Page 106 of The Logic of Loyalty

“It’s not like what? It’s not like you slept with her? Congratu-fucking-lations, Trevor, on not being total scum of the earth, but you thought about it.”

“I never thought about it.” His voice drops from conciliatory to something darker.

“Bullshit! Bullshit, Trev.” I crowd him into a wall, rattling the frames, and shove my finger into his chest. “I saw you two together, cozy and in your office. You said yourself that it was a common occurrence⁠—”

“We had working lunches, but I did let it get too casual. I know that now.”

“Do you want a fucking cookie!” I shriek, throwing my hands in the air.

“No, sweetheart. No. I don’t want a cookie. I. Want. My. Wife. Only my wife.” I see him flexing his hands as frustration starts to seep in. Good.

“I remember what you said to me. It wasn’t ’Ew, gross. She’s gross.’ You admitted to me that you not only touched her, but you think that she’s attractive⁠—”

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” He takes a step forward, and I match with a step back. “That’s what you’re holding onto?” Caustic laughter drips from his lips, causing fury to rise up in me. “You’re holding onto the fact that I admitted a woman is attractive? That I casually touched a woman I viewed as safe? Not desirable.” He shakes his head and chuckles. “You. Up on that fucking ridge when you handed me the evidence of lives we created, then proceeded to rip away everything that makes me fucking breathe.” He thumps his chest and takes another step closer to me. Now I’m crowded against the front door as he leans forward. “You told me that you lived for me. Well, baby, I’d skin myself to the fucking bone to give you what you need to live with a Goddamn smile on my face.”

He slams his hands on the wall on either side of me, his face growing furious—the match to my own. “You told me that you breathed me? I’d feed you the air from my fucking lungs,” He dips closer, running his nose across my neck, making me shiver. “Down to my last breath just to keep you safe, even if for only one second longer than me.” His eyes flash, and his voice lowers to a growl. “You are my everything, and I wasn’t smart enough to see the harm I was causing. What I feel for you?” He shakes his head. “There’s no comparison. Yes, I needed to set some fucking boundaries, but the care I felt for her was as a friend.”

“There you go again! You’re her boss. And, you’re blaming her for your choices.” I poke him again, trying to budge him away. “You weren’t smart enough? You? The smartest person I’ve ever met? Bull. Shit. Trevor. You told me that you think she’s attractive, that you put your hands on her. Your blinders weren’t on, mother fucker. You could see perfectly clearly, and all of your choices led to her, not to me.”

Trevor doesn’t stand down as he always has in the face of my anger or frustration. He doesn’t try to placate me or calm me.

He erupts.

Chapter Thirty-Four

TREVOR

She’s wrecking me, tearing me up from the inside and looking like a fucking queen while doing it. But she’s not hearing me.

“Just shut up. Shut the fuck up and listen to me.” I press my body into hers and lift my hand to cup her delicate throat. “You asked me if I thought she was attractive, and I nodded because she is. She is an attractive girl, and I was not going to lie to you. Sitting there proud and glorious even in your pain?” I scoff and shake my head. “I wasn’t going to lie. How do you think I know you believe both of my closest friends are hotties?”

“Don’t you dare compare⁠—”

I drop my head against hers and sigh. “No, no. You’re right. Do you need me to lay it all out? Tell you everything?” She nods against me. “Fine.” I lean back enough to see her reaction. “I noticed how she grew up. I noticed her legs she flaunted, the curves she always uncovered.” A small growl vibrates my palm. “And her bright, red lips. I noticed, Paige.”

“How is this supposed to help anything, you pig!”

I smirk because I know. I know my heart. “Because.” My voice drops to a rough whisper when I lean even closer to her. Fury pours off of her, but it’s tinged with something hotter. “I didn’t do anything beyond notice—I didn’t feel anything beyond recognition of its existence.” I pinch her chin tightly in my fingers to keep her from ripping out of my hold. “No, listen to me.” I drop the hand holding her throat to skim it down the side of her body until I grab a hold of her thigh, squeezing it with a low groan. “Your legs are the only ones I imagine wrapped around my hips while I’m deep inside of you.” Our sharp breaths mingle in the small space between us, and I’m transfixed when her little pink tongue darts out to lick a path across her plump lower lip. I bite down the urge to follow the move with my own. “Your lips are the only ones I dream about having wrapped around my cock.” My voice starts to break with the need for my woman, my wife. I trail my hand back up over her growing belly until it brushes the side of her heaving chest—so maddeningly close. “Your perfect breasts, swollen with milk for our babies.” I hiss out a breath at the image in my mind. “I only want your juicy, leaking nipples in my mouth while you bounce on my dick.” I emphasize my words with a ragged, biting tone. My hand trails back to rest on the wall behind her. I brush my nose against hers—my words a hair’s breadth away from her mouth. “Do you hear me, wife? Your bullshit questions all those weeks ago painted a picture in your head that was wrong.” She opens her mouth to protest, but I squeeze her neck, just a little. “I worship only you.” I want to kiss her, I want to taste her on my lips. It has never been this way with any other.

She tries to look away, but I shake her until her dark eyes lock on mine. “Other women exist. They are out in the world—beautiful women, I’m not going to lie about it. I never have. But they are not you.” Fuck, she smells good. “I will happily prove that to you for the rest of my life. You’re everything to me.”

“Trevor.”

My eyes dip down to watch her pouty lips tremble around my name before I look into her eyes. Her pupils have swallowed her irises whole. My body throbs at the view I’ve missed for weeks, months. “Oh, baby. Does that make you hot for me? Hearing how fucking obsessed I am with you?” I use the leg I have wedged between hers and press just a little and watch as my little, filthy wife flutters her lashes at me and moans. “Fuckkk.” She wants me. God, I want her. “Do you need me, baby? Do you need me to make you feel good?” She whimpers, and I’m hard as a fucking rock when she does it.

“P-please make me feel better. Make me feel good.” I freeze with my hand running down her chest to her pussy to feel how wet she is for me when those words penetrate my haze.

“Feel better, Paige? How can I make you feel better?” My wandering hand veers off course to stroke along her side, desperately wanting to feel our babies, while the hand holding her by the throat soothes her in a soft caress. “Tell me, and I’ll make you feel better.”

Her eyes are still blown out, but a trembling hits her body. “I-I’m so tired. I’m—” Her eyes close, and a tear drips down her cheek. “I’m exhausted. I don’t want to do this alone.”

“Oh, honey.” All thoughts of reconnecting disappear, though my body takes a minute to catch up, when I scoop up my small wife and cradle her in my arms. I grunt when her weight puts pressure on my bruise, but when she settles into my arms? I’ll take a hundred more hits if it means I can hold her like this. Another tear slips down her cheek and into her hair. Paige’s lower lip trembles, and I really am the fucking worst. “You don’t need me to fight you, do you, baby?” Her face scrunches as fresh tears fall. “Oh, God. Paige. Okay. I think … Let me try one more time. Alright? And if I fuck this up again, I’ll stop. Yeah?” I carry her to the couch and settle down with her snuggled up against me.

Her face scrunches again, but this time I take it as you can try.

I’m not going to squander this opportunity. “Alright. I made a mistake—many mistakes. Not only over the last few months, but over the years since we first met. I have a hard time regretting many of them because they’ve given me an unforgettable life with my incredible family.”

“This is a terrible apology,” she grumbles into my shirt, and my heart thrums at seeing her—feeling her here. My soul needed this connection.