Page 6 of Solitary Man

She was smaller than I thought she would be.

She also liked to talk. A lot. Something I kind of already knew from the two phone calls we’d managed. Which was a good thing, I guess, since I didn’t.

Her eyes were currently closed. They’d been closed nearly the whole flight, but the few times when she’d opened them, they’d sucked me right in, like she’d reached inside me and taken my gut in her dainty fist. That’s how I felt when I looked at her. I thought that might be a good thing.

“You can open your eyes,” I said.

She let out a long breath, her shoulders drooping, which caused her breasts to bounce and the unrelenting ache in my stomach, the throbbing of my groin, to increase. I ignored it. Which wasn’t as easy as it usually was. Probably because I wasn’t just looking at a photo of Riley this time; I was looking at the real thing—all soft and round and warm. She was so warm.

When she’d hugged me, when she’d lifted up to kiss me, the heat of her body and the way her curves pressed into me was better than anything I could have imagined. And I’d imagined a lot. She wasn’t an image in my fantasies anymore. She was real. And she was mine.

My gut did that gripping thing again. Yeah, I ached from wanting her to touch me again. I hurt so badly from it. And I wanted her to keep touching me. Riley—my wife.

Christ, she was beautiful. The most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Her soft, wavy blond hair reached just past her shoulders, and when she closed her mouth, her lips were like a plump rosebud. Her eyes were wide and the softest, loveliest brown, and her nose was a cute little button.

She undid her seatbelt, and her hands were shaking.

Riley had held herself rigid during the flight. It was obvious she didn’t like flying, she’d told me that, but she hadn’t complained. Instead, she’d grabbed my arm; she’d clung to me. I’d liked that. A lot. Did that make me an asshole? Probably. Definitely desperate and pathetic.

But Riley was everything I’d hoped for. More.

And I’d thought about it a lot over the last ten years, what it would be like to have a woman out here with me. Someone to take care of me, like my mother had taken care of my father. Someone to cook for me, keep the house. A warm body to hold at night.

My gaze moved over her face again, lingering on her mouth, and I had to clear my throat when I remembered her little tongue sliding against my lip. I’d spent the whole flight thinking about her mouth, that kiss. And though it had just been a short one, not the kind I fantasized about, it had been the best thing that had ever happened to me. I wanted to kiss her again. I wanted to kiss her all the time.

I wanted to do a lot more than that.

She’s your wife. You can kiss her whenever you want.

And I wanted. I wanted, badly.

“Cash?”

I jolted at my name on her lips, then heat hit my face. I’d been staring at her mouth.

She reached out, her hand on my forearm again, and those same zaps of electricity shot through me. I had to stop myself from leaning closer, from begging her to keep touching me. To never let me go.

Riley bit her lip, her brows lowering. “Are you…okay? I mean, you are happy, right? Happy that I’m here?”

My face grew hotter. I wasn’t great with words. This was the longest time I’d spent alone with a woman who wasn’t my mother. I didn’t know what I was doing. Was I happy she was here? Happy didn’t come close. But I was also out of my depth, aching for my sweet little wife and scared out of my mind that I’d mess everything up.

Talk, Cash.

“Yep.”

Idiot.

That wasn’t enough. But I didn’t know what to say. I shoved my door open and grabbed her bags down, then rounded the plane and opened her door for her. I reached up, and she gripped my shoulders instantly as I caught her around the waist and lifted her down. I had to bite back a groan as her soft, full breasts pressed against my chest, her hips brushing mine as she slid down the front of me.

I grunted from the contact, then I blushed hotter. There was no way she didn’t feel how stiff I was behind my zipper.

I winced and quickly put her on her feet, snatched up her bags again, and headed for the house. My nerves grew again as I led her up the front steps. I’d built this place just for me. My family home was on the other side of our property. I hadn’t wanted to live there after my parents died—too many memories. I’d scattered their ashes there right after I lost them, and now the old place had been pretty much taken over by nature.

The house had been built by my great-grandparents and hadn’t been in the best of shape when I was a kid. My dad and I had planned to build a new house together. We never got that chance.

The last time I saw it, a tree had taken out one wall and a family of raccoons had moved in.

My father would have liked that, giving that piece of our land back to nature.