Page 15 of The Hunted Wife

“Not really.” I just want to make love and get over these nerves. I don’t know what is wrong with me. I’ve had sex with a man before. But I’ve never been someones wife before, even if it isn’t real.

“What do you propose we do?”

She turned in his arm and leaned up on his hard, muscular chest. He smelled so good. He was wearing Brut cologne, one of her favorites. “I think you should make love to me. What do you think about that idea?”

Adam pulled her on top of him. “I think that’s a very good idea.”

Millie leaned down and whispered against his lips. “Then what are you waiting for Mr. Sullivan? I’ll be an old lady by?—”

Adam pulled her head down to him and seared her lips with his. “You talk too much, Mrs. Sullivan.”

Surprised at the ferocity of his kiss, Millie secretly loved it and realized she was slowly falling for her husband, as much as she didn’t want to.

He took her mouth again and this time he didn’t stop to talk.

As a matter of fact, they didn’t talk all night long.

Millie woke to warmth she wasn’t used to and panicked for a moment and then as she listened to Adam’s slow, even breathing she remembered she was married to him. Married. She still couldn’t believe how lucky she’d been to run into Adam Sullivan. He could have been a serial killer for all she knew then—yet something told her he wasn’t and that he was as nervous about the question he asked as she was the answer she gave him.

Now, he lay on his side, with an arm across her waist, not tight, not possessive, just there as though he’d reached for her sometime during the night without meaning to. His hand rested on her ribs, warm where it lay on top of her cotton nightgown.

She watched him sleep. His hair was rumpled as he slept on his side facing her. Adam Sullivan was relaxed at rest in a way that she’d never seen him when he was awake. Awake, he carried so much responsibility…for his brothers, this ranch, his parents legacy and his businesses. His shoulders were broad, and he carried the obligations with ease and as naturally as other men carried a coat, as if he’d forgotten he could ever set it down. In his deep sleep, she saw his strength, but she also saw something else.

Peace.

She envied it. No. That wasn’t right. She wanted to belong to it.

Her gaze drifted over his face, drawn to his strong jaw, the shadow of a beard darkening his skin. His lashes, long and black, rested against his skin, tan from being outdoors so much. He didn’t look like a man who had married a stranger in a courthouse because she had panicked for a moment in the grocery store and needed a shield.

He looked like a husband.

The thought twisted her chest, because to Adam, this marriage had been a solution to a problem. Nothing more. Even now, was their relationship more to him?

To her, the marriage had been her salvation.

She waited until she was sure he was still in deep sleep before easing out from under his arm. The air was cold enough to raise goosebumps on her arms and she reached for her robe on the chair next to her side of the bed.

Gazing back at Adam, the bed seems bigger without her in it, but Adam didn’t seem smaller. He appeared to be a man she could lean on.

She prayed she was right.

Adam whistled as he entered the kitchen.

Millie stood in front of the stove, wearing faded blue jeans and a pink t-shirt with a flowered apron over them.

He knew the apron to be one of his mother’s favorites. Millie looked beautiful. She was humming while she prepared breakfast for everyone.

Millie turned her head, lifting her cheek for Adam’s kiss, as though it was the most natural thing in the world to do.

But he was having none of it and grabbed her around the waist, turning her body so she faced him. Then he cupped her face and kissed her deeply.

Benjamin, Christopher, and Gabriel sat at the table, giving them wolf whistles and laughing.

She didn’t care about the brothers, but only about the man in front of her. Millie lifted her arms and wrapped them around Adam’s neck.

He pulled back just a little so he could whisper to her. “You’ll be burning the breakfast.”

“I’ll make oatmeal.” She pressed her lips against his again and vowed to have no regrets.