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Chapter Eighty-Eight

Ghost

S he wasn't going anywhere. Not yet. "Talk," I demanded.

"You are in the ladies' room."

"You're avoiding the conversation." I reached back and threw the lock on the door.

She nervously tracked my movements. "I do not wish to converse."

I provoked her. Purposely. "You don't want to talk, or you don't want to tell me why seeing Trefor's wife made you jealous and run for the bathroom?"

Anger hit her expression hard and fast. "Do not put this all on me. You never mean conversation. When you say talk, it is a demand, and it is one-sided. You want me to speak. To tell you what I am thinking, what I am feeling. You want every insecurity and vulnerability I have so you can steal them and keep them and never give any in return. So no, I do not prefer to talk. I do not want to be here, and I do not want to have a conversation about how I am wife to your mother, but I am Safiya to your friends. Or how you waited eight years to kiss me, but you kissed that woman and held her shoulder the moment you saw her. You stood up to see her."

My cock pulsed, and my hand moved to her throat. "I'm in here with you."

"Because you followed me," she accused.

"I'll always follow you, Safiya. You're my wife. As far as insecurities, I don't have any. But I do have one vulnerability, and I'm staring down at her, wondering why she walked away from me. Again."

Her pulse thrummed, and she inhaled twice. Then she cut through the bullshit. "Why did you bring me to this restaurant tonight?"

So she could see a functional relationship with a man who was not unlike me. "Dinner."

"I do not believe you. You never do anything without a reason."

"I can't take you to dinner?"

"This was more than that."

It was. Much more. "You object to the date or the location?"

"Is that what all of this is? The reservation, the dress, the shoes? You are dating me now?"

No. I was courting her. And fucking up. "I'm spending time with my wife." But my plan to ease her into this was backfiring, and I should've read this resilient woman better. She didn't need a step program into my dominance. She'd been dealing with it for eight fucking years.

"By sitting adjacent to me, not touching me, not talking, and having a drink when I have never seen you drink alcohol except for one glass of champagne?"

Ah. "I don't usually drink." Clear head, clear mind. "I'll occasionally have a few beers. Tonight, I had a whiskey." Because not fucking her was fucking with me, but I'd made a silent promise to give her twenty-four hours, then she was mine. All goddamn mine.

Pulling away before I'd addressed exactly why I wasn't touching her, she turned toward the exit. "I wish to leave now."

I gave her one step.

Then I moved.

Grasping her hair, wrapping an arm around her waist, pulling her back into my chest, I lowered my voice as I brought my mouth to her ear. "Do you know why I wasn't putting my hands on you out there?" Did she have any idea how much control that took?

Her pulse jumped, her body flinched, and her hands fisted, but then she leaned back into me and licked her bottom lip. "I—"

"That was a rhetorical question." Coasting my palm over her hardened nipples, I pulled her hair taught in my grip as I ground my erection against her sweet ass. "Do you feel that, beautiful?" I sucked on the flesh below her ear. "Do you know how responsive your body is to mine?" She was fucking unraveling me. "Do you feel your submission with only my hand in your hair and my fingers on your breast?" I twisted one nipple, then pinched.

Her gasp bled into a moan.

"That sound right there is why I wasn't touching you in a restaurant full of eyewitnesses." My hayatim had been fucking vocal when she'd come earlier. "Do you feel how hard I am right now?" I ground into her again, and she instinctually pushed back. "That's why I was having a drink." That and this fucking dress . "So I didn't fuck you with an audience."

Her shocked breath pushed her breasts out. "You would never—" She caught herself. "Would you…?"

"Without hesitation." Then I'd kill every motherfucker who'd watched.

Whispered, soft, her dismay hit. But not with condemnation. " Grayson ."

I filed the intel away. "Do you understand the real reason you got upset at the table?" I moved to her other nipple and bit the soft flesh on her neck.

"I…." She shook with a tremor as her fingers dug into my thighs. "I was jealous."

"I know." I fucking got off on it, but not when she walked away from me because of it. "Don't change. Be jealous. But you're not walking away from me again. Understood?"

She stilled. "You want me to be jealous?"

"I want you to be you." Exactly how she was.

"Jealous and not walking away from you."

Still gripping her hair, I tipped her head back. "Yes."

She looked up at me with that innocent, dark-eyed stare that I'd never get enough of. "This is all… new. And you are different."

It was about to be a hell of a lot newer for her, and I was who I was. She'd just never had all of me all at once. "Nothing about me has changed."

"Everything about you has changed," she whispered.

I got it. She'd never known me in civilian life—not that we'd ever have that, but we could at least have fucking dinner.

Turning her in my arms, I explained. "I've been an operative for two decades. On the move, in the field, watching my six, never in the same place twice. What I haven't been is still. What I don't do is civilian life. What I'm aiming to be is your husband."

Her eyes welled. "Grayson—"

"I'm not finished, Safiya."

"I am sorry."

Sweeping her hair off her shoulder, I cupped her nape. "I don't need you to be sorry. I need you to understand. I've never answered to anyone. Not in eight years, not in the thirty before that. I took orders in the military. I lived the job, but I've never played by the book. I'm control first, a man second. It's what got me noticed, profiled, and recruited for SAC. None of this is an excuse. All of it is an explanation. My life has been tactical aggression and forward momentum. Now I'm prone, no weapon in hand, holding my wife. It's an adjustment. One I've been planning for. But I'm never not going to be looking through my sights, Safiya. My objective doesn't change because the mission ended. I don't retreat. I don't stand down. I recalculate—my position, my aim."

She nodded. "I am your new target."

"No." Not new.

My hayatim stared up at me.

"You're my only target. You have been since I first laid eyes on you."

"This will be our life," she whispered, remembering what I'd told her.

"Yes." Giving her nonverbal affirmation, I stroked her cheek.

She leaned into my touch. "And this is your intimacy."

Fucking her would be my intimacy. This was showing her who I was. "Come. I'm taking you home." Grabbing her hand, I turned toward the door and unlocked it.

Her arm stiffened. "Taking me home?"

I glanced down at her. "Yes."

"You said this would be our life."

I did. "It is."

"Then where were you last night?"

More assertive. Still jealous. I almost smiled. "Temporary location. Close by."

Her gaze dropped.

"Ask, Safiya."

She looked back up at me. "Where is your home?"

Between her legs.

Stepping into her, skimming a finger across her necklace before placing my palm over her heart, I held her dark-eyed gaze. "Here."

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