I was just a stand in for a year. A means to an end. A way for her to forget her problems and get something out of spending time with me.
When this had all started, I'd felt almost bad about taking advantage of her needs to make her into something I wanted her to be, but now I could see that'd I'd been shaped by it, too, even though that was never the plan.
I wasn't supposed to be affected. I was supposed to be the calm and collected one. The one who could flirt with her, spank her, fuck her, break her down, and then go on about my business like it didn't matter at all.
And there I was, on a jog early in the morning because I couldn't get her out of my head.
I stayed out for a good hour or so, running until my lungs and legs burned before I made my way back to the cabin.
The sound and smell of bacon frying alerted me to the fact Ash was up and making breakfast, and I swallowed hard before I followed the smell to the kitchen, snagging a towel from the linen closet on my way to wipe the sweat from my face.
"There you are," she said when I came in. "I was wondering if you'd gotten eaten by a bear or something."
"Nothing so dramatic," I said, mouth suddenly dry when I looked at her. She was dressed casually, in just an oversized t-shirt and a pair of shorts, even though it was still a chilly morning.
But she didn't seem bothered by the temperature, and her legs were hard to look away from.
The collar of the shirt drooped down over her shoulder, showing off skin, and even though she'd just been naked in my arms a little bit ago, the sight was more tantalizing that it had any right to be.
God. What was happening to me?
"How do you like your eggs?" she asked, jolting me out of my thoughts.
"What?"
"Eggs?" she said. "Scrambled? Fried? Poached and smothered in caviar?"
I jerked my eyes away from that one bare shoulder, making myself focus on her words so I didn't end up bending her over the kitchen table and fucking her from behind again.
It was such a domestic moment, and one I wasn’t used to being in. No one had made me breakfast without being paid for it first in such a long time. Certainly no one I was sleeping with.
But there she was, dressed like she was comfortable and wielding a spatula like some kind of kitchen godsend.
There were a lot of things I could say in the moment. For one, I could answer her question about eggs. I could tell her I liked a soft scramble and then I spread the eggs on toast and ate them that way, which got me ridiculed by people who thought that was a weird way to eat eggs.
I could tell her how beautiful she looked and how much I wanted to touch her. I could tell her to turn the stove off and bend over and I would pay for breakfast later.
But none of that was what I said. Because I was an idiot who didn’t know how to leave well enough alone, and I was overcome with new feelings I wasn’t sure how to deal with.
"I don't want you to see him anymore."
Chapter 12
Killian
The words were out of my mouth before I could consider just how bad that was going to sound and how poorly she was going to take it.
Ash was a woman who didn't enjoy being told what to do in any capacity, and there I was letting stupid things come out of my mouth this early in the morning.
She stopped, hand hovering over the pan where she'd just cracked the egg. The sizzle of it was the only other sound in the room, and she just stared at me for a second, not saying anything.
I waited for her to lash out. To tell me to go fuck myself because she could do what she wanted. But she didn't say anything for a good few minutes, poking and prodding at the eggs in the pan and tapping her foot on the floor.
The silence was so oppressive that I honestly considered saying it again, just to get a reaction out of her.
"You don't want me to see him," she finally said, letting out a little breath.
There was no need to clarify who the 'him' was in the scenario.
"No," I replied, because I'd already said it, so I might as well keep being honest. "I don't."
"Why? You don't know him. And we've been over this. If you can see and play with whoever you want, I can do the same thing."
Her voice was neutral, and it was hard to tell if she was angry or just tired of talking about this. But I was the one who had brought it up, so I had to push forward.
"I know that. I'm proposing we close that particular aspect of this marriage."
She flipped an egg, still not looking at me. "You want us to be exclusive."
It wasn't a question, but I supposed it didn't have to be.
"Yes."
"Because you don't want me to see Simon."
I almost flinched from hearing his name, but I let out a breath and stood my ground. "I know it doesn't sound very fair—”
"Ha!" she barked a laugh, cutting me off. "Fair? You don't know the first fucking thing about fair, Killian. You've had six months to do whatever you wanted to do. You played with other women, got them off, made them fall all over you. You could have done more if you wanted, and you never would have had to say anything to me. There's no way for me to know you didn't do all that."
"I would have told you," I said, indignant. "I told you everything,
