And that he would come back in and sweep me off to my room and finish what he’d started. What I’d been dreaming so vividly about nearly every night.
But when Edison did come back he swept into the dining room like no time had passed at all. Jovially joking with Rhodes and as I sat there I felt, for the first time since they’d brought me to the Keane estate, like I was on the outside looking in.
Boy did that fuck me up.
So I made the decision that night to pack any and all emotions about Edison into a tiny little box in my mind and do what I came here to do: live a relatively comfortable life, go to school, and eventually birth a dark-haired, golden-eyed little boy that would be just as detached and aloof as his father.
I made it through five days of that before Edison lost our game of mental chicken and finally had Rhodes bring me to his study.
“So what if it is? Would that make you feel sorry?” It wasn’t just about the phone calls, but how was I supposed to verbalize my growing discontent now that I’d gotten almost everything I wanted.
I was going to school, and while I loved the classes, Kailey was still the only person who approached me and I didn’t have the social skills, nor the ability to seek out new friends.
Rhodes had calmed down a bit as we settled into a routine, but people still avoided him like he was the plague and I was his first infected. He was a predator by every sense of the word and I knew that the regular people that went to classes every day could sense it, even if it didn’t bother me so much anymore.
I was an outsider there, and at dinner the night I returned I realized that I was one here too and it hurt like a bitch.
It shouldn’t have. I was used to it. Even growing up I’d been my parent’s disappointment, the accessory, the bargaining chip, but never their daughter the way that Romey was their son.
“Yes it would,” Edison said, surprising me enough to make me look up and meet his golden gaze.
A dry huff left me. “You’re lying. You’ve never been sorry a day in your life.”
His lips pulled up into a wry grin and I realized that he looked as if he hadn’t shaved in a few days, and his dark stubble filled with bits of gray, was growing along his jaw. Not only that, his suit was more disheveled than I’d ever seen it before. Even on the night he returned not a hair had been out of place.
“Why do you look like that?” I blurted and watched as his eyes widened.
Then he was standing and rounding the desk and the motion brought a wave of vanilla scent into my nose, the scent that I’d been forcing myself to ignore in the halls whenever I caught it in the air.
“Well, my wife is angry with me, so it’s a bit hard to focus on personal grooming when I’m trying to figure out how to get back into her good graces.”
Edison reached for my hands and I had half a mind to yank them out of his reach, but the inner omega that was supposed to sit in the back of my mind and behave was hopping up and down like a puppy dog at the thought of being touched by the alpha in front of me.
My alpha, my brain purred with pleasure as he took my hands into his and the warmth of his skin began to seep into mine.
“I am sorry, Perrie, I didn’t think you’d care about me being gone so long with your classes and everything going on. Most people wouldn’t.”
I frowned as I read between the lines of his words. They were almost self-deprecating, which was surprising considering Edison Keane had never stricken me as the kind of man to have any insecurities at all.
“Why wouldn’t I care? I’m your wife,” I told him, giving his hands what I hoped was a comforting squeeze. “For better or for worse, right? It might be a contract, but I take my promises very seriously.”
Not to mention the sheer level of craving I felt for him at night when I had nothing else to do but to obsess over our interrupted wedding night.
I told myself so many times that I wouldn’t start to have feelings for Edison, that it was a one-way ticket to getting my heart broken because Edison clearly didn’t have the time or mental capacity for romance. It was clear that his relationship with Rhodes had been stalled because both of the men couldn’t admit to each other that it was more than just a necessity. That it was love.
Even thinking back to before Edison had revealed the true nature of their partnership on the day of our wedding, I could tell that they were dancing around each other like a pair of stubborn moths.
So, with all that mess, it was better for me to put walls up and protect myself. To do the bare minimum of what I needed to do as Edison’s wife.
That meant not falling in love with the ridiculously handsome, far too perfect man.
But even as I thought it, I watched Edison’s expression soften at my words into something almost tender and my resolve started to crumble.
“You can just say you missed me and that you’re happy to have me home,” he teased, bringing his face close so I was forced to look him square in the eyes. “And that you just really wanted to finish what we started the other night.”
My heart seemed to leap into my throat as I stared at him, my eyes tracing a path from his eyes, along the straight bridge of his nose, and down to his lips which were parting into a smile.
“No, I wouldn’t say that…” I began slowly, trying to maintain at least a little bit of my dignity. I’d planned to come in here, fight with Edison, and then go back into my room and pout for the rest of the night.
Edison was really trying to make that hard, though as he brought our still joined hands up to his lips and pressed a soft kiss to my fingers.
“No? You didn’t miss me? Or that you don’t want me to touch you again until I make your screams bounce off of the walls of this study?”
My face warmed at his words, my mind going fuzzy as he pressed a kiss to my forehead, then to both of my cheeks, before hovering over my lips as he waited for me to speak.
“Promise me one thing,” I started, my shoulders drooping in surrender.
Gold eyes flashed with triumph. “Anything.”
“Promise me you’ll call next time your scary mafia job pulls you away? Every day like you do with Rhodes.”
I wasn’t on the same level to Edison as Rhodes was—they’d been together for decades—but I also didn’t want to be left out of things. I didn’t want to be on the outside looking in anymore.
“Deal,” Edison promised easily, his lips descending on mine.
It was everything that I’d been waiting for over the past two weeks, the brush of his tongue, the overwhelming push of his vanilla scent, his hands letting mine go to grip my hips as he pulled me flush to his body.
The only difference? All of the dreams about Edison’s kisses and his touches had left me feeling frustrated when I woke up, but this was reality and I had a feeling there would be no frustration by the end of it.
