Page 35 of The Amendment

Like two lovestruck teens, we couldn’t seem to keep our hands off of each other.

But discovering that she knew the truth about me had changed everything. For a while, we were in a sort of limbo. Trying to decide where we fit. Now, it seemed we were more or less back to our normal selves.

Was this just who we were? Maybe the excitement of what we’d done, the adrenaline of our secrets had caused a slight improvement for a while, but that could only hold out for so long.

I sucked in my gut, fussing with my hair. Maybe she wasn’t attracted to me anymore. I knew I was still attracted to her.

When I found out she knew the truth about who I was, I thought she’d want to leave me. But she hadn’t. She’d stayed and that had landed us…here.

In this…this purgatory of not knowing what was going to happen, not understanding why neither of us had bolted, but being unable to leave. It was worse, somehow.

The waiting.

The wondering.

Worse than the drab existence before.

No matter how hard she tried to convince me she was here to stay, I couldn’t believe it. I was waiting for it to all fall apart again.

That was what I deserved.

Or, at least, not this. I didn’t deserve to feel so normal.

I didn’t deserve her.

“You ready?”

Dylan pushed open the door slightly and I looked away from the mirror, hopeful he hadn’t seen how pathetic I was—checking myself out in the mirror as if I were a teenage girl.

“Yep. Yeah.”

I followed him out of the room, where they were all waiting.

At first sight of my wife, my throat went dry.

Ainsley’s red bikini practically made her porcelain skin glow. My eyes lingered on the deep valley between her breasts, her nipples poking through the material. The ponytail atop her head had me picturing the times I’d tugged at it from behind her, her moaning my name—

I let out a heavy breath, trying to pull myself together.

Jesus Christ.

How long had it been since we’d—

“Okay, let’s go,” Maisy whined, breaking my trance. “What are we waiting for?”

I was sweating.

God, I was sweating.

Mostly from the heat of the house—which was surely the cause of my sudden insanity—but at least partially from my unexpected, insatiable urge to keep my wife home with me.

To take her into the bedroom and—

“What if you three go ahead and go down, and let your mom and me catch up with you in just a few minutes?”

A few minutes was all I needed.

“Why?” they all asked at once.

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