Page 80 of Desperate Desires

There were candles and flowers, a chilled seafood tower, bowls of thick crab and shrimp stew, and a dry white wine.

I felt like a fumbling oaf. She was just so, so mine. And just like that, my nerves settled.

“You eat seafood, right?” I asked, wanting to slap myself for sounding like a moron.

“It’s my favorite,” she said, smiling even brighter.

So gorgeous.

The delicate fabric clung to her satiny skin, and I wondered which lotion she’d used to make it glitter like that beneath the stars and beside the firelight.

I served her first, stilling her hands when she moved to do so herself.

“I got it,” I whispered.

I felt this need, this compulsion to provide for her. It was so strong and sudden. So deeply ingrained in me, it was like an ancient tattoo pounding a rhythm inside my heart.

“This is so good. I mean it, Ono. Fantastic.”

“Glad you like dinner,” I said, pleased.

“No, I mean, yeah, I like dinner. But I was talking about this whole thing. Marrying you. Coming here. Spending days in bed and now dressing up. This is like a dream, but I don’t understand how it happened or why you are doing all this,” she said, laughing lightly as she wiped her hands on a linen napkin.

We’d been eating for a while, talking about everything and nothing. It was just so easy to be with her.

It felt so right, but I’d been lying about the reason behind my manipulations, and that didn’t sit well with me.

The threats to her safety were real. But she didn’t know that.

Because I never told her about the attacks on my business, the threats that had been made, the retaliations on my part, or that all this shit had touched her now, too.

Whoever was after me had looked into my personal life. Somehow, they found my connection to Michelle.

Now she was a target. And that really made me fucking mad.

Anger filled me. Pure rage at the thought of anything happening to her.

They’d already vandalized her apartment, her Land Rover, and for all I knew, they’d been trying to find her person.

Yeah, I had to tell her for her own safety. I knew that.

But did it have to be now?

Oh, I would be a warrior for her.

I would put myself in harm’s way. Stop a bullet with my own body for her. There was nothing I wouldn’t do, or give, or sacrifice to keep her whole.

Just let me have tonight first.

I whispered that thought on repeat inside my mind like a secret prayer. A desperate plea to whatever deity might be listening in.

“Because you deserve it, Michelle. You deserve everything good.”

“Ha. That's not an answer. Besides, how do you know what I deserve? I could be a really bad person, Ono. You don’t really know me.”

“That’s not true. I don’t think anybody knows you like I do, Wife,” I growled.

I licked my lips, following the pulse beating at the base of her neck. She was turned on, my sweet little wife.

---