He finally came home to her.
Still in his wedding attire, he looked utterly famished.
His thick black hair was a mess, a far cry from his usual polished appearance. The murder investigation must have been wearing him down.
But what truly caught her attention was the shock in his bright blue eyes when he saw her.
She was seated elegantly, folded into the loveseat, wearing a cute white heart-patterned night robe.
Shards of broken glass surrounded her, like the aftermath of a chaotic battle, yet she looked serene.
In one hand, she held a novel; in the other, a steaming cup of tea.
She smiled. "Hello, husband."
He blinked, his leather shoes crunching over the glass shards as he stepped closer. "What happened here?"
Lord, she'd almost forgotten how much she adored his voice.
"The room was too hot," she sighed, as if that explained everything.
He blinked again, as though he hadn't heard her correctly. "And so...you broke the table?"
She chuckled, her laughter light and lilting. "Honestly, it was the loveseat's idea. It said it would be a great anger management technique."
"The loveseat," he repeated, his tone flat.
"Yes. Also," she continued nonchalantly, "I thought about punishing the workers by making them pick the glass with their bare fingers. But the glass decided it liked me too much and didn't want to leave. So I suppose they're safer this way." She sighed, her voice dripping with an odd sort of sympathy.
He shut his eyes and exhaled slowly. "God have mercy. I need a shower," he muttered tightly, stepping past her toward the stairs.
She watched him go, listening to the sound of his shoes crunching over the shards, her eyes following his movements.
Her gaze darkened, sharp and deadly, before falling back to her book.
"Oh, husband?" she called, flipping a page as if it were an afterthought.
He stopped mid-stride, turning slightly. "What does thou require, wife?"
She sighed, still absorbed in her romance novel. "It's our wedding night, husband."
He raised an eyebrow, curiosity flickering in his gaze. "Yes, contracted wife?"
She giggled at his emphasis on contracted wife, then slowly uncrossed her legs, revealing a glimpse of her lace pink panties.
"Don't you want to make love to me, husband?"