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“I suppose…” I sip my tea, then shrug. “I owed you for an unsolicited kiss, though, didn’t I?”
“So much for you being a gentleman.” “I never said I was a gentleman.” She rolls her eyes. “What do you call a man who always opens my car door and insists on sleeping in a tent while I take over his house?”
“You actually do owe me an apology,” she says. I pause with my mug halfway to my mouth, not sure if she’s still teasing or not. “What for?” She steals a sip of her tea and smiles to herself. “For making it such a good kiss.”
Oh fuck. “You wear glasses?” I ask hoarsely.
Barely swallowing an embarrassing moan of want, I tug my hat tighter on my head, when what I really want to do is drag it over my face and hide the blush heating my cheeks.
My entirely platonic (meaning totally off-limits) husband, went from dangerously hot to bespectacled sex on legs.
I see Axel’s staring at my hand. I follow his gaze. And then I blush again. I’m still wearing my ring. My gaze snaps to his hand, and my stomach does a weird flip-flop. He’s still wearing his ring.
He throws a glance my way, the glasses making his side-eye doubly hot. Rude, glasses. Very rude.
“You’re at Stanford Law,” he says evenly, “and you don’t know the meaning of the word surprise? Admission standards are slipping.”
“I was answering your question,” he says. Then, after a beat, “And maybe teasing you a little.” “Very husbandly.”
“Why’d you change the subject?” “The polite thing to do would be to roll with said change in subject.” “Not really my thing,” he says.
He wrinkles his nose. Holy shit, he’s cute when he wrinkles his nose.
I look up at him as he looks down at me. And I remember that kiss from the ceremony a little too well. The scientist in me wants to test kissing Axel again and again and again. To see if it was an outlier or if his every kiss really will make me weak-kneed.
But even if it does, so what? What am I going to do, make a habit of kissing the man I married until I go home?
I stare at him, tousled dark hair and lashes, the long line of his nose, the shadowy stubble that I can’t stop imagining scraping against my thighs.
what I can paint right now isn’t for an audience.” “What do you mean?”
“I’ve never painted a sunrise or a sunset because…I’m not sure I can do them justice. Both times of day, the light changes so quickly, it’s absurdly difficult. I have this fear that I won’t be able to get it right, and it’ll ruin it for me, this thing I love, that’s so beautiful it makes something in me—” He sets a hand over his heart and rubs. “Ache.”
I asked Axel about painting, and I got an answer about him.
“The deeper you love, the deeper the risk of disappointment, and hurt, and loss. The more you care, the more pain you might face. And yet, I hope you won’t always let that stop you,” I tell him.
“Fear of failure, fear of not living up to these standards you hold yourself to, which sound pretty damn high. Because…well, have you ever considered that the depth of feeling for the subject is the reason you’re the very best person to paint it?”
“Do you…” Axel swallows roughly. His eyes darken, fixed on my mouth. “Do I…?”
“You’ll never learn your lesson.” “And what’s that?” “That I’m not the kind of person you count on to catch you.”
He sighs wearily. “I had to marry a lawyer.” “Almost-lawyer,” I remind him. “I’m just naturally good at arguing. A Sullivan family trait.”
While my husband’s off-limits to my hands, tell that to my eyeballs. They are shamelessly ogling the back half of him.
“You’re sure it’s a skunk?” I ask, my voice nasal. “No,” Axel says, approaching his tent. “I think a little flower fairy danced through here and sprinkled her petal perfume.”
“It’s in my tent.” My eyes widen. “In your tent?”
“Those fuckers are terrifying,” he says. “Are skunks…violent?”
I turn, watching Axel open a cabinet above the refrigerator and pull out a bottle. “What is that?” “It’s coping.” He yanks the cork from the bottle with his teeth, spits it out, then pours a hefty serving into a small Mason jar. “Want some?” he asks.
“Will Harry be all right?” I ask. He frowns. “Who the hell is Harry?” “The dog,” I tell him as I shrug off my backpack and plop onto the bed. “That dog does not have a name.” “He does as of yesterday,”
“Absolutely not,” he says. “Why not?” “When you’re gone, he’ll have expectations of me.” “Would that be the worst thing?” I ask. “Yes.”
“I’ve got a pair of pajama shorts those long legs of yours would look great in.”
“Stop tempting me with promises of sleep, Margaret.” I wallop him with a pillow, making him grunt.
“My first name is something you take to your grave, Axel Bergman. I rue the day I had to share a marriage license with you.”
I realize I’m going to miss this sliver of time when he treated me like I wasn’t just another peripheral person in his life.
A muscle in Axel’s jaw tics as he takes another sip of whiskey. “That guy’s overrated.”
!!!!!!!
It feels good to be accepted, to be not only told but shown that I’m safe to be not just smiley Rooney or happy Rooney, but all-of-me Rooney. Even the one who’s really fucking sick sometimes.
Eyes on my mouth, Axel bends closer, fingers slipping through my hair. I lean closer, too, our mouths a whisper away. But I stop myself, not wanting to repeat history.
“May I kiss you?” I ask. His eyes darken, fixed on my mouth. “I was going to ask the same thing.”
“You promised, if another kiss was necessary, you were going to make it terrible.” Air leaves him unsteadily, as he leans closer. “I’m not going to keep that promise.”
And that’s when he tugs me close and his mouth finds mine, warm and tender and so perfect, air catches in my throat. It’s the kind of kiss I never really thought I’d experience. The kind that builds, warm and deep inside me, then spills and fills every corner of my body.
“Terrible?” he asks, breathing harshly. I sink my fingers into his shirt and tug him closer. “Awful. You should try again.”
His mouth brushes mine again, harder this time, more insistent, deep, long kisses as his hand wraps around my waist.
“We shouldn’t do this,” he says. “Probably not,” I agree, sliding my hand over his ribs, feeling the solidity of his body, warm and strong beside me. “But it is our wedding day. I say we give ourselves a pass.”
He groans when I bite his bottom lip. “Just tonight.” “Just tonight,” I whisper as he yanks me cl...
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Oh, this is dangerous. Because now I want more.
I want tongue and teeth. I want his hands clutching my waist, rocking me against him. I want him filling my hands, filling me, his weight pressing me into the mattress, the headboard knocking against the wall in rhythm with our bodies.
“Why’d you stop?” I whisper, far too horny to care about my pride.
Pushing up onto an elbow, I drag the paper closer. A drawing. A dog that looks just like Harry the greyhound, with a speech bubble.
The skunk’s gone. I know we planned on cuddles, but if you know what’s good for you, keep your distance, seeing as I’m the one who scared him off.
11 AXEL Playlist: “Sunflower, Vol. 6,” Harry Styles
