I pointed to the shocked serving staff members with a finger that was still numb from the cold. “Out,” I ordered. My tone wasn’t cruel, but it was firm.

Everyone looked at each other in shock, not moving.

“Did you all forget I’m the co-owner of this place? Everyone out!” At the sound of my sharp bark, the staff hustled and set down whatever they were doing to clear out from the restaurant, and as soon as the last of them was out the door, I locked it behind me and turned to face a petrified Haley, who was gaping at me from the corner booth.

“That’s more like it,” I growled, crossing the room toward her.

“Oh...my God, where did you…? How did you?”

“I drove,” I dismissed, stripping off my jacket and tossing it to the floor carelessly as the feeling started to come back to my face.

“Are you joking?” She looked stunned. “It’s too dangerous. You could have died.”

“I didn’t.”

“What?” she gasped. “Chase, you know how that’s how my father—”

I stopped her as I reached that same corner table where we first saw each other. “Nothing’s too far for you. I’m safe. I’m here.”

Before she could answer, I grabbed her with an ice-cold hand and stood her up.

Her eyes were still open wide, true shock in her expression, and I can’t imagine how wild and insane I must have looked barging in here like this.

“Why, though?” she finally asked, looking more fearful by the moment.

“Olivia showed up at my place,” I explained, and her face darkened. “She showed up naked under a fur coat and tried to blackmail me into having an affair. Said she had evidence about us and that she’d go public and tell everyone our marriage is fake if I didn’t do what she wanted.”

“Oh my God, no,” she breathed. She put her head in her hands and looked like she was going to have a panic attack. “No, no, no.”

“Haley,” I started, but she turned away from me, biting her fingernails.

“I never should have agreed to this,” she nearly sobbed. “To any of this. I never thought it would get this complicated. I wanted to keep the Peppertree so badly, and the idea of having a baby of my own sounded so great at the time, but...” She turned to face me, and her eyes were rimmed with red. “I can’t do this with someone who doesn’t love me back.”

The words hit me like an arrow through the heart, and my jaw dropped as I watched tears stream down her face.

“I know it’s pathetic,” she sobbed. “But I can’t lie anymore. I love you, damn it, as much as I tried not to, no matter how much I tried to get you out of my head, I love you. I’ve loved you since...God, I can’t even remember where the facade ended and the real thing started, but I’m so, so far deep in it. I can’t do this anymore, not like this.”

I was stunned to silence for a few long moments as she sniffled. At last, I spoke in a soft, still tone.

“Haley, do you have any idea why I just crossed a mountain in a snowstorm?”

She stared at me like I was about to play some cruel joke.

“For you,” I confessed, and I watched her face go bright red. “All for you. To get everything that’s been in my heart off my chest for...hell, for weeks.”

“W-what?” she stuttered, her eyes going wide. She knew what was coming. I knew it in my heart, and it was written in her expression--it was something she felt too, but she’d never dared let herself go there out of fear.

I took Haley’s hands, and they warmed mine as I squeezed them.

“I turned my back on her and came here, because...because I love you,” I gushed, and I saw tears spring to Haley’s eyes.

“I love you, Haley Simmons,” I repeated, my face splitting into a laughing smile, and I picked her up to hug her, swinging her in a circle. “I love you, and I don’t want our marriage to be fake. I want this to be real, I want us to have a life together.”

She silenced me with a kiss, grabbing my face and pressing hers to mine. Her heart was pounding so hard I could feel it as I set her back down, and for a moment that felt like eternity, we got lost in each other.

Finally, she broke the kiss and half-whispered, half-sobbed into my ear, “I swear to God if you’re not serious.”

“Let me show you just how serious I am,” I growled meaningfully, and I unzipped my pants. “I’m going to show you exactly what I wanted to do the moment I saw you at this very table. And after that, I don’t ever want us to be apart for a second.”

My cock sprang free, and I ground it against her, pushing her down against the table and feeling her hair in my hands as she buried her face in my muscles.

“I’m going to build a life with you, have a child with you, and we’re going to run this place, right here in the mountains...together.”

I ripped my shirt off. I thought I heard buttons roll uselessly to the ground, and I didn’t care. The mess of clothes coming off was such a blur I barely even noticed. All I cared about was touching more of Haley and her touching more of me.

Soon, I felt her nails digging into the skin of my back while I pressed a kiss deep into her mouth.

Her tongue was warm, and everything about her was so ripe and ready to be plucked that I could have come inside her right then.

We soon tossed our shoes aside, and her bra came next. The moment her breasts were exposed, I was on them.

My teeth grazed her nipples, and my tongue massaged them until they were stiff and needy. Her breasts seemed fuller than ever, and the feeling of those stiff nipples between my teeth made me so hard I could barely stand it.

She was bent backward on the table, and I was looming over her, my hands on her hips one moment and her sides the next.

“Do you know how much,” she started, interrupted by her own sharp gasp as I pinched a nipple in my teeth, “how much I’ve wanted to tell you I touch myself thinking about you?”

I gave a deep, rumbling groan in reply as I felt her up, pushing my cock against her bare thigh, feeling precum bead up and wet her leg.

“Every time you pulled out of me, I just wanted you back in,” she whimpered. “I didn’t want to tell you because it’s all been about the baby, but God, I just...I need you so fucking badly every night.”

“I want you at my side every night,” I told her, pulling her upright and looking her right in the eyes, our faces inches apart as I pushed my cock between her thighs. “Fuck, I wanted to tell you I loved you the night we were at the reception together. I wanted to bury my face in your pussy and never take it out.”

My cock touched the outer lips of her womanhood, and she gasped, her eyes rolling up and her mouth hanging open.

I couldn’t help but fill her mouth with a deep kiss, and I pulled her closer and entered her.

She gave a muffled scream into my mouth as I pulled her closer, scooting her further onto my hard, bulging cock, feeling the very veins that ribbed it pushing into her tight, needy lips. I rocked back and forth, massaging that pussy that I knew so well by now.

“There’s so much I’m going to explore with you,” I told her, holding her hair and pulling her head back just enough to show her how much control I was in. I pressed my lips to her neck and wanted to sink my teeth into her. Her moaning was music to my ears. “You’re my wife, and I want the whole world to know.”

“I love it when you call me that,” she confessed, shame and lust in her voice all at once. “Every time I heard it, I wanted it to be true.”

“It is true,” I growled, tugging her hair a little more. “You’re my bride, and I’m going to fuck you like you deserve.”

She lowered her eyes to look up at me despite me holding her back, and she licked her lips. “Let me do something I wanted to do when I saw you in this booth.”

I smiled, knowing exactly what she meant.

She was so tight around me it was almost a shame to pull out, but I did slowly, and I sat down at the edge of the booth.

In an instant, Haley crawled onto her knees and wrapped her hands around my cock, feeling her own slickness there and shuddering sweetly at the feeling of its girth.

“This is all yours,” I rumbled, watching her fondle and almost worship my thick cock, “as much as you want, as long as you want, every single day.” She looked up to me with eyes that were full of fire and mischief, and she let her tongue out to caress the tip of my cock.

“Careful,” she warned me playfully. “Give me an inch and I’ll take a mile.”

With that, she wrapped her lips around my cock and bathed my tip with her tongue. She licked off the bead of precum and let the tip of her tongue play with the slit of my cock, and it pulsed in her mouth to reward her.

I gripped her head and laced my fingers through it as I leaned my head back to enjoy the feeling of her on me. It was different than last time, somehow. Last time, it had been about us connecting in a quick moment of passion, like a flash of lightning.

This time, there was something so much fulfilling about the way her tongue played with my shaft, feeling its weight. She drew the tip of her tongue up the soft underside of my cock from the base to my tip, and it sent electricity through me. It was the feeling of real appreciation, of desire, of a hunger to know everything about my body and what it was capable of.

It was everything I wanted to explore with my mouth on her pussy, but when I did that, I had the excuse that it was just to get her wet before entering her.

I never thought a blowjob could have such meaning, but Haley was full of surprises, each one sweeter than the last.

The way her mouth caressed my cock was so blissful I could have let it go on for hours, with my hands stroking her hair and encouraging her as she worked, but that wasn’t how I planned on ending this session.

When I felt like I was tense and ready to release, I tugged on her hair gently, pulling her back. She reluctantly let my cock go, looking up at me pleadingly. I took her chin in my thumb and forefinger and slowly stood up.

“On the booth,” I commanded her softly.

She laid back on it, and when I turned to face her, she wrapped her legs around my waist before I could even say anything. Neither of us wanted to wait a second longer. I took her by the hips and stuck my cock deep inside her.

She let out a long, free gasp of pleasure, and for once, I didn’t care to silence her. I wanted the world to know what we were doing.

I started bucking into her as fiercely as if we’d been at it all afternoon. The warmth had long come back to my body, and now, it felt like I could melt all the snow on the mountain, so hot was our lovemaking.

“I’m going to come inside you,” I warned her, “and I’m going to do it every single night we’re together. I’ll do it until you’re pregnant, I’ll do it after you’re swollen with my child, and then I’ll do it until you’re pregnant again.”

She let out a sudden, moaning gasp as her orgasm crashed through her unexpectedly, like a crest that flared up over and over again inside her as I thrust back and forth, taking every bit of her in that I could and drawing the orgasm out as long as possible. The whole booth was shaking with my thrusts, and Haley was sweating and blushing as beautifully as the first time we were together.

Finally, I felt myself getting tight and tense like a coil desperate to be let loose. Haley must have sensed it too, because she clenched tight...and with a ragged, heavy groan, I unloaded all my love for her into her wet, hot pussy.

The next minute was a starry-eyed blur. My hands groped Haley all over while I came, and when I was no longer paralyzed by the force of the orgasm. I descended on her, covering her in kisses until I could hear her giggling.

I opened my eyes to see her smiling up at me, cheeks pink and pure joy on her face.

I pecked her once more on the lips.

“I’m holding you to that promise,” she whispered. “Every night.”

“I’m a man of my word,” I rumbled back, stroking her face. “Now and forever. I never want you to doubt that again. Never.”

“I won’t,” she whispered. “Never.”