His lips quirked in a rakish smile. “Honey, if you have to ask that, I did something wrong.”
She laughed as he ran a hand down her leg, pulling it over his hip and proving he’d be ready to go again in very short order. But she didn’t want to be distracted from this. Not yet. “No, I mean…do you feel like I’m more yours because of this,” she flexed her ring hand, “than you would have without? Does this change how you feel about me? About us?”
Myles studied her, running a hand through her hair. “You mean does being married amp up what I feel for you in some artificial way, like taking on a role in a play?”
Piper didn’t know whether to be pleased or terrified that he’d so easily read between the lines. “Yeah. I mean, it would be easy to get caught up in the whole thing.”
“Do you think you are?” His expression held no judgment, and that made it easier to speak the truth.
“No. I know that I love you. I knew I loved you before you sang your vows to me—although if I hadn’t, that would’ve done it. You are my perfect match, and I just…I just want to make sure I’m not in this alone.”
He pressed his lips to hers. “Definitely not alone. And trust me when I say, I’ve never had any doubts about the veracity of what I feel for you.”
Then say the words.
He didn’t. But the tiny, scared part of her that needed to hear it lapsed into silence as he proceeded to show her.
Chapter 11
“How are we even supposed to know where to begin?” Piper wailed.
Myles slid an arm around his wife and followed her gaze, ta
king in her bedroom, which looked like a tornado had ripped through. Which it sort of had, given the frenzy with which she’d packed for their honeymoon. “Okay, so it’s going to be a lot. But there’s no rule that says we have to get everything moved today. We don’t even have to get it all this weekend.” And thank God for it. Piper’s house was eighteen hundred square feet of stuff. Pictures on every wall, furniture shoved cheek-by-jowl into every room. He had space in his place—their place—but just getting all of her things packed up was going to be a major undertaking. Maybe he could talk her into doing a little purging in the process.
Myles considered, briefly, calling up their friends to ask for help, but after all the work they’d put in on the wedding, it didn’t seem quite fair to draft them for the sucktastic job of moving, too.
Her shoulders slumped. “I should’ve started on this before the wedding.”
“In your defense, it’s not like you really had time.”
“I don’t feel like there’s time now. Two days back at work felt like two weeks. Why didn’t we stay in the Caribbean?”
“Getting back into the groove at work after any legitimate time off always feels worse.” The paper hadn’t exactly been a mess when they’d returned, but it’d definitely proved that he couldn’t just leave any of his current people at the helm and expect things to run like clockwork. “It’s just going to take a little while to find the new rhythm, that’s all.”
Piper turned and burrowed into him. “I’m so tired. After all the stress of the wedding and the honeymoon—which was fantastic, but let’s face it, not long enough and certainly not spent resting.”
“Long, glorious days and nights of not resting,” Myles agreed reverently, feeling his body stir at the memory.
“I’d almost kill for a weekend to do just...nothing.”
“Well, there’s nothing that says we have to do this now.”
She lifted her head, pinning him with a Look. “Don’t you balk now, buddy boy. You married me. Those vows apply in sickness and health and through moving.”
Myles laughed. “I’m not trying to get out of it. I’m just saying we’ve got time. Pack up your clothes, your toiletries, whatever you can’t live with out. Get that settled. And you can take your time with packing up the rest. And once we’ve figured out that to keep, what to toss or sell, we can hire movers to deal with the rest.”
“Movers?” she asked hopefully.
“Movers.”
“You say the sweetest things.” She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him, effectively derailing him from the task at hand for the next little bit.
He began to back her toward the bed conveniently at her back.
Piper stopped, breaking the kiss. “Oh no. You are not seducing me right now. We have work to do, Myles Stewart.”
Unrepentant, he grinned. “It was worth a try.”