Marriage With Benefits(49)

Quiet desperation filled Matthew’s voice, the kind Lucas would never have associated with his older brother, who had always looked out for him. Whom Lucas had always looked up to, ever since the first time Matthew had stood shoulder to shoulder with his little brother against bullies. As Matthew took full responsibility for a broken flowerpot because he hadn’t taught Lucas the proper way to hold a bat. As Matthew passed off the first client to his newly graduated brother and whispered the steps to Lucas behind the scenes.

A long surge unsettled Lucas’s stomach. His brother had never been so open, so broken.

Matthew needed him. The firm, his family, his heritage all needed him. Lucas had to step up and prove his brother’s faith in him wasn’t misplaced. To show everyone Lucas knew what it meant to be a Wheeler, once and for all.

It would be hard, and parts of it would suck. But he had to.

Of course, he lacked a wife who wanted all the ties of a permanent marriage or who looked forward to filling a nursery with blankets and diapers. Where in the world would he find someone he liked as much as Cia, who excited him like she did even when they were nowhere near a bed? It would take a miracle to tick off all the points on his future-wife mental checklist. A miracle to find a wife as good as Cia.

Matthew clamped his mouth into a thin line and shifted his attention as Cia’s hand slid across Lucas’s shoulder.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said. “I just wanted to check on you. Doing okay?”

Concern carved a furrow between her brows, and he didn’t like being the cause of that line. “Fine, darlin’. Thanks.”

“Okay. I’m going to sit with your mom for a little while longer. She’s pretty upset.” She smiled and bent to kiss the top of his head, as if they were a real married couple in the middle of for better or worse.

His vision tunneled as future and present collided, and a radical idea popped fully formed into his head. An idea as provocative and intriguing as it was dangerous. One that would pose the greatest challenge thus far in his relationship with Cia.

What if they didn’t get divorced?





Ten

A noise woke Cia in the middle of the night. No, not a noise, but a sixth sense of the atmosphere changing. Lucas. He’d finally pried himself loose from his laptop and paperwork. His study might be in the same house, but it might as well have been in Timbuktu for all she’d seen of him lately.

She glanced at the clock—1:00 a.m.—as he slid into bed and gathered her up against his warm, scrumptious body, spooning them together.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “Time got away from me.”

“It’s okay. You’re earlier than last night.” And the night before that and the night before that. In the weeks since his grandfather’s death and Matthew’s disappearance, he’d been tense and preoccupied, but closemouthed about it other than to say he’d been working a lot.

She rolled in his arms and glued her body to his, silently offering whatever he wanted to take, because he’d done the same when she’d needed it. Sometimes he held her close and dropped into a dead sleep. Sometimes he was keyed up and wanted to talk. Sometimes he watched TV, which she always left on for him despite her hatred of the pulsing lights.

Tonight, he flipped off the TV and covered her mouth in a searing kiss. His hands skimmed down her back to cup her bottom, sliding into the places craving his careful attention.

Oh, yes. Her favorite of the late-night options—slow, achingly sensual and delicious. The kind of night where they whispered to each other in the dark and pleasured by touch, lost inside a world where nothing else existed.

In the dark, she didn’t have to worry about what hidden depths of the heart might spring into her eyes. No agonizing over whether something similar crept through his eyes, as well. Or didn’t. It was better to leave certain aspects of their relationship unexamined.

Of course, ignoring the facts didn’t magically rearrange them into a new version of truth.

The truth was still the truth.

This was more than just sex.

Sex could be fun, but it didn’t erase the significance of doing it with Lucas. Not some random, fun guy. Lucas, who got out of the way and let her make her own choices. Lucas, who’d proven over and over he was more than enough man to handle whatever she threw at him.

When the earth stopped quaking, Lucas bound her to him in a tight tangle of limbs. He murmured, “Mi amante,” and fell asleep with his lips against her temple.

When had he managed to squeeze in a Spanish lesson? His layers were endless and each one weighed a little more, sinking a little deeper into her soul.

This thing with Lucas was spiraling out of control. They were still getting a divorce, and all this significance—and how much she wanted it—freaked her out. It would be smart to back off now, so it wouldn’t be so hard later.