“I think you enjoyed yourself in the shower Saturday night.
I stepped toward her. “I did. But you didn’t.”
“Don’t tell me what I enjoy or not,” she said. “It’s actually easier that way.”
“Oh?” I asked.
“We’re so busy, Liam. I know you have needs. I needed a shower. You got a hand job plus a shower. It’s a win for everyone.”
I touched her back and moved closer to her.
I took a handful of her hair and pulled it out of the way with force.
“I don’t like that,” I growled. “I want to fuck you, Miranda. I want to fuck my fiancée so she remembers why she’s marrying me.”
“Which is?” she whispered.
“You’re marrying me for my cock and nothing else,” I said.
I brushed my lips to the back of her neck.
Her knees bent and she spread her hands across the counter.
I shut my eyes and took a deep breath.
My right hand moved down to the end of her skirt. My fingertips moved along her warm skin, all the way up to her panties. I flirted with her panty line, moving along her ass, playing… touching… tempting…
“We need this, Miranda,” I whispered. “Overworked and stress isn’t good. Let’s forget about everything for one day. Just you and me. We can close all the windows and shades and just camp out here. We can put our mattress on the living room floor. Like we used to do. Remember that?” My fingers slipped between her legs. “We’d get high and sip whiskey and just fuck all day…”
Miranda pressed her ass back against me and rocked up and down.
“Oh, fuck, keep going,” I whispered.
I started to lift her skirt.
Her phone rang out from the living room.
“Shit. Liam.”
“No,” I growled.
“Liam,” she said.
She pushed away from the counter and spun around me like a football player making a move to go score a touchdown.
“I have to take that call,” she said. “We’re not in college anymore. We’re adults. Act like it. We can’t have a damn quick fuck right before work.”
I watched Miranda walk away.
Maybe she was right.
Or maybe she wasn’t.
I held the apartment door for her and snuck a kiss to her cheek as we exited.
“That prick is going down,” she said.
“I don’t doubt it,” I said. “My vicious girl is ready to attack.”
“Girl?”
“I always call you that.”
“I’m not a girl, Liam.”
“My vicious woman. My vicious fiancée. That sounds brutal too.”
“Brutal,” Miranda said. “Just what every woman wants to be described as.”
She was having a shit morning and I was the punching bag.
That I could live with.
We walked outside to the busy street.
Miranda breezed by Dale, the doorman, but I stopped.
I put my fist out.
We hit fists, then elbows, then fists again.
He nodded to me.
“How’s the grandson’s science project?” I asked.
“Oh, Liam, you should see it. He made a light bulb light up with a freaking potato.”
“Maybe that’s why I always feel so bright after eating fries,” I said.
Dale laughed. “You’re not eating fries ever.”
“I do all the time. That’s why I have to go to the gym so much. Helps keep my figure.”
“Wait until you get to be my age,” Dale said as he patted his round stomach. “Ladies love the grandpa bod.”
“That’s a thing?” I asked.
“It is for me,” he said with a wink.
We laughed and I went to track down Miranda.
She was halfway down the block, on her phone again.
I rubbed my jaw.
When she opened her eyes, it was business until she shut them at night.
If she even shut them at all.
She was brilliant and beautiful.
And she loved to argue.
That made her one of the best lawyers around.
As for me, I settled and enjoyed corporate law. I mostly worked with people pissing over patents and copyrights and trademarks. It was a lot of paperwork, but every company in the city needed a good lawyer or fifty on staff to protect their ass. And they had no problems dishing out six figure paychecks to make that happen.
Could I have done more?
Of course.
Sometimes I thought about it too.
But seeing what it did to Miranda…
She stopped walking and looked back. “Are your legs broke?”
I jogged to catch up. “I was talking to Dale.”
“Who?”
“The doorman.”
“Why were you talking to him?”
“He’s a human,” I said. “Nice guy.”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Miranda said.
I grabbed her hand. “Hey. We have to fill out those quizzes still.”
“I know.”
“Some of the questions are kind of crazy. First date restaurant. First date clothes. So many little details.”
“Nobody is going to say we can’t get married if we don’t know the answers,” Miranda said. “It’s just to get a feel for our relationship. Then they figure out the vibe, you know? That’s all.”
“I know that. I’m not-”
“I really have to go,” she said. She jumped to her toes and kissed my cheek. “I’ll call you later. Love you.”
She started to hurry off.
“Hey,” I said.
She looked back. “Remember back in college when you stood up to that asshole professor? Rigweed?”
“Yeah,” Miranda said.
“You were in a white hoodie with messy hair and you just ripped him to shreds. And each time he came back at you, you had a rebuttal. It was the only time anyone ever saw him step back and sit down.”
“What’s your point?”
“The quiz… it has a question about when you first thought about marrying the other person. That was it for me.”
“Liam,” she said. “We can’t live in the past.”
Miranda walked into the road and waved her arms to get cars to stop to let her cross.
I stood there and took a deep breath.
First date restaurant? A little hot dog place called Telly’s.
First date clothes? She wore a navy blue, long sleeve shirt and light blue jeans.
Miranda was out of sight, swallowed up by the busy city morning traffic.
My phone had been buzzing for the last hour with calls, texts, and emails.
I finally checked and saw that a patent was about to get pulled.
That wasn’t good.
I jogged to track down a ride, my fingers typing away at a few texts.
In the back of my mind, I kept picturing Miranda in that white hoodie and then in that navy-blue shirt.
The past wasn’t the worst place to rest sometimes.
She wanted to live in the present and nothing else.
Again, she wasn’t wrong.
But what kind of present was this that we were living?
Chapter Two
Emily