“You came for your stuff?” Lyra asked. My twitching fingers lost their warmth as Lyra pulled her hand from mine. Jamie’s gaze darted between our hands, possibly noticing we were both missing rings. Sly Lyra was quick to catch on, clasping her hands together in front of her. She gestured toward the front door with her chin. “Doors unlocked. You can head inside.”
Just like that—the warmth, that fleeting moment of insanity between our tongues and lips—it was all gone. She could try that shit on anyone else, but not with me. Not while she still had to do as I said.
“Jamie,” I said right before he got any closer tomyfront door. He slowly turned. “You got Aubrey in the truck?”
“Yeah.” He dragged the word like he was pulling it through mud.
Playing house with Ly needed more ante, and that ante was looking like an ex-roommate and his on-and-off fling.
“She wanna come in?” I pulled a toothpick from my pocket and stuck it between my teeth, then grinned at my wife.
Lyra’s fake smile and homely posture waned.
“You mean, like, to help?” Jamie asked, scratching the back of his head. “I’m probably better off doing it myself.”
“Nah, come in. Have a beer.” Lyra scowled as I waved to the blonde in the truck. She wanted to act like that kiss didn’t completely shift her world back into my orbit?
Fine.
Let’s see how far she’ll go before she breaks.
“You sure?” Jamie questioned. “Did you hit your head or something? You’ve got blood on you.”
“Another coyote. All good. Lyra here actually ran to help save the horses from it, didn’t you, sugar?”
Lyra’s still-swollen lips rubbed in as she nodded enthusiastically, slapping that fake persona right back in place. “Sure did.” She stepped in closer. “And then my sweet hubby here saved me.”
I pushed off the railing, acting like I didn’t see her right as her hand reached for mine. I played it off by making my way to the door, and when I passed Jamie, I smacked his shoulder with that same hand—twice as hard as he’d done to me.
Two birds, one pissed-off and ready-to-play stone.
He winced. “So, a beer? Lyra here can tell you all about how she fell for me that night we played poker and we just couldn’t wait to get hitched.” I didn’t need to turn to know my wife was now shooting bullets with her eyes into the back of my skull. “I feel like I’ve known her my whole life, really. Crazy how that works, right, babycakes?”Yep. Bullets.I grinned and flashed her a wink. With Jamie’s ears on us, but eyes on Aubrey as he waved her out from the truck, Lyra was free to drop the act.
For all of two seconds.
“Can’t wait to hear all about it.” Jamie’s attention fell back to Lyra, who immediately fixed the sneer over her lips, twisting them into the fake smile I loathed. If she flashed him that smile one more goddamn time tonight, I’d make her wrap those twisted lips around my cock and force her to choke on the facade ofusshe hated so much.
The tapping of Jamie’s fingers on the glass bottle in front of him was irritating. Hell, just having him sit across from me was enough, because he kept looking at Lyra in a way that borderedon admiration. The kind that was directed more at her chest than at her gorgeous face, probably wondering what her tits looked like beneathmygoddamn shirt.
I wanted to smash his face into the table for even acknowledging that part of her.
“Ugh, I knew somethin’ was going on between you two at the table that night,” Aubrey supplied after some back-and-forth conversation I’d tuned out while imagining digging another grave for Jamie beside the coyote in the woods. “Was that the first night you two, ya know.” Aubrey winked at us both. Lyra’s cheeks turned pink.
“Lyra was saving herself for marriage,” Jamie piped in, earning himself a glare from his woman.
“That explains all the blood.” I smirked into my beer as I took a sip.
The hue on Lyra’s face turned scarlet.
Aubrey gasped. “No! You were a virgin?” She bit down on her lip. “How was it?”
“Aubrey!”
Lyra swirled her beer glass on the table. “Great,” she answered, but it sounded like she was talking about the weather.
Not good enough, Ly.
I tugged her into my lap with less resistance than I expected. “She means it was mind-blowing,” I amended, settling my palms on her thighs. Goosebumps erupted along her skin as I trailed my fingers back and forth, dipping between her legs and coming back up to the top.
