Page 69 of A King’s Obsession

My hand slowed on her back.

“When she got bad on drugs, it was always different men around,” she continued. “Some stayed for a while. Some I’d see once and never see again. I used to hate waking up and not knowing who was in the house. Or coming home and seeing some man I didn’t know sitting in our living room like he belonged there.”

I didn’t interrupt. I just let her talk.

Her fingers went still against my chest. “I hated it. And the older I got, the more I knew I never wanted my life looking like that. So I stayed away from all of it. I always said I was waiting until marriage.”

Marriage.

Well, shit.

I must’ve looked at her a little too long because she lifted her head again. Her brows pulled together as she searched my face. “What?”

“Nothing.” I tried to keep my expression straight, but apparently I wasn't doing a good enough job.

“That don’t look like nothing.” She continued studying me, clearly not buying my answer.

I laughed under my breath, wrapped my arm tighter around her and pulled her back down. “Go back to sleep, Jru.”

“You weird,” she muttered against my chest, shaking her head.

“Yet you laying all over me.” I glanced down at the leg she still had thrown across mine.

“I can move.” She started to lift herself off me, and I tightened my arm around her before she got anywhere.

“You better not.”

She laughed softly against my chest. “There you go being bossy again.”

“Go to sleep.” I settled my hand against her back, ending the conversation before she found something else to argue about.

She mumbled something I couldn’t make out, but a few minutes later her breathing evened back out.

Mine didn’t.

Marriage.

Shit, maybe Malachi was on to something.

I was getting old as fuck. Forty-one with no kids, and if one thing was for certain and two things were for sure, I wanted Jru. Every new thing I learned about her only made that shit worse.

Wife. Business partner. Shit, maybe the mother of my kids.

Yeah.

I could see all that shit.

Fuck I needed to wait for?

I knew what I wanted. And if this shit blew up in my face? Shit, it was always divorce.

I glanced down at the woman sleeping comfortably on top of me like she hadn’t just put a whole idea in my head.

A slow grin pulled at my mouth.

Yeah.

I was calling my attorney first thing in the morning.