Genevieve awakened after dark. She blinked her eyes and yawned, taking a minute to realize that she had become the middle of the sandwich—she was spooning Silver and Knox was spooning her. By the sound of her husband’s breathing, he was still asleep after they had made love for the third time. Not wanting to awaken them, Genevieve tried to readjust her body ever so slightly so the moment wouldn’t end. Usually the first time making love was a bit awkward for her—not with Knox. Making love with Knox had been like coming home; he seemed to know her body in a way that didn’t make sense. The way he held her, the way her touched her, the way he kissed her—it was everything she had always wanted and thought impossible to have. When he made love to her, with such gentle intensity, Knox gave her everything she had ever needed. And then he gave it to her again and again.
Genevieve closed her eyes and reveled in the feeling of her husband’s warm skin and his hard chest muscles pressed against her back. She reveled in the feel of his arms holding on to her so tightly and the feel of his breath on the back of her neck. There was part of her that wanted to dwell on the negative side—the impending, inevitable divorce—yet the part of her that wanted to bask in the afterglow of their lovemaking won out when Knox tightened his arm around her body and kissed the nape of her neck.
“Are you awake?” he asked groggily.
“Yes.”
Knox’s large hand moved down to her bare stomach and pulled her back into his body. “Any regrets?”
“No.” There were no regrets. Maybe one day there would be, but for now, she was happy they had consummated their marriage.
“Good,” her husband murmured behind her.
Genevieve threaded her fingers with his and kissed his hand. “Well, maybe one regret.”
She felt Knox lift his head up off the pillow and it made her smile as she continued. “I do regret that we missed dinner.”
Her husband dropped his head back onto the pillow with a groan. “I’ve never known another woman to be so driven by her stomach.”
She spun around in his arms so she was lying on her back. Silver sprang upright, barked and then used both of their bodies as a springboard to jump off the bed.
“Feed us,” Genevieve demanded playfully.
Knox yawned again and rubbed his hand over his face and eyes. “Fine. I’m getting up.”
Like two teenagers left alone in their parents’ house, Genevieve and Knox raided the refrigerator. Genevieve pulled on a T-shirt and her underwear while Knox opted to wear only his boxer briefs. They gathered their snacks and headed for the couch. After Silver gobbled up the food in his bowl, he jumped up onto the couch, and sat down on a bag of chips.
“Silver!” Genevieve scolded him. “You have no manners!”
Knox pulled the bag of chips out from underneath the puppy.
“I’m serious, Knox. Your puppy needs some training.”
“Our puppy,” he corrected, dipping a chip into the salsa. “Don’t try to shirk your responsibility to the family.”
“Fine. Our puppy needs to be trained. We can’t just keep on carrying him around. He needs to learn to walk on a leash, heel and sit.”
“He’s sitting now,” Knox said before he popped the chip into his mouth. “Aren’t you, boy?”
Silver wagged his tail at Knox happily, looking between the both of them, hoping that someone would take mercy on him and pass a treat his way.
“I’m going to enroll him in a puppy class.” Genevieve took a swig of her beer. She couldn’t imagine a better post-lovemaking snack than chips, salsa and a cold bottle of beer.
“I will leave the education of our puppy to you.” Her husband raised his bottle up to her.
“Talk about shirking your duties.” She smiled at him.
They finished eating their snack and then headed back to the bedroom. It was unspoken, but they both wanted to get back into each other’s arms. It felt as if they were truly newlyweds on their honeymoon—they couldn’t get enough of each other. Genevieve stripped out of her scant clothing and slipped under the covers into Knox’s awaiting arms. She curled her body into his, draping her leg over his thickly muscled thigh. Her hand on his chest, Genevieve sighed happily. Knox rested his chin on the top of her head, his free hand petting her hair.
“An annulment is off the table now.” She felt his voice as much as she heard it in the dark.
Genevieve tried not to stiffen her body when his words registered. She felt his words like a cut on her skin. Why would he bring up the end of their relationship at a moment like this? She pushed away from him and turned over.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Knox tried to bring her back into his arms.
She didn’t answer him. If she needed to explain it to him, then he wasn’t as smart as she had originally given him credit for. She heard him sigh.
“That was a stupid thing to say,” he acknowledged.
She didn’t respond because she was fighting to keep tears at bay. She so rarely cried that, much like these new feelings for Knox, this well of emotion caught her completely off guard. Genevieve bit her lip hard to keep the tears in her eyes from falling.
“Gen.” He said her name again. “I’m sorry. I just...” He paused for a second and then restarted. “I broke a promise to you. I told you this was going to be a marriage in name only and I let us both down.
“Please,” he added. “Don’t turn away from me.”
When she felt that she could speak again, Genevieve turned back to her husband. “I wanted this to happen.”
Knox tucked wayward strands of hair behind her ear and then put his hand gently on her face. “I don’t want you to have any regrets, Genevieve.”
“My regrets are mine. If I have them, I own them.” She reached out to put her hand over his heart. “Besides, this was bound to happen, Knox. You’ve been walking around without your shirt on, bare chested. A red-blooded American woman can only be expected to have so much willpower.”
That made her husband laugh and it broke the tension between. He took her hand and kissed it.
“If memory serves, you were the one teasing me.” He tugged her closer to his body.
“Oh, trust me.” She tucked her head into the crook of his neck so she could listen to his beating heart. “I was.”
Knox put his finger beneath her chin and brought her lips up to his for a sweet, lingering kiss.
“Hmm.” She ran her hand over his tensed, bulging biceps. “I love the way you kiss.”
As if on cue, Silver climbed on top of them like he was climbing a hill, flopped down in between their bodies and began to lick their faces.
“See?” Genevieve laughed. “No manners!”
Silver started to scratch an itch on his neck, smacking Genevieve in the face with his foot.
“Okay, brat.” Knox scooped up Silver. “Out of the bedroom with you.”
In the sparse light coming in the bedroom window, Genevieve admired the sheer beauty of her husband’s naked body as he walked back toward her. The man was a leaner version of Michelangelo’s David and for the time being at least, he was all hers. Knox returned to her and wordlessly began to love her with his mouth and his hands. Genevieve closed her eyes and clung to her husband, giving him control, knowing that he would take care of her, knowing that he was about to take her on another glorious ride.
Making love to his wife had become Knox’s new favorite pastime. What he had truly grown to love about Genevieve was her sense of adventure, which, as it turned out, was just as present when it came to the physical side of their marriage. Their desire for each other made them act like two horny teenagers and when they could sneak away to make love, they did. When they weren’t making love, they were finding excuses to touch each other, to hold hands, as if they were afraid that the other one would suddenly disappear. And there was a part of him, like a little warning bell ringing in the back of his mind, that reminded him that, like it or not, Genevieve was going to leave him. That was the deal. Yet, that knowledge didn’t stop him from wanting his wife in every way he could possibly want her. As a companion, as a friend, and now, as his lover.
He simply couldn’t stop thinking about her.
As if his thoughts conjured her up, she appeared on the ladder to the hayloft where he was working.
“What are you doing up here?” Genevieve asked as she climbed up into the hayloft. “Aren’t you supposed to be fixing fences with Logan and Xander?”
He put his finger to his lips and winked at her as he took her hand in his. He led her through a maze of hay bales stacked to the roof until he reached a small clearing tucked away from prying eyes. On a small bed of loose hay, Knox had put down a soft flannel blanket. Knox studied his wife’s pretty face to see her reaction to his secret hideaway in the hayloft. Without a word, Genevieve nodded her head in agreement. She was game to make love in the hayloft with him. Knox was eager to join his body to hers; it was all he had been thinking about since he’d had the idea to make love to her in the loft. There was going to be something so sexy about being seated between his wife’s thighs, his lips on hers, his world standing still in a moment of ecstasy while the work of the ranch continued all around them.
When her husband sent her a text asking her to meet him in the hayloft, she had assumed that he wanted to discuss some sort of change in the hay they were feeding some of the higher-end horses. A sexy afternoon rendezvous hadn’t even been on the radar! But, she couldn’t deny that she loved the idea. She had always wanted to make love in a hayloft and this was her chance. What better person than the man who had turned out to be her most incredible lover?
“You can’t be noisy,” she warned him with a lover’s smile as she shimmied out of her jeans.
“Me?” he asked in a loud whisper. “You!”
“Shhhh.” She put her fingers to her lips. “Someone will hear you.”
Knox had his jeans unzipped and she was immediately drawn to the outline of his erection pressed against his boxer briefs. She tugged his briefs down and wrapped her lips around his hard shaft.
“Oh, God.” If Knox had tried to speak those words in a lowered tone, it hadn’t worked.
Laughing quietly, Genevieve lay back on the blanket and opened her arms to him. Instead of taking her invitation, Knox knelt down between her thighs and kissed her on that most sensitive spot. Biting her lip hard to stop herself from crying, Genevieve slipped her fingers into Knox’s hair and arched her back. Turnabout was fair play and he was making it nearly impossible for her to keep their location a secret.
“Knox.” She whispered his name over and over again while his tongue slipped in and out of her body.
She was panting and aching when he sat up so he could look at her with a Cheshire cat smile. She reached out her arms to him.
“Please,” she said under her breath. “Hurry.”
With his smile in place, Knox searched his pocket and then the look on his face changed.
“What’s wrong?”
“The condom.” Her husband checked his other pockets. “It must have fallen out of my pocket.”
Genevieve covered her face and groaned in frustration. “No.”
Her body was so revved up that she ached with wanting. She needed to feel Knox inside of her now—she needed him to relieve this gnawing ache he had created in her.
“I need you.” She grabbed the blanket in her fists and squeezed tightly.
“I need you,” he said, the expression on his face pained—they were both so ready for each other that it seemed impossible to stop now. She held out her arms to him and he covered her body with his, but he was careful not to enter her.
Knowing it was a risk, and not caring in the moment, Genevieve reached between them and guided him to her slick opening.
“Are you sure?” Knox asked through gritted teeth.
“I mean it, Knox,” she demanded, her body demanding relief.
He slid his thick shaft inside of her, so deep, so hard, making her forget about everything except for Knox. He moved inside of her, slow and steady, knowing what she liked—giving her exactly what she needed.
“Yes, my beauty.” Knox nibbled on her ear, cupping her bottom and seating himself so deeply inside of her that it brought her to climax.
Gasping and shuddering in his arms, Genevieve clung to Knox tightly, her breath mingling with his as buried his face in her neck to stifle the sounds that he just couldn’t contain.
“God, I love you.” The words seemed to be wrenched out of his throat, unplanned and unexpected.
Not trusting her own ears, Genevieve held her husband tightly, kissing his chest, and admiring his pure masculine appeal at the moment of his release. The muscles of his biceps bulging and sweat dripping down his chest, Knox threw back his head, his eyes closed with a stifled growl on his lips.
Both of them spent and satiated, Knox rolled over onto his back, taking her with him. Genevieve draped her leg over thighs and rested her head on his chest, listening to his beating heart. Many times during their lovemaking, Knox had said that he loved to be with her, but this was the first time it had been boiled down to just “I love you.” Had he been too overcome with passion to get the rest of the words out or had this been a true declaration? Nestled in her husband’s arms, the scent of sweet alfalfa hay in the air, Genevieve genuinely wished she knew the answer to that question. It was clear in her mind that she had fallen for her husband, but it was not at all clear to her if Knox had, indeed, fallen for her.
“What do you think of the menu?” Jane Lawrence was bustling around her cheerful yellow kitchen.
“If you’re happy, I’m happy,” Genevieve said noncommittally. Her mother and sisters had all been driving her nuts with the plans for the wedding reception shindig. Party planning was not her activity of choice and she wished that her family would just make all the arrangements and leave her out of it.
“What do you think, Knox?” Jane turned her attention to her son-in-law, who was busy stuffing his face with a bowlful of Jane’s homemade beef stew.
Seemingly perfectly at home in her parents’ house, Knox took a quick break from the stew. “I think you have a really good variety, Mom. Something for everyone.”
“Thank you, Knox.” Her mom hugged him and sent her daughter a disapproving glance. “At least one of you is involved in the planning.”
“Seriously? Mom, he hasn’t even looked at the menu and somehow he’s the good one?”
“I’ve looked at the menu,” Knox told her. “Margo emailed it to me.”
“How did Margo get your email?”
“Ella gave it to her,” her husband said.
Genevieve lifted up her hands in the air. “Since when are you in contact with Ella? What the heck is going on around here?”
Before he could reply, her mother said, “Since you wouldn’t respond to any of my emails about the reception, I got in touch with Knox...”
“And we’ve been texting ever since,” Knox finished as he smiled at Jane fondly.
Genevieve turned to Knox. “You’re texting with my mom and emailing with my sisters? I feel like there’s a whole lot of stuff going on behind my back.”
“Going on right in front of your face.” Her husband scooped up the last spoonful of beef stew.
Genevieve sat back in her chair and watched her mother interact like a giddy schoolgirl with Knox. There was no doubt that the two of them had hit it off. It pained Genevieve to think about how hurt her mom was going to be when the marriage ended. She had asked Knox to not call Jane “Mom” but whenever he tried to call her by her given name, her mom corrected him. What a tangled mess they had created.
“Did you see the beautiful picture Knox had framed for us?” Jane asked, picking up Knox’s empty bowl.
“No.”
“Oh! It’s so lovely.” Her mom disappeared into the formal living room and came back with a framed picture of them in Lawrence Park on their wedding day.
Knox did look a bit sheepish when he said to her, “I was over here helping your father with the tractor.”
“Honestly!” Genevieve crossed her arms in front of her body. “Am I literally the last person to know anything that’s going on in my own family?”
“Ladybug.” Her mom hugged her tightly around the neck and planted rapid-fire kisses on her cheek. “I know it’s difficult to discover that the world doesn’t actually revolve around you.”
Genevieve just groaned.
She knew it would get only worse when her sisters arrived for dinner.
Dinner at the Lawrence house was a less formal affair than at the Ambling A, but it was just as loud and raucous when the entire family was present. And minutes later, they were.
Ella, the youngest of the three Lawrence daughters, arrived first with her twin boy toddlers, her husband, Jason, and a very pregnant belly. Once Margo arrived with her brood of four children, the noise volume in the house doubled.
“Outside! Outside! Outside!” Margo shuttled her four children through the kitchen and out into the backyard with their grandfather. Her sister shut the door with a happy sigh. “Thank goodness it’s not raining so they can run off all that energy.”
The Lawrence sisters all looked very similar, with blond hair and blue eyes. Both of her sisters were taller and leaner, and out of the three of them, Margo had always had the curves.
Her youngest sister put her hands low on her back and leaned backward with a wince. “Take the boys outside will you, honey? It’ll be good for them to play with their cousins.”
Once her husband and the twins were on their way outside, Ella joined them at the table. “Phew. I am ready for this girl to come on out.”
Margo lifted up the paper towel covering the fried chicken their mom had made earlier and snitched a small piece of the skin before she took the last seat at the round kitchen table.
“I really appreciated your feedback on the decorations, Knox.”
“Yes,” Ella agreed. “You’ve been so helpful. Unlike some people who shall remain nameless.”
Genevieve caught Knox’s eye. “I can’t believe you’re so interested in the reception.”
“Of course I’m interested.” Her husband said it so convincingly that she would have believed it if she didn’t know the truth. “I only intend to get married once.”