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Bailey kisses me like she’s been dying to do so for hours—or days. Like our kiss at the ceremony—quick, sweet, chaste—was only a tease, igniting this level of consuming hunger.
Or maybe that’s just how it was for me, and I find myself kissing her back with the same level of desperation.
My fingers find the tiny sliver of skin on Bailey’s lower back between where the dress gapes open and whatever she has on underneath. When I trace my finger along the borders of the area, trailing along the hems and the fabric lines, Bailey gasps into my mouth. I swallow the sound and move my fingers slower, softer, needing her to make that sound again.
She does, and a low sound comes from the back of my throat.
This is something more than just kissing. More than an agreement or arrangement or an aligning of what I need—a visa—with what Bailey needs—money for vet school. It’s more than I’ve ever felt kissing any woman, and though I still can hear Parker on a loop in my head saying not to overwhelm, to be patient, though IknowBailey and I are barely getting to know each other even if we’re wearing each other’s rings, it’s hard to hold back.
I want to give her everything.
Bailey is the one to pull back, dropping a kiss to my chin before letting her hand drop, grinning at me as she steps back. “I’m going to finish changing now,” she says.
“Probably a good idea.” Though I have plenty ofotherideas.
I trail my fingers down Bailey’s cheek to her jaw. A whisper touch. A future promise. She shivers in response, gently swaying forward just as I step back and drop my hand.
“You good?” I ask in a voice rough and cracked and more than a little tortured.
Bailey’s nod is quick, her smile knowing, her pupils dilated. “I—I’msomething.”
Me too.
I turn then, needing relief from the pinch in my chest, the pull toward this woman who has so quickly worked her way right into the center of me with her kindness and sweetness and the quirkiness that makes BaileyBailey.
“Hey, hockey player,” she says, and I pause, back still turned. In the mirror above the dresser, I can see just a sliver of the bathroom door, Bailey’s hand with my ring on her finger. “Thanks for helping with my dress.”
“Just … let me know if you need any more help.”
Bailey closes the door on her laughter, and I smile all the way to the couch. Where I fully intend to sleep unless invited to the bed. Which can just be for sleeping, if that’s what Bailey wants.
I yawn, letting my head fall back as I close my eyes. Tomorrow, I leave for two weeks. And while I’d like to talk to Bailey before I go about what this is, what that kiss meant, and if she wants this marriage to be more—to be real, I don’t know how we’ll find the time.
I have to be at the Summit most of tomorrow for a last round of training and then meetings about the trip. Our bus leaves around seven p.m., and we’ll drive overnight. It’s going to be grueling, and while I had been looking forward to it, now all I want is to stay home.
I yawn again, snuggling deeper into the couch cushions, letting my mind wander back over the day. It was perfect. Everything I could have wanted—except the full assurance that it’s as real for Bailey as it is for me.
Though I meant to stay awake until Bailey came out, I wake up, disoriented, sometime in the middle of the night to find one of the pillows from the bedroom under my head and a comforter tucked over me. There’s a note on the coffee table, written on the hotel stationary, and I squint to read it through the light coming off the EXIT sign.
Goodnight, husband,from your wife, is all it says. I fall back asleep with the note still in my fingers, pulled close to my heart.
CHAPTER 22
Bailey
I wake up married.
MARRIED.
Married but … alone.
I shove down the disappointment, which has dulled slightly after being acutely painful when I emerged from the bathroom and saw the empty bed. Then found Eli sitting up, sleeping with his head tilted back and mouth wide open, snoring softly.
Okay, in addition to the disappointment, I was also slightly amused. Had to cover my mouth to keep from guffawing. Eli sleeping, it turns out, is almost as heart-breakingly adorable as Eli awake.
In any case, I wasn’t about to wake him. For one, we were both pretty dead last night. Weddings are a killer in terms of exhaustion. Even the not-quite-traditional kind, as it happens. As gently as I could without waking him, I repositioned Eli so he was lying down, giving him a pillow and the blanket I foundfolded up in the closet. After burrowing his head a little deeper into the pillow, he smacked his lips and ordered, “Head rub.”
For half a second, I thought he was awake, and I froze. But then his breathing deepened, his eyelids fluttering those long blond lashes against his cheek.
