The pleading in his eyes were my undoing.
I couldn’t stop myself from pressing my lips to his jaw, which happened to be the only thing I could reach.
I hated being short. Being short meant that you couldn’t kiss what you wanted on tall people like my husband—such as his lips.
But, realizing that I couldn’t quite reach where I wanted, he bent down and brought his lips to mine.
I sighed, feeling what felt like rightness spread through my veins.
I’d missed the intimacy. Well, the physical part anyway since I had been apart from him so long. The emotional intimacy I don’t think I ever had with Bram.
To be honest, I’d always felt lonely while being with him. What’s the difference if I was lonely while with him, or lonely while I was alone?
At least, before, that’d been my thought process. Now… now I realized that he was feeling much the same as I had been.
Though both of us were too stubborn to say anything.
Each one of us thought that the other didn’t want us… and look where that communication, or lack thereof, had gotten us. We’d gotten nowhere and had nothing but ten years of heartache to show for our marriage.
But now, we were living our fresh start. Our fresh start in our new town, that had a person that’d beat the hell out of me on the loose.
“I’ll call when I get to work.” I paused. “Are you excited?”
Today would be his first day of work, too. A day of work that would eventually take him into the Gulf of Mexico, hours offshore.
Though, not today. Today was just an orientation day for him. A day where he learned what he needed to learn about the company, did what he needed to do when it came to their preliminary hires, and hopefully be home in time for dinner.
“They’ll probably want me there to show them what skills I have on the job. I’m sure I’ll take the morning filling out bullshit paperwork and going through safety meetings. I’m not so excited about today, per se, but next week when I can actually get out there and work? Yeah, I’m excited about that,” he admitted.
Bram hadn’t had the best of underwater welding jobs where we’d been living in Intercourse. But now, with the whole Gulf at his fingertips, there were all kinds of opportunities to be had.
And more danger.
Which scared the crap out of me. Not that I would be admitting that.
“All right,” I said softly. “Well, we both need to go. You’ll be okay on your bike today?”
He grinned. “Rain or shine, baby. Bikers take it any way they can get it.”
I giggled, which amused him.
“You’ll be okay in that brand-new luxury ride?” he teased.
It was a luxury ride. It was the nicest vehicle I’d ever been in before.
It was a BMW X7. Top-of-the-line everything, and Bram had paid cash for it.
So yes, I would be perfectly okay in my luxury SUV that was paid off.
“Yes.” I rolled my eyes. “Walk me out?”
“Anytime.”
We parted at our vehicles after he kissed the hell out of me again.
He followed me all the way to my office, then went to his own.
Then, for the next two hours, I got to know the women I’d be working with for the next few months.
• • •
“Is that your husband?” Marsha, the front desk receptionist that worked for both me—yeah, I was still getting over that myself—and the other doctor in the practice.
I looked up from my notes that I was taking and inputting into my previous patient’s chart to find Bram walking toward the front door with a sexy gait that really set my blood on fire.
Now that I’d figured out I could hold sweet stuff down—and had meds to settle me down when I needed it—I was finally able to focus on other urges.
Like the one currently setting my pants on fire at the sight of my husband.
He was wearing dirty work pants, dirty work boots, a clean gray T-shirt that said ‘Dr. Pepper’ on it, and a black ball cap pulled low over his eyes.
His hair was overly long and curling out from around the back of his ball cap, and it was so adorably cute that I wanted nothing more than to run my fingers through each individual curl.
I felt myself smiling as I dropped my head back down to finish my notes.
“That’s him,” I confirmed.
“All those curls,” Marsha whispered. “They’re to die for. I’ll bet you love running your fingers through them.”
Dutch, the other psychologist who’d hired me to work with her for the next six months, came out of her office with a young man in front of her. “I’ll see you next week at two, correct? Don’t be late this time. My hourly rate is still the same whether you show up on time or not.”
My lips were twitching as the young man walked out grumbling a ‘yes.’
Dutch, a thirty-year-old woman that had a shock of red hair and a body to die for, looked at me with exasperation. “I swear, you tell them a time, and they think that you owe it to them to give them whatever they want. When will men learn?”
“Don’t think they ever do, ma’am,” came Bram’s amused reply.
I looked up to find him standing in the waiting room with the glass wall separating our offices, looking from me to Dutch to Marsha and back again.
“And you are?” Dutch asked, crossing her arms defensively over her chest.
“Bram Crow, Dory’s husband,” he answered smoothly. “You’re Dr. Panchek?”
“Yes,” she answered. “And it’s nice to meet you. Dory’s spent the entire time singing your praises between patients.”
I felt myself blush as Bram’s eyes came to me.
I gestured for him to come into my office, then stood up.
He dropped the food onto my desk, then put both fisted hands on top of it and leaned into me.
I drew in a breath before closing the distance and pressing my lips to his waiting ones.
“How are you?” he asked when I pulled back.
His bottom lip was still shiny with my kiss. Cherry lip gloss.
“I’m okay,” I admitted. “Various bouts of nausea, but nothing I can’t handle with the medication. What did you bring?”
He pulled out a McRib from McDonald’s.
“It’s sweet,” he said. “And then I got you a milkshake, a cookie, and an extra set of fries if you think you can hack it. Though I left those outside in case the smell got to you.”
Warmth spread in my middle. “I don’t know. But how about we eat this out there? That way you can eat with me, too.”
Because my guess was he’d gotten himself a burger and fries, and we’d already learned the lesson there—don’t bring the smell to where it will stay for hours.
I gathered my haul up and gestured toward the door. “Let’s go eat outside. I think I saw a nice little bench beside the walkway earlier.”
The office that Dutch owned was on a water channel that wound around the office park that we were in. The walkway wound around the offices, and every so often, there was a bench you could sit and sightsee on for a while.
He held out his hand for me, and I didn’t stop myself from sliding my hand into his.
The last week had been perfect. It’d been everything that I’d ever wanted from a marriage with Bram.