Page 96 of With Spite

She shrugged. “It is my birthday…”

My fingers dug into her hips, and my eyes bored holes into hers, as I said, “You’re mine.”

Her breath whistled into her lungs.

“You’ve been mine for a lot longer than you realize,” I continued. “You’ve been my obsession since the first time I laid eyes on you in the middle of one of the worst times of my life.” My hands rose to cup her cheeks. “I’ve wanted you every single second since.”

Her eyes blinked. “W-what do you mean?” she asked. “How long? This seems longer than I think.”

“Since before we officially met,” I said. “Since before you were Bernice Lee Daugherty.”

Her eyes went wide with fear for a long second, and I knew the instant the thought flitted into her head.

“I’m not your serial killer.” I chuckled. “I was deployed in Iraq the first time that I saw you on the news. You were trying to get your brother another appeal. You were telling everyone about your life, and I’d just been shot.”

She gasped. “Shot?”

“In the leg,” I said. “Friendly fire, unfortunately. Training gone wrong. One of the officers did it. They were blaming it on me.”

Her mouth fell open, and anger washed over her features.

“I took the blame, then took a discharge because I didn’t want to be in a military that tried to cover up something like that,” I said. “But while I was recovering, you came on the screen and told everyone about you. You and your brother’s story. And I realized that my life wasn’t that bad. At least I still had my life. At least I still had my family—minus my mother. But you? You were all alone. And I didn’t like that you were alone.”

Her shoulders loosened. “Are you saying that you stalked me?”

I let my hands drop from her face. “I might have stalked you. A little bit.”

She shook her head, amusement filling her features. “You’re funny.”

“I’m obsessed,” I said. “With you. With everything that you do. The way you part your hair. The way you walk. The way you smile. The way you glare. If you do it, I’m obsessed with it.”

“So what you’re telling me is that I’ve been in a five-year relationship and I didn’t even know it.” She laughed.

“If that’s the way you want to look at it,” I admitted. “So, yes. I want to ‘go steady’ with you. I want to wake up to you in my bed every morning. I want to come home to have dinner with you. I want to binge-watch a C-Drama with you every weekend. I want to sneak in sex on my lunch break. I want to meet you at your job after work so you don’t have to walk home alone. If that’s going steady, I want that.”

She threw herself into my arms and whispered directly into my ear, “Then you will have it.”

Twenty-Two

My lust for shenanigans is eternal.

—Coffee cup

Hux

“Would you mind?” she begged.

“Would I mind what?” I teased, trailing my lips down her spine.

“Giving me my orgasm,” she keened, pushing her butt up against me. “I’m almost late. I have to meet with everyone early, and you’re teasing me.”

“Teasing, or loving?” I nipped at her ass. “Because it feels like loving you.”

“Then make love to me,” she ground out, pressing backward into me again. “You’re killing me.”

I did.

I made love to her until we were both panting.