Page 137 of Wife Number One

He groaned. “I’m getting us some popcorn to go, and then I’ll meet you outside the restrooms.” His gaze went lusty. “Go come for me. And when I get you home, be prepared to come all night.”

I’d never run for a bathroom so quickly in my entire life.

An attendant at the auditorium door pulled on the handle at the same time, opening up for people waiting. I fought against the surge of bodies all excited to get to their seats while all I could think about doing was being alone so I could ease the ache inside me that was threatening to engulf me whole.

I pushed on the door to the bathroom, finding two women touching up their makeup in the mirrors and the rest of the bathroom blissfully empty.

I headed for the stalls, my core throbbing with need from Hawk’s embrace and the dirty words I couldn’t stop thinking about.

The door opened again behind me, and one of the women shouted, “Hey! This is the ladies’ room!”

I spun on my heel, smile wide, knowing it was Hawk who’d followed me. I didn’t even care what these women thought. I just wanted him to sweep me into his arms, put his mouth on mine, and walk me backward into a stall so I could have his erection inside me.

I froze at the sight of the man who stood in the bathroom, his blue-gray eyes locked on mine.

Like he had every right to be there.

Like he had every right to stare at me.

Like he had every right to be alive.

A cry fell from my lips. A gasp from somewhere deep inside me that had longed to see this man for every day of the last five years.

“You can’t be in here!” the woman said again, her gaze bouncing between the two of us.

I had no words to say. Shock held me in its grip.

All I could do was stare at Hayden.

He moved before I could. He took two steps toward me, grabbing my wrist, and dragging me into the nearest stall, locking the door behind him.

“Damn,” one of the women said from the sinks. “I wish my man did that to me once in a while.”

Tears pricked the backs of my eyes. The women outside and anyone new coming and going disappeared in the roaring of blood in my ears.

My throat clogged with emotion, and I trembled from head to toe, shock refusing to let go of me.

Caleb had shot him. Left him on the side of the road to die.

He was alive.

His gaze searched mine. “I only have a minute. I know Hawk is out there.”

I blinked. Hawk. I was in here… I was supposed to be doing…

Now I was here, with the man who’d haunted my dreams for what felt like a lifetime.

The man I couldn’t forget.

The man everyone said I should hate, and yet even when I thought he was dead I never could.

Something pulsed in the air between us. A crackling of chemistry that had always been there. That connected us every time we were together.

“You’re not dead,” I whispered, hands hovering over his chest, not daring to touch him in case this was a dream and he was nothing more than a figment of my imagination.

“Hawk didn’t tell you then?” he whispered back, that familiar grumble of his voice seeping through my skin, burying itself inside me until I couldn’t breathe. “I saw him the other day, with Hayley Jade…Kara, she’s so big.”

Nobody had told me. Nobody had said a word.

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