Chapter nineteen
Jack
When we got home that night, tension buzzed between us.
I was hard as steel from claiming Maggie like she was mine.
I was aroused as fuck from being claimed as hers.
I silently opened the car door for her. Quietly unlocked the front door to the house. Let her ascend the stairs before me. Stood at the top of the staircase and held the banister when she reached the second floor.
Maggie walked to her bedroom—so close to mine, but it felt like they were miles apart—and stood in front of the closed door. My breath caught in my lungs when she didn’t move to turn the handle.
Did she want to go to bed alone?
Was she feeling this too?
I fucking meant it when I said she looked perfect.
That Kyra-whatever-her-name-was drove me fucking wild with possession over my wife with her pass at me. I thought keeping my loyalty to my new baby mama would be hard. I thought the hungry wives would come after me like prey.
But all her flirting did was make me want to shove Maggie into the nearest gift shop and fuck her like I did at the last polo party we attended.
My feelings were growing out of control. And I needed control.
Living with Maggie was my undoing. I couldn’t sit across from her at the dinner table anymore without wishing our arrangement would never end. I couldn’t pass her in the hallway without breathing her perfect, cider scent. I couldn’t look at her without thinking one thing:mine.
I was quickly falling for the woman before me, and she had no idea. She felt just out of reach. Like if I had gotten to know her better and realized my feelings before putting a baby in her, things would be different between us.
Maybe we could have gotten to know each other under different circumstances.
Maybe she wouldn’t look at me like I was a rich playboy with no morals.
Maybe she would fall for me, too.
But that wasn’t us. Our lives were fated to cross, and it might have been the luckiest chance in the universe that the woman I was crazy for was carrying my baby.
Mine.
When had I become so damn possessive of her?
Sure, we had been together in public. I would touch her arm this way and that. I would kiss her on the cheek and put my hand on her lower back.
But tonight?
The first polo party we attended after we conceived?
No fucking way was I letting anyone think Maggie was anything but mine.
And now she was staring at her door like she wasn’t sure if she should go in without me.
“Mags,” my voice was low. She turned around.
God, she looked so beautiful tonight. She was so worried about the way she fit into her clothes. So conscious of the small bump beginning to show at her midsection. But she couldn’t have been more wrong. The way she looked in that black dress…it was fucking killing me. I couldn’t help but trace her curves, her breasts. Linger on her collarbones and fantasize about kissing every inch of her skin.
I was on edge tonight. If Maggie didn’t walk through that door, I was going to do something rash.
She looked like pure sex. I wanted to claim her for real.
