He gives me a soft smile, leaning forward to cup my face in his hand. The look of tenderness in his expression is what has the warning bells in my head going off. We shouldn’t be doing this.
I push myself up to my elbows, pulling away from his touch. I don’t look at him. I don’t want to know if this meant something to him. Because it can’t. It can’t mean anything.
“We can’t do this,” I murmur as I stand. The air in the room is cold without pants. I grab mine and quickly pull them on before I pause to fasten my bra and my shirt. Then I leave the library because suddenly the room is too small, and I can’t focus on anything other than the way the walls are closing in.
I race to the front of the house, stepping onto the front porch. My bare feet recoil at the cold planks, but I welcome the sting of pain.
“This was not part of the deal,” I whisper as I watch big, fat snowflakes drift lazily toward the ground. Catching feelings for my new husband wasn’t part of the deal at all.
7
BRENNON
I blink at the couch, trying to comprehend what just happened. My woman enjoyed that. I could see how much she did. Hell, I could feel it when she came on my fingers. The way her pussy squeezed me so tightly had me coming in my pants.
I adjust my jeans and search the house. I finally find my wife on the porch. She’s not wearing shoes or a coat. I should spank her ass. It’s too damn cold for her to be in the snow without protection.
With a scowl, I grab the items for her. I join her on the porch, covering her shoulders with the coat. Then I put my big work boots down in front of her. I nudge her and she puts her pink-polished toes in them.
Finally, she sends me a look of pure misery. I couldn’t have been that bad at it. Probably need some practice. Years of only getting my hand mean I don’t quite know what I’m doing with a partner. But instinct seemed to take over when I was with her.
“We can’t do this, Brennon,” she says. “I can’t fall in love with you.”
Love. The word is a punch to the gut. Does this mean she could develop feelings for me? I was prepared to wait a lifetime for her. But maybe this means she’s starting to fall for me.
I reach for her, wanting my arms around her. I need to feel her against me, feel the steady thrum of her heartbeat and know she’s falling for me too.
But she sidesteps my arms and lets out a soft sigh. “We’ll consummate our marriage, but it can’t ever mean anything. It’s not a real marriage.”
I can’t breathe at her words. The hell it’s not. This is the realest thing I’ve ever had in my life and I’m not giving up on it without a fight. First, I need to figure out what’s holding her back so I can reassure her I’m here for the long-term.
I have to concentrate all my effort to figure out how to say the word. I can see it in my head, but it doesn’t come out. “Yak.”
When I was a kid learning the alphabet, the flashcard for the letter Y had a yak on it. Since the stroke, I find myself saying it sometimes when I want to ask the question. It frustrates the hell out of me, and I feel the flush start on my neck. She’s the last person I want to sound like an idiot in front of. It killed me that I couldn’t even manage our vows. All I could mutter was ice cream.
She doesn’t laugh at me the way my brother would. She doesn’t make fun of me like my father. She doesn’t even look embarrassed the way my mom does. She just quiets and waits for me. When I don’t say anything, she whispers gently, “Try again.”
It’ll just come out the same way again. I know my brain and once I get frustrated, the words can’t be untangled.
She wraps her arms around herself while she waits. She’s draped in my jacket and if we weren’t discussing this, I’d find it arousing. After several long minutes pass without me trying to clarify what I said, she says, “Look, it’s OK. You don’t have to justify yourself in any of this. I think, maybe it’s possible that you didn’t even know about my father. At least, I hope not.” She shivers then. “We should go in. It’s cold out here.”
I don’t know what she means about her father. I’m not looped into anything with the business anymore. The moment my father realized I could no longer communicate, he stripped the business from me. Even now, he no longer includes me in any business decisions. The company could be burning to the ground, and I wouldn’t even know it.