As he spoke, her fingertips twisted in the neckline of his shirt, her body going pliant against his. Somehow they continued to turn in a slow circle in the center of the kitchen, but Dominic didn’t have a clue how, when his body felt stiff and aching all over.

“Just kidding,” she murmured, going up on her tiptoes, sucking in a breath when Dominic dragged her higher against his body. “Your game is still tight.”

The word “tight” on her lips almost broke him. Almost made Dominic rip the yoga pants right off her. Two steps and he could boost her onto the counter, lick that sweet pussy he’d been missing like hell. No. For the love of God, don’t fuck this up. If he pushed and she backed off and left, he would hate himself for ruining this moment.

“Talk to me about something, honey girl,” he rasped. “You made an appointment to see the old diner space. You haven’t gone yet, right?”

“Nuh-uh. No,” she said too quickly, still on her toes, clinging to his collar, letting him turn her around the rapidly darkening kitchen. “No, but I tested my signature dish out on Georgie and Bethany. They loved it.”

“Sure they did. That’s amazing.” He pressed his lips together. “Was it the asado?”

She breathed a laugh and it slipped over his collarbone. “Of course it was. You’ll taste it someday soon, I hope.” A beat passed. “What have you been doing without me around? Do you cook?”

“God no. I’ve been eating at Grumpy Tom’s mostly. After work. Beer and a burger or whatever is easiest.” He stretched his fingers across the small of her back, trying to reach as much of her as possible. “Been sleeping with the television on. I know you hate that, but it’s too quiet otherwise.”

“Surely you’re not implying I usually fill the silence with snoring.”

“I wouldn’t dare.” He chuckled. “Nah, you don’t snore, but you . . . murmur things.”

She looked up at him, her mouth close. So close. “I do?”

Dominic nodded. “Mostly about the spice rub needing more paprika.” Briefly, he brushed their foreheads together, even though he was dying to linger. “Sometimes you ask for me.”

The kitchen seemed to close in around them.

“What do you do when I ask for you?”

It was getting hard to swallow. “Kiss your shoulder, hold your hand.”

“You do?”

Dominic just looked at her, suspecting his heart—as well as the truth—was evident in his eyes.

“My appointment to look at the commercial space is on Friday. Do you . . . want to come?”

“Really?” His heart knocked in his chest. “Yes. Yes, I want to come.”

The double meaning of those words wasn’t lost on either of them. Their fleeting dose of eye contact was proof of that.

This was it. She was moving forward with the restaurant. Even as he pulled her closer, he couldn’t help but get the sense his wife was slipping away . . . and he couldn’t figure out why. That reality made him want to claim her, own her, the way he’d grown accustomed to doing.

Dominic wet his lips and focused on not thrusting his hips. Not an easy feat, considering he was packing enough wood to build a deck and both of them were well aware. No way she couldn’t feel his erection with their hips pressed together, snug and restless. Any minute now, he was going to screw this up. Break the rules. Push too hard. So it hurt like hell, but Dominic settled Rosie on the flats of her feet and stepped back, swiping the back of his wrist across his sweating upper lip.

Talk. Talk. Make words.

Words. That thought shook something loose and Dominic gripped the lifeline before he could reach for Rosie again where she stood trembling under the dim pendant light. “Earlier I was thinking about how much you love tradition. I, uh . . .” He swallowed hard, begging blood to return to his brain. “I was trying to distract myself this week, so I cleaned out the basement and found one of your mother’s boxes. There are some recipes on notecards banded together.” He turned away from her beauty out of pure necessity, opening the drawer where he’d stashed the notecards. There was a ring box wedged in beside the notecards, but he didn’t want Rosie to see that. Somehow her mother’s wedding ring had ended up in their basement storage area and he’d opened the box to reveal it was missing stones and needed to be cleaned. He wanted to have it polished and the stones replaced, so he could give it to her when she came home. Which was the definition of getting ahead of himself. No help for it, though. A man could dream.

“The notecards were stuck together, but I peeled most of them apart without damaging any . . .”

Dominic trailed off when Rosie’s hands went sliding up his back. They stopped at his shoulders and he fell forward with a groan, catching himself on the counter at the last second.

“Turn around and kiss me.”

“I can’t. I can’t do it. I’m all fucked up.”

“Please? I miss kissing you so much.”

“Miss it?” That made him turn around, a frown dragging his eyebrows together. “I devour that mouth when we’re . . . when . . .” When we’re fucking.

Christ. Was that really the only time he kissed her?

Regret gripped Dominic around the throat and he shot forward, capturing his wife’s mouth with a growl. She sobbed against his lips and everything inside him sped up, slowed down, sped up again. He couldn’t stop to get a good breath because that split second of time would allow him to think, realize he never kissed his wife just for the hell of it. Just to be close to her. What the hell was wrong with him?

It was a full-on attack—and there was nothing he could do to slow himself down. Especially not when she moaned like she’d been waiting for this, for a kiss in the kitchen, for years.

Jesus Christ, had she?

Dominic bent her backward over his forearm and plowed his tongue into her mouth, once, twice, three times, his eyes flying open when Rosie’s joined his, brushing tentatively at first, then with more and more confidence. She ripped at the shoulders of his T-shirt until he eased back enough to let her tear it off over his head, leaving him shirtless.

“Rules, rules,” she whimpered against his mouth. “I—I just wanted to touch your skin.”

“You want your man’s clothes off, you fucking take them off.” He pulled her upright again and backed her up until she hit the counter. “Anytime.” His mouth moved over her face, neck, and throat, raining openmouthed kisses. “Anywhere.”

Rosie’s expression was dazed, her hands running up and over his pecs. “God, you look so good. I didn’t . . .” She bit her lip and laughed in that beautiful, exhilarated way he hadn’t heard in a long time. “Until I saw you in the gym the other day, I just assumed you got this way on the construction site.”

Dominic licked into her mouth and felt her body go boneless, her thighs restless against his. “I’ve got a motherfucking ten at home,” he growled against her swollen lips. “You think I’m stupid enough to let myself go soft?”

Her head fell back, and Dominic trailed his tongue up the center of her throat, sliding it into her mouth when he drew even with her lips. Kissing her and knowing he wasn’t allowed to be inside of her heightened every one of his senses to a fifteen. The rasp of her pussy every time her yoga pants moved against his sweatpants. The drag of their wet tongues, the smell of coconut on her skin. He grew wild absorbing every nuance without crossing the point of no return, but the deprivation threatened to rob him of sanity.

“Rosie,” he said thickly, sampling her mouth with slow bites. “I want to kiss you for another ten hours straight, but I can’t.” He gave in and ground their hips together once, moaning into her neck, listening to her echo the sound. “A little more of that mouth and I’m going to finish.”

“Do it,” she whispered in his ear, trying to wrap her legs around his hips. “I want you to.”

Not for the first time in his life, Dominic wished he wasn’t stubborn to the fucking bone. “No.” He pounded the kitchen counter with a fist. “Told you. Inside my wife or nowhere at all.”

Rosie made a frustrated sound, and he cut her off with a kiss, because he didn’t have a choice. His mouth was drawn back to hers with such intensity, he wondered how she’d ever walked through the house without him luring her into a make-out session. By the time they came up for air and dove back into another damp, writhing dance of tongues and teeth, pre-come was beginning to bead on the head of Dominic’s cock and nothing, nothing could stop him from rubbing that swollen flesh between her welcoming thighs.

“Please,” he slurred into her neck. “Please.”

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes. Yes.”

Dominic watched under half-mast eyelids as Rosie splayed her hands on his chest and pushed. He allowed himself to stumble back a step—and she pushed him again, bringing the backs of his legs up against the edge of a dining room chair. “Sit down, husband.”

He was always the one to dominate, but that power had been taken out of his hands. All he could do was sit back, hips shifting, wincing over the discomfort trapped in his briefs. “Wife.”