Rock Wedding (Rock Kiss #4) - Nalini Singh Page 0,44

That didn’t mean he didn’t think about her. He damn well did. He dreamed about the smooth beauty of her skin under his hands, the way her breath turned ragged when he stroked her just right, how her thighs tightened around his hips when he thrust into her.

He’d been waking hard as a rock and having to jerk off in the shower to take care of it. But their sexual chemistry wasn’t what kept him awake at night. It was the memory of her laughter during the wedding and afterward. She’d glowed with happiness as she danced, her eyes sparkling.

Abe hadn’t seen such joy in her smile since the first months of their marriage, and he knew he was responsible for snuffing out her light. No fucking wonder she didn’t trust him anymore. A woman like Sarah rarely gave her trust, and he’d shit all over that precious gift.

Plowing his gloved fists into the punching bag in front of him on the morning of the fourth day, he blocked out the other sounds in the gym and attempted to lose himself in the rhythm of the mindless action. It worked for about a minute before his mind filled with Sarah again. Her shy smile when he gave her a compliment. The way she’d sit curled up under his arm and read to him on lazy summer days.

Hard on the heels of that memory came one of him throwing her books in the pool in a drug-fueled rage. She’d been sobbing as she tried to save them.

“Fucking bastard,” Abe muttered, talking to his past self. He punched the bag so hard that it threatened to swing back right into his face. He didn’t care. He deserved to have his face beaten in.

Ripping off his gloves afterward, he showered, then went straight to a bookshop.

It was too little too late, but now that he’d remembered his asshole behavior, he couldn’t just leave it. Ball cap pulled low, he wandered the aisles… then realized most people here didn’t care who he was; they were more interested in the volumes that lined the shelves. He spent an hour inside the murmuring quiet of the store, searching for the titles he remembered seeing on their bedside table. She’d definitely read him Jane Austen.

He couldn’t remember which one though, so he bought the entire set.

And there was this one romance novel she loved and had read over and over again. He’d teased her it would fall apart in her hands one day. She’d just smiled and read him a paragraph that she’d told him was part of her favorite scene. What the hell had it been? Yes, that was it. In the end, it turned out the store didn’t have that book in stock, so he bought her a bunch of new releases featuring people with dogs or puppies on the covers. He definitely remembered seeing covers like that in their home.

After spotting it in a display, he added in a nonfiction book about a woman who’d set up her own company while nearly flat broke and who was now a millionaire. At the counter, he paid extra to have the books wrapped up and packaged.

He’d called his car service earlier; the driver shot him a funny look when he put the package in the passenger seat and gave him Sarah’s address. “I’m a courier now?” the stocky middle-aged man asked, having worked long enough for Schoolboy Choir that he was a friend. They’d all missed his calm demeanor and total trustworthiness when he broke his leg recently and had been out for a while.

“Best in the business,” Abe responded.

The other man snorted. “I’ll get it to her now.”

Blowing out a breath after the gleaming black town car pulled away, Abe went to where he’d parked his SUV and got in. He didn’t want to go home to his empty house, but he didn’t want to barge in on his friends either. David and Thea, Noah and Kit, they needed time alone. As for Molly and Fox, while the newlyweds were back home after a short wedding trip, having postponed their honeymoon until later in the year, Abe wasn’t about to bust up their love nest.

Gabriel and Charlotte probably wouldn’t have minded the company since they’d been doing the sightseeing thing, but the other couple had flown back to New Zealand twenty-four hours earlier—after inviting all of them to their own wedding.

His phone buzzed right then.

Picking it up, he saw a message from Fox. Molly and