This whole thing is just for show, right? Because I’m having a hard time remembering that. What I’d like to show is Weland. Show her a good time. With my mouth, my hands, my body.

She still has her hands wrapped around my neck, and as I brush the waistband of her jeans, she leans in, and the tips of her breasts hit my chest. Tips. As in nipples. Oh my god, her nipples are going to pierce through that plain black cotton sports bra. If it’s designed to be functional and not lovely, it’s not doing a very good job of that because I love the way her breasts look in it. Full and pert.

She angles into me, and I deepen the kiss, tasting her lips with renewed passion. I try and keep my dick away from her because I like to be a gentleman, but she bumps up against it, and the satisfied whimper she makes just about sends me straight out of my skin.

I love the way she’s breathing out of her nose and kissing me at the same time, so she doesn’t have to come up for air. I love the hot blasts of air I keep getting. It sounds like a funny thing, like a puffing and chuffing horse, but it’s not like that at all. There is nothing about Weland that isn’t absolutely wonderful and delicious, soft and curvy, hot as the fires of hellaciousness, and perfect.

She rocks into me, moaning against my lips when she rams the juncture of her thighs up against the bulge in my jeans. I see stars and give her a groan in return to rival a troll that just got stung with a pitchfork in the arse.

As if she remembers, oh right, we’re supposed to be putting on a show, and that means exaggerating, she reaches around and grabs my butt cheeks. Through my jeans. I gasp in shock, and she grins at me.

“I like this. You have a perfect rump.”

Then, she grabs my hands and puts them on hers. “So do you, Miss Bull,” I groan.

“That would be Mrs. Hopeschord. Don’t slip up now.”

Thinking about her as my wife is another thing that puts me off balance. I’m already rocky, but then Weland plants her hands on my chest and shoves me down onto the bed. She falls on top of me, straddling me and kissing me wildly.

“Give me that shirt, you sexy beast husband.” She balls her hands into my shirt and rucks it up my chest. I pick myself up just enough for her to slip it over my head. She licks her lips and rubs her palms over me, and it shouldn’t be hot, being touched like I’m a freshly baked monster cookie bar that’s just come out of the oven, but she’s slaying me here.

I’ll be her monster cookie bar, and she can lick me any day.

Weland makes the tiniest noise of appreciation in her throat and rocks her core against mine. She has to sit down to do it, and I let out a hiss that sounds like a punctured tire. It sounds like I’m dying. I might be dying. But it’s a great feeling. I’d like to die a little more if it’s like this. It might just happen because when she does it again, I can’t breathe.

I grasp her hips and rub her against me, jeans against jeans, my cock against her sweet, warm center that I can’t get at because offucking jeans against jeans. Regardless, it’s wonderful. My head falls back against the bed, and I do it again. She does it again.

“Should I stop?” she pants. “Or maybe less friction. Probably less friction. It’s just for show anyway.”

“It’s just for…oh god. Please don’t stop.”

She grinds against me again, and that’s it. No matter what I just said, I have to make her stop, or there is going to be an incident in the pants. This isn’t high school, and I’m supposed to have more control than this.

I grasp her hips and roll her over in one smooth motion. She has no danger of being flattened or crushed by my weight, but I don’t think she’s worried about that because she grasps my hairand crushes our lips together. I take my time kissing her sweet mouth, and then I use my need for oxygen as an excuse to come out of the kiss and trail kisses down her jaw, her neck, and her chest. When I get to the cotton sports bra, I don’t stop. I kiss over the smooth black fabric until I reach her nipple. Then, I suckle it into my mouth. The cotton tastes like her. Fresh and sweet. Mountain air, a crisp stream in spring, the first snow in winter, the salt of the ocean, my favorite dessert, and those tacos we had for dinner. All good things.

“Sterling,” she moans. And then she goes for her pants, tackling the button frantically and trying to peel them off.

I kiss my way down her belly. In case you were wondering, my favorite dessert happens to be cherry pie, but I bet she tastes sweeter. I’m going to taste her. Sweet heavens and stuffed olives,I’m going to taste her.

We both tug at her jeans, getting them off. She spreads her sweet legs for me, her lovely, creamy skin glowing in the light of the lamp she turned on. I have no idea what kind of shadows we’re casting, and even though that’s all this is, it’s time this show is over.

When I flick the light to turn it off, Weland freezes. She thinks the show is over, and not in the way I’m thinking.

There’s no way I’m going to stop now, not when she wants me to keep going. Not when she reaches for me hesitantly, like I’m going to toss the covers over her, stuff pillows between us, kiss her forehead, and tell her that was a great performance for my creepy cousins who need proof about our marriage being legit.Thanks for playing along, sweetheart. Goodnight.

No. Just no.

“We can still just go to bed,” I tell her. I don’t want to push her. I would never do anything to hurt her. Correction: I’ve already done enough to hurt her and muck with her life.

But Weland is strong. She’s surprising and amazing. She steals my breath and amazes me in every possible way. “This isn’t for them,” she says as her hands twine through my hair. “It’s for us. We wanted to figure out if this would work before they ever showed up.”

“But they necessitated the marriage in the first place.”

“Sometimes we find that the things that curse us also bind us together and become a blessing.”

“That sounds like my new favorite song lyric,” I say to her.

Of all the things I’ve said, that makes her freeze. “What’s it like living in Nashville, in the heart of everything? Actually, no. What’s it like the second you hear something you know is going to change the world and everyone who ever hears it from that moment on? What’s it like being the one to put that out there into the world? Music that people live by and swear by, music that people play at their weddings and funerals and every other stage of their lives?”