Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 124971 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124971 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Allison cleared her throat loudly, trying to bring us back to earth.
“Mr. and Mrs. Bates. I believe you’ll have your entire lives to polish off your kissing skills.”
A lopsided smirk on his face, Riggs disconnected from me. So easily, so casually, that I stumbled all over him. He righted me with the hand he still had on my waist.
“My bad. I got a little excited.”
His voice showed no trace of emotion, tightness, or elation. He seemed entirely unaffected.
I blinked up at him, waiting for him to acknowledge me. Somehow, this kiss had felt real. Different and wild, separate from everything I’d ever experienced.
But Riggs didn’t look at me at all.
“See you back home, Poppins.” He gave me a half-arsed hug with one hand, plastering his hot mouth to my ear as soon as Allison had left the room.
With that, he turned around and walked away with his friends.
Leaving me feeling like I was falling into an abyss so dark and vast I couldn’t even see the sky anymore.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
RIGGS
Riggs:
Emmett: What am I looking at?
Riggs: My marriage certificate.
Emmett: Says here Daphne, not Desiree.
Riggs: Yeah. Desiree is her nickname.
Emmett: You understand what you’re saying makes no sense at all?
Riggs: I’m not here to make sense, Emmett. I’m here to tell you to fuck off and take your precious Alaska with you.
Riggs: What, no congrats? Silence has never been this golden.
Emmett: I’m still not buying it.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
My wife was a good kisser. I did not expect that. Duffy seemed like the type to be allergic to anything that smelled like fun, not to mention looked like it.
Turned out, she had moves. She knew what she was doing. Or maybe it was the fact she was so young, so different from my usual hookups, that made her exotic enough for my chest to constrict when we exchanged fluids in that courtroom.
Your chest did not constrict, Riggs Bates. You probably just had a minor heart attack or something.
I was so disoriented with that little ping in my otherwise-dormant heart that I had to pull away and stagger out of the courthouse like a drunken fool. And where did a drunken sailor end up whenever he got off a ship? That’s right, the bar.
“Did you just abandon your wife at the altar?” Arya barked out, catching up with my step as I shot out of the courthouse. I was counting on those four-inch heels to slow her down.
“I didn’t abandon anyone.” I blasted through the courthouse’s doors, seeking the nearest bar with my eyes. It was five o’clock somewhere. Sure as fuck not in New York, but in Asia, for sure. “She has things to do.”
“What things?” It was Winnie’s turn to challenge me. I noticed their husbands kept their mouths shut and trailed behind us. Cowards. That was exactly why I never wanted to get marri—ah, never mind.
Out on the street now, I detected an Irish pub across the road.
“Immigration-document stuff.”
“That could’ve waited until tomorrow.”
I choked on a laugh. “You don’t know Duffy. She’s not big on postponing things she wants. I wouldn’t put it past her to become a naturalized citizen before dinner, and the wife of a Forbes list billionaire before midnight.”
“You were straight up rude out there, Riggs Bates,” Winnie persisted, power walking to keep up with my stride. “Why’d you kiss the poor child if you don’t have feelings for her?”
“I do have feelings for her,” I protested, slapping the door to the pub open. “I feel strongly that she’s a pain in the ass.”
My friends wobbled behind me like baby geese. I fell on a stool at the bar and rapped the wood three times. “Redbreast, neat. Make it a double.”
A triple might have been a better idea, actually. How much did I have to drink to rid myself of the taste of my wife? Her sweetness lingered on my mouth, and I had to remind myself she was over a decade younger. Not to mention, she’d married me so she wouldn’t get deported. Not to mention, she’d thought I couldn’t afford her.
The fact she had a price tag at all should’ve made her undesirable to me.
I’d tried to be good. A week ago, when we’d almost kissed in her apartment, I’d put a stop to it before we did something stupid. But today, when the clerk gave me the green light, and Duffy stood there with her little frown and surly pout and posh outfit and purple eyes, I couldn’t help myself. I indulged.
Indulged? You scorched every boundary you’ve ever agreed to by kissing her.
Confusion and horniness gave way to anger. Did I just sexually harass my own wife? Ten seconds into our marriage?
“Seems that way.” Arsène slithered to a seat next to mine on the bar like a dark shadow.
Shit. I said that out loud.