Boyfriend. Just the sound of it is alien on my tongue. Never mind the fact that I hadn’t used it in years, but if you break it down or chop it in half, it’s such a stupid term. Boy. Friend. How juvenile, right? I mean, Chase isn’t a boy. He may dress like one—although under my extensive tutelage, his fashion sense is much improved—but under those ratty old band tees and performance fleece is all man. And he’s certainly not my friend. He was. The best friend I ever had, in fact, but he’s so much more than that now.

Soul mate.

Life partner, perhaps?

Blech. They all sound so fuckin’ corny. There really is no good way to describe him. But as I peer at the colossal diamond on my finger, another word comes to mind. One far more terrifying. Fiancé.

Which brings me to the worst word of all: wife.

Holy. Shit.

The thought alone flip flops my stomach into a queasy mess. It’s not that I don’t love Chase because I do . . . with every fiber of my being. He’s the best parts of everything in my life. The constant buzz that keeps me flying high. Every time he looks at me, the feeling in my chest is almost more than I can handle. It’s as if I can hear his thoughts and feel his dreams burning through his pale ocean gaze. He wants it all. The wife, the family, the picket fence. What if I’m not able to give him all that?

For me, marriage isn’t the inevitable next step in a relationship. It’s a death sentence. I moved to California a strong, independent woman with dreams of making it big, and now I’m just another silly girl daydreaming about flowers and happily ever after, with the bonus of fire and brimstone. Who am I?

I’m being dramatic. Chase loves me. I love him. Our life together is everything.

“Kat!” Chase’s voice pulls me from the dark corners of my own mind, a place I find myself seeking solace more often than not these days. “Why are you up so early?” he mumbles at the end of his yawn.

Goose bumps prickle my arms and legs as the cold chill of the open fridge blasts against my exposed flesh. “Looking for something to eat. I’m starving.” We're way past our usual grocery shopping day, so there's nothing in our cabinets but brown rice and kibble. We go hungry, but God forbid the dogs starve, right?

I bend into the gaping maw, browsing the items on the shelves before grabbing the chips and salsa, then slam it closed.

“Come back to bed.” Chase steps in behind me, the warmth of his shirtless body sucking the cold from my skin.

“No, I’m awake now. Just gonna have a snack and hit up a meeting.” The irony of it all falls out of the sky and lands on my face in the form of a sardonic pout. I was pushed into AA kicking and screaming, but since then, meetings have become a lifeline for me. It’s the best free therapy a girl can get, and right now, my head is swimming in psychotic bullshit. Chase and I should have eloped. If we’d have just run to the courthouse instead of sitting on this engagement for so many months, I wouldn’t have had time for all these what-ifs to eat away at me like this.

Wheels turn in Chase’s head. He knows as much as the next guy how important support is to a person’s sobriety, but he also knows what a Saturday morning meeting means. It’s an hour with Erik at the helm. My first friend when I came to LA, Erik was a godsend who got me through those initial months alone. I was newly dry, only a few months at that point, yet still so fucked in the head I was having trouble staying focused. Running away from the love of your life will do that to a girl. I left everything behind in the hopes of starting over, but moving on from Chase was harder than I anticipated. At any rate, Erik’s a friend and nothing more, but that jealous streak still cuts across Chase’s eyes every time I mention his name.

A sound rattles at the base of his throat. “That’s junk. Here, why don’t you have some of that fruit salad I made yesterday?” He pulls the fridge door open, leaning in just far enough to grab the bowl of chopped fruit I so artfully ignored.

“Because I’m not in preschool. Who the fuck eats fruit salad over the age of five?”

His knee comes between mine as he takes a step, caging me between his body and the counter. The thick ridge of his arousal pressing against my abdomen wipes away any residual doubt about moving forward with this relationship. I definitely want to spend the rest of my life with this man. I just need to quit thinking of forever as the end. “C’mon. You know you want it.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re offering me more than just fruit?”

His bow tie lips curve into a sexy smirk as he slowly slides a strawberry chunk into his mouth. The sweet scent of fruit muddled with his own masculine fragrance drives all the blood in my body south.

Chase nonchalantly reaches into the bowl on the counter next to me as his free hand inches up my bare thigh. “What are you doing?” I ask, squirming against the soft graze of his knuckles.

“Shhh. Try one,” he urges in a low baritone that makes me weak. He lifts the berry to my lips, letting his fingertips dance over the damp cotton of my panties. The cold, fleshy fruit traces the line of my lips, forcing them to part as he pushes between them. “Good?”

“Mmm.” Melting against his touch, I let the sweet flavor dissolve on my tongue before swallowing.

“More?”

I nod, opening my mouth for him. A rogue drop of juice rolls down my chin. Chase lashes his tongue against it, lapping up the sugary mess while his naughty fingers continue to roam the apex of my thighs. “Chase . . .” I breathe. “What are you doing to me?”

“Sating your hunger.” His gravelly answer vibrates against my neck as he pushes my underwear aside and slides two digits into my needy cavern. “And mine. Take this off,” he tells me, grazing his knuckles under my shirt, his raspy voice thick with desire.

Doing as I’m told, I lift the garment over my head, letting it flutter to the floor. “Now, open for me,” he demands. My lips part again, waiting for another treat, but it doesn’t come. Instead, the cool hunk of fruit washes across my bare chest. The sudden flick of Chase’s tongue against my nipple heats my body like a furnace. He pulls it into his mouth, circling it with agonizing control. My pussy clenches as his teasing ministrations work my body into a fighting frenzy.

“Hungry?” I whisper.

Pale eyes snap to mine, a devious twinkle darkening the outer irises. “Starving,” he answers, dropping to the floor. One stroke of his tongue across my slit makes my knees buckle. He grasps hold of my panties and tears them down my legs. Standing, he takes me in his hands and lifts me onto the counter.

Colorful fingers curl around my thighs, spreading me wide for his inspection. “Breakfast of champions,” he mumbles, falling to his knees again. His scandalous glare holds me hostage in its bold blue depths. His lips graze against my center in a steady burning kiss. He laps me up with long, languid licks before dipping into my tight passage.

My head falls to the cabinet behind me with a thud. Short tufts of dark hair spike through my fingers. I press my heels against his shoulders, circling my hips as his persistent teasing continues. “Mi stamatáte . . . mi stamatáte . . .” Don’t stop.

But he does.

“Fuck you,” I curse, which only earns me a snide chuckle as he replaces his mouth with his fingers again.

“Trust me, I plan to, but I'm not done with my snack yet,” he replies, shoving a grape into his cheek.

He dives between my legs again, this time voracious and hungry. Sloppy licks slide in and out until I'm dangling on the edge of my orgasm. Just before I fall, a hard ball pushes against my throbbing bud. Holy fuck, I’m about to come on a grape! Using his tongue, he rocks it back and forth, increasing the pressure as his nimble fingers twist and crook against my inner walls.

Pleasure snakes around my body, squeezing the air from my lungs as the orgasm rips through me. Chase sucks the grape back into his mouth and stands, crushing his lips against mine in a ravenous rush. We both are starved for each other like unwanted dogs. Needy, hungry, and wanton.

The tangy taste of me slides across my tongue, reigniting the flame that burns so bright whenever we embrace. It’s crazy when you think about it. It all started with a kiss. A singular, scorching kiss that tore the world out from beneath my feet and made me second-guess everything I knew to be true up until that very moment. It changed me, and every soft caress after touched not just my body, but my heart as well.

Chase rolls the last of our feast into my mouth before opening his pants and taking himself into his hand. I reach between us and stroke his length, tasting his moan on my tongue. “You want that?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me how bad.” He nudges my sodden core, making me whimper in frustration. “Tell me how much this sweet cunt loves my cock.”

“You feel how wet I am? That’s my sweet cunt begging you to fill it.”

“And this yummy little pussy’s all mine, right?” he asks, pressing the steel ball of his piercing against my swollen bud.

“Mmmhmm. All yours.” He grins, feeding his cock into my body at last. I let out a strangled cry, my pussy stretching around his girth until he’s seated fully inside me. A groan rattles in his chest, his eyes hooded and dark. The beast he hides inside rambles to the surface, howling like a wolf in the moonlight. My fingernails bite the murder of crows flying across his sinewy bicep. Hooking his arms under my thighs, he yanks me to the edge, driving into me fast and hard.

Aggression. Sex is a tool we both use to mask our feelings, to cast out the demons that riddle us both. The need we share is far too heavy. Two years ago, I needed him to lasso my soul and keep it grounded. He needed me to set his free. Now, as the words “I love you” fall from my lips, I know I’m telling the ultimate truth. He’s my beginning and my end. The road we traveled to get here was rocky and rough, but worth every bruise and mark left upon my heart. I’m his addiction. He’s my salvation. We consume each other with all our senses, clinging to one another as if our lives, our hearts, and our souls are hanging on for survival.

He spits my name through gritted teeth, emptying himself inside me with a blood-thirsty growl. And just like that, the beast recedes, and my Chase returns. Hot breath beats on my chest as he rests his forehead against it.

“I love fruit salad,” I pant.

He smiles and lifts his face to mine, kissing my lips with a tenderness that makes me ache. He’s hard when he needs to be, but so soft when it counts. That’s what makes him perfect. No one reads me the way he does. He sees past my line of bull to the vulnerable girl hiding inside. Even when I'm having trouble finding the strength to love myself, he loves me. Chase saved me in more ways than one. I live my life walking this terrible tightrope, waiting for the moment it snaps and I tumble from this high. I don’t want this to end.

“Baby, listen,” I start. He steps back on his heel just long enough to adjust his fly, then comes back, waiting for me to continue. “We’re getting married in four weeks.”

“We are.”

When Chase steps back again, I slide off the counter to reach for my shirt and pull it over my naked body, trying not to let his suspicious glare make me lose my nerve. “I’ve slept with a lot of guys, Chase—”

“I never cared about that, baby. You know that.”

I reply with a nod and continue to my point. “But when I met you, all that changed. We got to know each other, and we fell in love before all that physical stuff got in the way.”

“Yes, I remember,” he says quietly, his pierced lip quirking in a slight grin.

“That was one of the best times of my life. Being with you, before everything got so complicated. With the wedding coming, everything just feels complicated, you know?”

He takes another step back, holding me steady as I attempt to pull up my underwear. “What are you getting at?”

“I think we should hold off on . . . being with each other until then.”

“Right.” He chuckles, leaning in for another kiss, but this time I pull back.

“I’m serious.”

“You want to stop having sex. For four weeks?”

The desperate look in his eyes slices me open. This is exactly why I’m doing this. We can’t just fuck our feelings away and expect to exist as two functioning humans. Sex is our drug. We’re entrenched in the pit of lust and love, feeding off each other’s energy as if it’s the very thing that keeps us whole. “You went two years before you met me.”

“Yeah, but . . .” His sea-glass gaze rolls down my body and back up again. “That was before.”

“It’s gonna be hard for us both, but we can do it. I just think our wedding night should be special.” I offer him a placating grin. “What do ya say?” I ask, giving his arm a playful jab.

He exhales hard and leans his ass against the small kitchen table behind him, tattooed fingers curling over the edge in a white-knuckle grasp. “It’s gonna hurt.”

“Like a bitch.”

“All right,” he agrees, holding out his hand. “You got it. Four weeks of abstinence.” When I take his palm in mine, he jerks me against him and whispers in my ear. “But the minute you say I do, I’m going to destroy that little pussy until it’s begging for mercy.”

I turn, pressing my backside against his already half-swollen mass. “Just my pussy?”

He grasps my hips with a groan. “You’re an evil bitch.”

“Yeah. But you love me, right?” I ask, turning my face up to his.

“I do, baby.” He drops a kiss on the tip of my nose. “More than life itself.”