Page 68 of My Husband Problem

Anyreason other than that I’m a disappointment in the bedroom.

But he didn’t divorce me for those other reasons.

So now we’re still married, and now he’s here, and if I can’t stop tingling every single time the man breathes in my direction, I might have to tell him the most personal, vulnerable secret of my life.

Declan grips the back of my barstool and pulls it away from the table, making it clear that Iamleaving now.

Crap, that’s kind of hot. Now if he threw me over his shoulder…

“Don’t make me throw you over my shoulder,” he says in my ear. “I’ll do it. It will make it onto the website. Win-win from where I’m standing. But you might not like the spectacle.”

The thing is, I visibly shiver. In a good way. In an I’ll-very-much-like-it way. And he notices. I know he does.

Crap, again.

“Oh, Nora already knows all of this,” Alex says, responding to my suggestion that I need to stay.

“Excellent,” Declan says as his hands go to my waist and he lifts me off the stool and sets me on the floor.

It’s not over his shoulder, but my pussy still flutters.

Yeah, he definitely made a note of the whole me liking him taking charge thing.

That is terrible.

And potentially excellent.

In a very terrible way.

“I promise not to be a hindrance at practice,” Declan tells the table.

He keeps one hand resting on the dip of my waist, and I have an equal urge to press closer to his body and to pull away and put as much distance between us as possible. Like a few blocks. Or a few thousand miles. Again.

“Oh man, I didn’t think that,” Beckett rushes to reassure him. “I just want to be sure that we have a solid idea. Like I don’t know how to secure the knights to the pucks and?—”

“Man, read the room,” Hudson says. “The guy’s been apart from his wife for a while. Now he wants to go home…” He trails off.

Hudson's meaning hits Beckett immediately, and he turns wide eyes to us. “Oh yeah, of course. You guys should totally go home. Together. Alone. Like right now. Sorry. That was reallystupid of me. Of course, you want to be alone. Definitely. I’m surprised you were here with us in the first place.”

Declan gives my waist a squeeze, and I can practically hear him saying,Me too. “You’re all very important to Astrid,” he tells the group. “We’ll always make time for what matters to the team.”

Well, dammit. I think he means that, and it makes me want to squeeze him back. And not in the hands-around-his-throat way.

We finally manage to say goodbye to everyone, which takes a few minutes as we make our way through the restaurant. Especially when Declan stops at the front counter to settle the bill. For everyone. And I mean every single table in the restaurant.

Typically, people pay their bills at Bruce’s by simply depositing cash and checks for the right amount next to the register. Bruce pauses periodically throughout his day to tuck the money into the register, but he doesn’t worry about whether the amounts are correct, and he doesn’t worry about someone skipping out on paying or other people pilfering from the stack of money.

Declan covering everyone’s tabs, however, means Bruce has to come out from the kitchen.

“I don’t know what each of the totals are,” he tells Declan as if confused by the question.

“Can you give me an estimate?” Declan asks.

Bruce pauses, frowning as if trying to add things in his head. Then he shakes his head. “Not really.”

Declan waves that away, reaches into his pocket for his wallet, and pulls out three thousand dollars in cash. “Will this cover everything for tonight?”

Bruce looks at him like he’s lost his mind. “The most expensive thing on my menu is fifteen bucks.”