Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
“I guess congratulations are in order for you two as well. Welcome to the Bears family, Eliza.”
My wife grins at him, and then I notice more people are coming closer. I’m slapped on the back, my teammates welcome my wife, and they congratulate us. It’s entirely too easy, and no one says anything out of turn or even anything sly. At least, not to our faces. Something about that doesn’t sit well inside me, and the apprehension in my chest only grows. I feel like she knows, because my wife doesn’t let go of my hand, nor does she leave my side.
I’m thankful for that, more than I could ever express to her.
Once we’re alone, standing to the side, she murmurs, “It’s going well.”
I draw circles on her lower back with my thumb. We’re still a part of the party but not in the middle of it, as everyone gushes over Maverick and Nora. I didn’t want to steal their thunder. It’s their party, not ours.
I look down at her and shrug. “I wish they’d get on with it, so we can head out.”
She gives me a look. “Aren’t you having fun?”
“I don’t trust anyone here,” I say honestly, my stomach in a knot. “I don’t want anyone to say anything to hurt you.”
She squeezes my hand, and I glance down at her. “Nothing anyone says about you matters, Coleson. I’ve told you that.”
I swallow, my heart aching in my chest. I don’t even know what to say, so I don’t say anything. Instead, I lean down to take her bottom lip between mine. She tastes of punch and frosting and all things…Eliza. God, I adore her name. I suck on her lip, releasing it to run my tongue over the sting I left behind before I kiss her lips. I press my nose to hers and then meet her gaze. Her eyes are full of heat and desire, only for me. I’m lost in her eyes, and against her lips, I whisper, “I want to take you to the nearest private spot and devour you in all the ways I’ve thought of since our first time, Wife.”
Her lips part, and her cheeks flush. “There is more than one way you’ve thought of taking me?” she teases, and my lips curve.
“At least a dozen.”
She squeezes my hand and then presses her other hand into my chest, clutching my shirt. She leans in, her lips right there for the taking as she whispers back, “Is one of them your cock deep in my mouth?”
Her question has me panting against her lips. “That’s number one.”
Her lips tip up, her eyes devious as she whispers again, “Good, it’s number one on mine. Now, greet our new visitors.”
I hold back from saying fuck them to see Andrews’s girlfriend coming toward us, with Elliot McDavid not far behind her. I don’t know if my wife’s sister is heading for us, but Payton’s eyes are homed in on my wife and me, and she looks like she’s on a mission.
Yippee.
Before I can warn my wife who she is, Payton stops before us, her arms crossed over her chest. I meet her gaze as her blond hair flows in the wind. She’s a beautiful girl, Andrews is a lucky dude, but she has nothing on my wife. “Eliza, this is my linemate Kai Andrews’s girlfriend, Payton. Payton, this is my wife, Eliza.”
I watch as Payton looks down at my wife and then up to me. “So, it’s true. You got married?”
I go to answer, but my wife does it first. “Yes. Which is why he said, ‘my wife, Eliza.’ Hi, I’m the wife.”
She waves, and fuck if I don’t like the little jut of her chin. I want to bite it. I don’t, though, ’cause that would be weird. Payton meets her gaze. “Like truly married?”
My wife’s eyes narrow as she looks up at Payton. “Yes. Why are you questioning that?”
“Well, for one, Katz doesn’t know how to be with one woman,” she says, looking back to me, and boy do I want to call her out. It wouldn’t help my case to say how she was trying to sleep with me at the same party I was caught in the closet with her friend at. I haven’t said a word since she was very drunk and I don’t believe she truly wanted me. But now, I wonder. Not that it matters. But her snippiness is catching me off guard, and I don’t like it one bit.
“He is now,” Eliza says, snaking her arm around my waist and cuddling into my side.
Payton tsks. “You couldn’t get her a ring?”
Payton lifts Eliza’s bare left hand, and my stomach drops. Why haven’t I gotten her a ring? I haven’t even thought of it, but now, fuck, I wish I had. Before Payton can look at my wife’s bare hand, Eliza pulls it away. “They’re being designed, not that it’s any of your business. But since we got married quickly, we didn’t need rings to establish this marriage. We just needed each other. Right, babe?”