Marriage For One

by Maise, Ella

  “I think you’ve had enough of that,” I whispered against her lips.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever have enough of that.” She let me breathe in and out in silence for a moment as I caught my breath. “I’m going to count the days till you can take me, Jack.”

  My countdown had already started.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Rose

  It had been two months and twenty-five days since my surgery, and it was a Friday.

  So, we had finally reached the end of three months. Some days I’d thought we’d never get to see the day, and I’d told Jack exactly that. I’d never in my life told another guy I wanted to have sex with them as much as I’d told Jack. In the beginning, I had thought my constant pressure was affecting him and he’d soon fold, but nope. Jack was nothing if not in control of his emotions.

  He had slept right next to me every night without me having to ask for it again. If I went to bed earlier than him, he always found his way into my bed, but he hadn’t touched me the way I was dying for him to touch me again. He said no and nothing else.

  I came back down to earth when Sally snapped her fingers in front of my face.

  “Are you here?”

  “Yes. Yes, sorry. I just got distracted. What were you saying about Owen again?”

  Owen was currently in the kitchen so there was no way for him to hear us, but Sally still leaned in closer. “I think he likes me.”

  “I thought he wasn’t talking to you.”

  “Technically he isn’t.”

  I laughed. “Your logic scares me sometimes.”

  A couple walked in hand in hand so we had to break up our little gossip bubble. Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure if it had been a good idea to give the go-ahead to Sally about Owen. I kinda felt sorry for him.

  As I got the orders of the newcomers and cut two pieces of apple pie for them, Sally prepared one cappuccino and one macchiato. They picked up their orders and sat down at the last table available in the left part of the coffee shop.

  “I’m thinking of getting two or three more tables. Most days we barely have any space left, and I think we can easily squeeze in three more—one more on this side, maybe even two, and another two on the other side.”

  Sally leaned her elbows on the counter, humming. “I think you’re right. Ever since that blogger posted about us on Instagram, we’ve started getting even more customers, and even if they don’t come in, they keep taking photos outside the front door.”

  Right then the bell chimed and our heads turned that way.

  “Jack!” I called out, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, and he paused in the doorway. Half of the customers who didn’t have their earbuds in turned to look at me.

  Ignoring Sally’s snort and chuckle, I gave the customers an apologetic smile and rushed to Jack’s side as he closed the door and met me halfway. I was half running, half trying to appear like I wasn’t running at all, and he was just walking, in no hurry.

  “What’s going on?” he asked with an arched eyebrow and a suspicious look around the coffee shop. Even that look and that lifted brow turned me on. To be honest, lately, everything Jack did turned me on. He’d give me a look, a strong look that said he didn’t find me amusing at all, and I’d become a puddle on the ground. It was becoming a thing for me.

  “Come, come.” I reached for his hand and when he linked our fingers together, my smile turned up a notch, making me look like an idiot. I didn’t mind it at all.

  “Hello, Sally,” Jack said as I took him behind the counter.

  Still with that knowing grin on her face, Sally waved at him. She thought I’d scored with Jack. I thought so too.

  “He’s going to steal me for a few minutes,” I told Sally then pulled him to the back.

  “Who said I wanted to steal you?” Jack murmured into my ear, amused. I barely managed to stop a shiver.

  “I’m saying it because you should want to steal me—all the time, regularly. Just a friendly reminder from a wife to a husband.”

  Owen looked up from the paper he was scribbling on and straightened up. “Hey, man.”

  Jack nodded and they formally shook hands. For some reason, he hadn’t warmed up to Owen yet.

  I leaned against Jack’s arm, our hands still tightly clasped. “Can he have a minute alone with me, Owen? I told him a million times that it’s not appropriate in the coffee shop, but he just looks at me…” I peered up at Jack and looked at his frowny face with a happy heart. “Just like that. You see that frown? So yeah, I can’t resist him when he is glowering at me. Plus, Sally might need help if someone comes in.”

  Owen didn’t even blink at my statement. “Yeah, sure.” He picked up the paper he was working on—another list.

  “Why don’t you like Owen?” I asked once he was out of earshot.

  “Who said I didn’t like him?”

  “I do. You barely say a word to him.”

  “He gets to spend entire days with you in here.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t,” he grumbled, leaning down, his mouth entirely too close to mine.

  “Jack?” I whispered, my nose bumping his.

  “Hmm.”

  “That might be the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me. Let’s go crazy in the back—we have to after that comment.”

  He straightened up, taking that beautiful mouth away and giving me a blank look. “No.”

  I pulled Jack forward and stopped with my back against the island.

  “At least give me a lift up, or is that too much touching for you?”

  His lips twitching, he shook his head. “Always ordering me around,” he murmured as he put his hands around my waist. I had instant goose bumps when he lifted me up on the island, and I pulled him between my legs.

  My hands grabbing the lapels of his jacket, I pulled him closer and pressed my forehead against his. “Hi. How are you? I missed you.”

  His hands squeezed my waist once, moving down to my hips, sliding me an inch or two forward. “You saw me a few hours ago when I dropped you off this morning.”

  “I know. It’s been ages.” He gave me that precious smile I couldn’t get enough of and my own lips mirrored his. “And you’re supposed to say you missed me too. That’s what husbands say.”

  He hummed, and the warm sound traveled all over my body. “Is that what I’m supposed to say?” His hand made its way down my thigh and he unwrapped my leg from his waist, which I hadn’t even realized I had placed there…kind of. His face softened and he cupped my cheek. “You look a little tired.”

  I scooted forward a bit to make up for the unwrapping. I wanted to be as close as possible. “You know how much I love it when you compliment me on how good I look. Tell me more.”

  He pulled back and gave me a pointed look that pretty much said he wasn’t having it.

  I hauled him back. “I’m fine. I promise I sit down before I get dizzy, and I’m sitting right now too. I haven’t baked a thing either. Would you like to know what else good husbands do?”

  “Good husbands,” he mumbled, his hands moving up and down on my back. I did my best not to squirm.

  “They kiss their wives when they see them.”

  “They do?”

  “Yeah. I’m told it’s a tradition.”

  He licked his lips, and because I was trying to fuse myself to him, his tongue touched my lips too. Letting go of his jacket before I could wrinkle it too much, I wrapped my arms around his neck, already having trouble remembering how to breathe like a normal person.

  “Good thing I’m not your real husband then,” Jack said.

  My mouth dropped open and I let go of him, feigning shock. “Jack Hawthorne, did you just make a joke?”

  “Smartass,” he muttered with a smile, his eyes dancing. It seemed I was making him happy. Every time he smiled it loosened something in me.

  “You may kiss me now,” I whispered, ready for it, desperate and impatient for it, and then he finally did so. I quickly wra
pped my arms back around him again and gladly returned his kiss. Unfortunately, he put a stop to it in no time.

  “Hello, my beautiful wife,” he whispered, and I felt a little better since he was out of breath too. It wasn’t just me who was affected.

  I heard the bell chime and more chatter trickled into our private little bubble. We weren’t alone, though I kept forgetting that when he was around.

  “That’s slightly better,” I commented, my hands on his shoulders.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  “I’m buying new tables,” I announced instead of responding to his question.

  He frowned. “What?”

  “New tables—we need them. We’re always full and we have the space too, so I’m buying new tables.” I smiled widely. “Yay!”

  “That’s good, baby, but—”

  That word, that baby—hearing it for the first time from his lips caused a full body shiver. It was something about his voice that just added to the endearment. I’d never even considered that I would love to be called baby, but this…this specific one coming from this specific guy, it stopped me in my tracks. I could’ve spent the rest of my life just being called baby by Jack Hawthorne.

  “Hmmm,” I moaned in the hopes of distracting him. I leaned in and nuzzled his nose with my own, whispering against his lips, “Should I even let you know how much I love your voice? Or the way my name sounds when it comes from your lips?” I gently kissed his top lip then his lower lip, and then I went in for a deeper kiss, searching for his tongue. “That baby just about killed me, Jack.”

  “You’re trying to distract me,” he muttered, and I smiled because it was exactly what I was doing and it was working perfectly. I tilted my head to the side and took a big breath before going in again.

  No one had ever kissed me like Jack Hawthorne did, and I didn’t think I ever wanted to find out if there was anyone else out there who could.

  “Why would I do that?” I whispered, my lips still touching his. I bit my lip. “Don’t get angry, I’m not saying we should act on it, but I really want you, Jack. Just so you know.”

  I felt his smile against my mouth and then his warm chuckle. The sound made my heart sigh in happiness.

  “Really? I had no idea. You only say and text it every day, a couple times a day.”

  “And you never say it, or text it, or do it.”

  “Because I can control myself.”

  I kissed him again, taking it slow, coaxing him. “You’re very good at that.”

  He smiled into our kiss, nipping at my lips.

  I leaned forward until my lips were right next to his ear. “But I want to hear you say you want me. Tell me you want me, Jack. At least give me that much.”

  I drew back and looked into his eyes. I could see the sparkle in his beautiful deep blues.

  “You think I don’t want you?”

  Keeping my eyes on his, I slowly shrugged. His jaw clenched and he looked toward the doorway where I could hear Sally steaming milk and Owen talking to a customer. I didn’t care about where we were, not really, not when I was with Jack. Whenever he was around me, I felt like I was on top of the world, and the fact that he always brushed me off because he was genuinely worried about my health only intensified my need for him. I didn’t think he was indifferent at all, but I liked pushing him. I especially liked watching his eyes flare up every time I told him I wanted him.

  “You make me forget my name when you kiss me,” he whispered into my ear. “Wanting you is all I’ve been doing, and when I finally fuck you like I’ve wanted to—”

  Every time he said fuck with that rough voice of his, my eyes fluttered closed on their own. Before I could learn what was going to happen when I was finally fucked by my husband, Sally walked in on us.

  “Rose, do you think you could—oh, I’m sorry. Sorry. Ah, I’ll wait out here.”

  I rested my head on Jack’s shoulder and groaned.

  He cleared his throat and tilted my chin up. “We need to be at the hospital in an hour.”

  “But I thought today—”

  He arched an eyebrow. “I reminded you just this morning, before you ran out of the car, so don’t try to act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. They scheduled your MRI and your antibiotic shot for today. We need to be there in an hour.”

  I cupped his face with both my hands. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him I loved him, and I didn’t even know where the thought had come from. I knew I was falling for him, but I hadn’t realized I was already there. “Okay. All jokes aside, I love that you’re taking care of me,” I said seriously. “I’ve never had that before. I’m sorry if I’m pushing you too much. You know I never really had family, but you—”

  He kissed me, a quick and hard and fierce kiss. “What am I? Chopped liver? You could never push me too much. Don’t ever stop pushing me.”

  I smiled and let him put me down back on my feet. “I’ll go see what Sally wants and then I’ll get my bag so we can leave.”

  “I’m sorry, Rose.”

  Something in his voice made me turn back to him. “Sorry? For what?”

  “I know you don’t want the MRI, but they need to see if everything looks okay. I need to know if everything is okay.”

  I walked back to him and rose up on my toes so I could press what was my version of a quick and hard kiss on his lips, and I melted a little when he put his hand on the small of my back and pulled me against his body.

  “You’ll stay with me again?”

  “Always.”

  “Then it’ll be okay. I know I’m being stupid about it. It helps that you’ll be there when it’s over to carry me away.”

  The car ride was fun, and I tried my best to look as if I wasn’t freaking out about the fact that I was going back in that casket again. We sat hand in hand the entire time, and Jack even made a comment or two about Raymond’s love life when we were having a very serious talk on that very subject. Too bad I was too anxious to enjoy it all.

  But then the MRI scan…it was no better than the first time. Even though I was required to lie on my back this time, they still put the cage thing on my head, and this time around I got much dizzier than the first time. I had to keep my eyes closed the entire time as I tried to focus only on Jack’s touch on my ankle. As soon as they took me out and I got rid of the thing on my head, he carried me off to the small room, and just like the previous time, he let me cry on him for a good two minutes. The last time I’d done that, we hadn’t been real. This time, we were, and it made me feel better because he kissed every drop of my tears away, stealing more pieces of my heart in the process.

  “Where do you want me to take you?” Jack asked once we were back in the car.

  The needle part hadn’t been fun either; it had hurt like hell, which you could easily tell from my ashen face and the hand I kept pressing on my arm. Since my brain had been kind of exposed with the tear, preventing infection was important. That’d been what they kept telling me, so I knew there was no way to get out of it—not that I had tried to get out of it or anything. I’d never.

  “Rose?”

  This time, we weren’t sitting so close.

  I looked at him. “Home. I want to go home. I’ll text Sally and Owen. I don’t feel like I’d be any help there, and I don’t want to bring the energy down.”

  “Okay,” he said simply and then told Raymond where to take us.

  Back in the building, Jack said hello to Steve and asked him how he was doing. I couldn’t help it—I cracked my first post-MRI smile. To think I’d been the one to tell him what his own doorman’s name was.

  “How is the kid doing?” I asked, wrapping my arm around Jack’s and standing in front of Steve.

  “She’s good, back at the new school.”

  “No more problems I hope.”

  “So far it’s been okay.”

  “That’s good.”

  Steve’s daughter, Bella, was this beautiful and smart fifteen-year-old who had
been bullied at her old school and ended up changing schools midyear.

  “Please tell her I’m looking forward to seeing her again.”

  “She’ll love hearing that. She adores you.”

  Even though I had heard about her situation from the heartbroken Steve and obviously already knew some about her, we’d only met twice when she had come to visit her father for a few hours. We’d bonded over our love of baking and rain, of all things, because it had been pouring in New York both days. We’d come up with over twenty-five reasons why we loved rain and rainy days when I had wandered down from Jack’s apartment because I’d been bored out of my mind just sitting, sitting, sitting.

  Jack had found me on the floor with Bella and had taken me back upstairs because it was ‘cold’ and I wasn’t healthy enough to sit my ass on cold floors. That had been original, especially hearing the word ass coming from his mouth.

  “And I adore her. She is a smart cookie. If it’s okay with you, I’d love it if she could come to my coffee shop. Maybe we could bake together if she feels up to it? Then I’d bring her back here, of course.”

  “You don’t have to do that. I know how busy you are.”

  “Of course I don’t have to do it. I want to. We’ll bake and spend a few hours together. It’ll be fun.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Hawthorne. She’ll love that.”

  Back in the elevator, Jack was the first to break our silence. “Does he call you Mrs. Hawthorne every time you talk or is it just my presence that changes things?”

  I gave him a sheepish grin and he just shook his head. “I like the sound of it, though.”

  “The sound of what?”

  “Mrs. Hawthorne. I like it when you say it too.”

  The doors opened to his floor before he could respond, and we walked into the apartment.