He chuckles and loops his arm around my waist, pulling me in close. “Why do you think I want you naked? I feel the same exact way about you.” He presses his lips to mine, and I loop my arms around his neck, making out with him, loving the feeling of being…loved.

Cared for.

Worshipped.

He makes me feel important.

Needed. Significant.

Like there couldn’t possibly be anything else in this world that could distract him from me.

When I pull away, he grabs the hem of his shirt that I put on and pulls it up and over, depositing it on the floor. His hands move up to my breasts, across my nipples, and down to my ass.

“Fuck, you’re so warm. This is what I want. You, naked…all the time.”

“Even when I go to work?”

He tilts his head to the side. “No, this body is for me and me alone.”

“You claiming me?” I ask.

“Damn right. Why do you think I still wear this bracelet? Mine. You’re mine.”

God, I could hear him say that over and over and never get tired of it.

He kisses me again, but this time, it’s a chaste kiss. “Now, I have a question for you.”

“Okay,” I say. “What is it?”

“After you had sex with Matt, was there something you craved? Something you might have wanted?”

An orgasm?

I think back to the times when Matt and I would have sex and how he would roll out of bed after, clean up, and then go off to his office. It was so cold. Made me feel used.

I nod. “There is something.”

“What is it?”

I look into his eyes and say, “I wanted desperately to be cuddled.”

His brows shoot up in surprise, but then understanding sets in. He takes my hand in his and slips us into my bed. With my back to his chest, he pulls me into him and drapes his arm over my stomach.

“You’re telling me he never did this?”

“No,” I answer.

“What a fucking fool.” He kisses the back of my neck. “Once again: his loss, my gain.”

I sigh into him, realizing just how much I’ve been missing out on.

How much I was sitting in the dark, thinking the way Matt treated our marriage was normal. But if I truly think about it, he was never as attentive as Wilder, even in our early days.

And that’s the big difference. That’s what Wilder has taught me. That I deserve better.

That maybe…just maybe…this is where I was supposed to end up all along.

“You know, there’s only one thing left to check off on your bucket list,” he whispers. “Because we’ve done a cooking class, a movie in a theater, the kiss cam, skinny-dipping, watched some porn…and now, just one more thing.”

“What is it?” I ask, not able to remember.

“Paddleboat.”