, he continued the thorough assault of her lips, her tongue, and her neck in the hallway, framing her face in his hands, worshipping her with slanted strokes of her mouth as they stumbled, his back meeting the wall first, before he surged forward to the other side of the hallway, taking her mouth like she’d signed over ownership with a signature on a dotted line. Pressing her to the wall this time.
“I lied. I do want something.”
“I only need one guess what it is,” she said, whimpering when he reached beneath the T-shirt to hold her bare pussy in his hand, her whole body liquefying between him and the wall.
“Can we fuck again, Eve?”
His bluntness made her thighs cinch shut around his hand, trembling. “Y-yes. Yes.”
“You look like an angel.” Madden dropped his forehead to hers, looking her in the eye while he strummed her clit with his thumb, but finding her so wet, he pushed his middle finger inside her, slowly, slowly, enjoying the shocked pleasure that overtook her features. “You don’t like being treated like an angel, though, do you?”