Wild Hearts (Forever Wild) (3 page)

I pulled back, knitting my eyebrows together. “Did you think I was too big for us to fit on here together?”

“What?” His eyes met mine, a look of genuine puzzlement on his face and his smile gone. “That’s not what I meant at all. I just wanted to use it as an excuse to get close to you, geez.” His lips brushed against my jawline.

I let out a sigh and rolled to my side, ignoring how good his warm lips felt on me.

“What’d I do?” He put his hands out.

I shook my head, smoothing out my skirt
as I sat up. “Nothing. It’s fine. I just ... I need ...” I huffed. I couldn’t think of a better excuse than the truth. “Look. We have great sexual chemistry, that’s a given. But I just can’t spend every day cuddling with you and having sex with you whenever. This is just an arrangement until we meet with the divorce lawyer tomorrow and find out our next steps. That’s it.”

Wes sat up slowly, dangling his feet off the bed. “Really? That’s all this is? After everything these past few days?”

I couldn’t look at him. If I did I knew I would be a goner. So instead I looked at a framed picture of me and my sister Melanie on the dresser. “Yeah. That’s all ...”

“All right, darlin
’. Whatever you say.”

I laid
awake in bed for awhile, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling. Wes lay next to me, falling asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. My mind was racing too much to even think about sleep.

What was I going to do now that I was really falling for the guy? Watching his face in the mirror on the plane made me
see a hint of something. Something that suggested he liked me too. But it couldn’t work. He was the stripper I married in Vegas. Not the guy I would actually spend the rest of my life with.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I thought it might have just been a Facebook notification
, but then it buzzed again. I rolled over to my side, glancing at the time on my alarm clock. 1 AM. Awesome. I had to be up in four hours.

I grabbed my phone and unlocked it. There was a message from Max waiting for me.

Back from Vegas? I’d like to get you on your back.

I rolled my eyes. He had the cheesiest lines. And
, of course, they always came in the middle of the night. Not when he was out with his hedge fund friends or anywhere during daylight hours. That’s the type of girl I was. The one he snuck around with at night.

Yeah. Sleeping. Sorry.

This was how these little games always went with Max. First the late-night texts and then there would either be texting dirty things or I’d finally let him come over. Never to his place in Lincoln Park. Always at mine and always at odd hours. Paige told me I was stupid for letting him do that. But I thought it was the only way I’d get close to someone.

Too bad, because I’m in your neck of the woods...

My bed creaked, followed by a loud groan as Wes turned over, throwing his warm arm around me and pressing his stomach against my back. “What are you doing up?” he asked sleepily.

“Nothing,” I muttered before typing a reply to Max.

Maybe another time...

Wes put his chin on my shoulder. “What the hell is that?”

I put my phone down and turned to face him. “Nothing that concerns you.”

“Are you seriously sexting another guy while I’m in your bed?”

“What?” I raised an eyebrow. “No. Who the hell even says that word? That’s reserved for political scandals.”

“I’m saying it because you were dirty texting another guy while you had me in bed with you? Are you also sending pics of your boobs too?”

My mouth gaped open. “What the hell? Do you just think I’m some kind of slut?”

He groaned, propping up on his elbow. “No. I just know how guys think. If some dude is texting you at 1 AM it’s not because he wants to go out for tea and cookies. He wants sex.”

“And I’m sure you haven’t done that millions of times.”

“I’m not an animal, Val. I have a little bit more respect for women than that.”

“Says t
he guy who married a girl he just met in Vegas.”

He grunted, grabbing my phone and putting it on the table beside us. “I could have done a lot worse.” He placed a quick kiss on my cheek but let his lips hover just above it. “And I don’t regret it one bit.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” I whispered, barely able to get the words out. Truth was, I was starting not to regret it either.

He pushed a strand of hair behind my ear before his lips trailed back to my cheek and then down my neck, his stubble tickling my sensitive skin. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be right now than here with you in this bed. I could lay here forever underneath these fake stars.”

I sucked in a breath, unsure of what to say next. But the moment didn’t really need words either. He breathed into my neck as if he was inhaling all of me. Trying to make a memory of my scent.

My eyes snapped open when I heard a pounding at the front door. There wasn’t more than twenty feet from the front door to my bedroom so I heard it easily. Especially when there was a fist slamming on it like they were being kidnapped or something.

“What the fuck?” Paige yelled from her bedroom.

Wes sat straight up, looking at my bedroom door as if someone was going to come barreling through it. “Are you expecting someone?” he asked.

“Sometimes people get the wrong apartment and knock on ours. Maybe they’ll just go away.” Even as I said the words, I didn’t believe them. Dammit. I knew it was probably Max.

He banged again at the door, which
caused Wes to throw the covers off the bed and jump out. He strode over to my bedroom door, yanking it open with purpose. My knight in shining black boxer briefs thought he was going to meet an intruder.

I jumped up as quick
ly as I could but didn’t move as fast as Wes, who already had the front door open, staring at Max like he was a cockroach. “There something I can help you with, sir?”

Max had one arm leaning on the door
frame and the cockeyed grin on his face that I always found sexy. He was still in his tailored suit from the office, his brown hair meticulously gelled back. There wasn’t a hint of stubble or anything out of place on his face.

Max cocked an eyebrow at Wes and folded his arms across his chest, standing up straighter.
I always thought he was a good-sized guy until I saw Wes. The stripper practically towered over him and had a presence, even in his briefs. But Max wasn’t one to back down. It was how he made his first million at twenty-five. He had no fear.

“And who are you? Another one of Paige’s conquests?” Max asked.

Paige burst out of her bedroom as if she heard her name called. She rolled her eyes and groaned as soon as she saw Max in the doorway. “If I would have known it was just your fuck buddy I wouldn’t have put on pants,” she muttered and then walked back into her room, slamming her door with extra oomph.

Max’s eyes followed Paige and then landed right on me. Well
, more like my chest that was falling out of my tank top. “So ...” Max said.

Wes shook his head, one hand on the
door. “Look, dude, whatever you’re selling, we ain’t buying it, so if you just want to take your fancy suit and go back up to Wall Street or whatever the hell they call it here, that’d be great.”

Max grabbed the door, right underneath Wes’s grip. They stared at each other with hard looks, both of their hands shaking on the door like they were in a fight for it. “Hey,
dude
, I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but I’m Max
fucking
Green and I’m here to see Valerie.”

Wes let out a slight laugh, shaking his head before
taking a few steps closer to me and putting his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close against him. “Well that sure as shit ain’t gonna happen because Valerie here is with me.”

“The fuck?” Max’s mouth dropped
as he looked from me to Wes and then at me again. His eyes were locked on me like a father about to reprimand his child. “Is he serious?”

I shrugged slightly, biting my bottom lip before nodding.

Max shook his head, raking his hands through his hair. “A little warning would have been nice before I tracked all the way to Wrigleyville.”

“And now you can just take that same track and mosey all the way back home,” Wes said, squeezing my shoulder.

Max shook his head. “Whatever.”

He didn’t even look back as he t
urned and walked down the hall. Wes shut the door before either of us could say anything else.

“Ex-
boyfriend?” Wes asked.

“Boyfriend is the wrong word...”

“Fuck buddy?”

“Pretty much.”

He nodded slightly and I wiggled out of his arm, walking to the bedroom. He followed, shutting the door behind us. I sat on the bed, pulling the covers over me, but Wes just stood in the doorway, his eyebrows knitted together. “You know you don’t need to screw some guy just to get him to hang out with you. You’re way too good for that.”

I scoffed. “Says the guy who thought he was going to get a sugar mama he met in Vegas.”

Wes pushed off the door, taking slow steps until he was at the bed, sitting in front of me. “I may have been half-cocked and thinking about getting out of Vegas with a pretty businesswoman, but it isn’t why I stayed with you.” He took my hands in his, running his thumb along my knuckles. Everything between my thighs instantly heated up and I had to keep my focus on his hands.

“You’re
pretty. Smart. Funny as all get-out. And you don’t act like you’re better than anyone. You’re real. The realest girl I’ve ever met and that’s why I stay with you. Not for late-night fucks or whatever it is that douchebag wanted.”

I shook my head. “Wes, you don’t need to say those things. You don’t need to pretend like we’re something that we’re not.”

He leaned in, his green eyes meeting mine in the dim light of my bedroom. “I’m not pretending anything, darlin’. I do like you and I know that this isn’t the most normal relationship in the world, but I’d like to see where it goes.”

I let out a deep breath. “I know you want to stay and you think t
hat this may be some messed-up romance thing, but we still need to talk to the lawyer tomorrow and figure out what we need to do. Until then, we’re together. Whatever you want to call it.”

“I guess I can agree to that. For now.”

“For now,” I repeated.

He let go of my hands, crawling into bed next to me and under the covers. “Then for now you’re st
ill Mrs. Wild and I’d like to spoon you.”

I rolled my eyes as he looped his arm around my waist, pulling me against him. “Are you going to stop it with that Mrs. Wild stuff anytime soon?”

He laughed, his breath tickling my neck as I lay against him. “You said you wanted to keep the marriage secret in public, but while I have you in my arms I’ll say whatever I want.”

I let out a deep breath. I had a million things I wanted to say. How this wasn’t real. How I couldn’t fall for the stripper. How this would never work and he would be gone as soon as we figured out divorce arrangements and he got alimony. But instead I just snuggled against him and whispered, “Goodnight
, Mr. Wild.”

“Goodnight, Mrs. Wild.”

My alarm went off right on schedule. I moaned, leaning over to turn it off with a big yawn. I blinked hard and reached for the other side of the bed. I may have only known Wes a few days, but there was something oddly comforting about feeling his warm body next to mine when I woke up. He was the only guy that wasn’t in a hurry to leave the next morning or after the deed was done. It was addicting to feel him against me. And if he was pressed to me that would lead to other things.

But when I reached over to the other side of the bed it was empty. I opened one eye and saw that it was unmade, but definitely slept in. Shit. Did he skip town after seeing Max? Maybe that’s all he
needed to realize I was a waste. Maybe he stole my credit card and hopped a plane to Vegas.

Figures
.

I threw the covers off and walked the few steps to my door, expecting to grab my robe but it was gone. Weird.
But not as weird as what was on the other side of the door. The scent of eggs wafted in the air. Paige never cooked and I doubt she had a guy over that cooked. Which left one person.

I threw the door open and walked into the kitchen. Wes stood over the tiny stove, wearing my white bathrobe.
Which he looked way better in than I did. The robe ended not much lower than his butt and showed off his very toned calves. If he moved even a little bit he would have probably given me a show. A show I definitely wouldn’t have minded with how fit the guy was. His body was like something that could have been carved by the Greeks.