Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 105679 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105679 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
My cock hardened and I growled, palming it through my sweatpants.
I had broken her heart. I had watched the light die in her eyes when I told her the truth about our marriage, shattering her world.
I waited for guilt to wash over me, for remorse to take hold. Except there was nothing but a cold satisfaction that whatever I had done, whatever cruel, twisted game I had played, brought her here. Had kept her here, in my home.
I remembered the taste of her—sweet and desperate. Intoxicating. I could still feel the way she had trembled against me, her body arching beneath mine, the way she had moaned my name.
My tongue salivated at the memory, my cock stiff, aching with a need I had been denying for days.
I wanted to wake her. To push her legs apart and bury myself inside her until she forgot her own name. Until she forgot why she hated me. Until her sweet pussy was begging to be filled with my cum.
I wanted to take what rightfully belonged to me now.
But I held back.
I kept my distance, watching her sleep, knowing that the longer I waited, the sweeter her fury and hatred would taste on my tongue. And I wanted all of it. Every drop.
I wanted to savor it, to let it build until neither of us could deny what was between us.
Her hate, my rage.
Her desperation, my need.
We were toxic together, fucking poison.
I had left her alone for two weeks. Fourteen days of utter silence, of distance, of watching her from afar. I had expected her to break. To come to me begging for attention, for a scrap of affection, for anything to break the monotony of her isolation.
But she hadn’t. She didn’t.
It infuriated me.
She infuriated me with her silence.
Serafina had stayed quiet in her room. She ate the food Elena brought her, but she had not made any attempt to speak or ask questions… or leave her room to explore the estate.
Her isolation was definite. Absolute. Despairing.
But my wife was stronger than I had given her credit for.
And her fire was so very fucking tempting.
I took a step closer to the bed, my shadow falling across her sleeping form. She stirred slightly but didn’t wake. I wondered what she dreamed about. Did she dream of revenge?
Did she dream of him?
A strand of dark hair had fallen across her cheek, and without thinking, I reached out, my fingers hovering just above her cheek. When I brushed it away, her skin was warm beneath my fingertips. Soft.
I pulled away and stepped back from the bed, walking over to the armchair in the corner of her room. Where I had found myself every night for the last week, unknown to my wife, while she slept peacefully.
I watched.
There was something dangerously addictive about watching her sleep, like standing on the edge of a line I wasn’t allowed to cross. A quiet, undeniable allure. A wicked, dangerous kind of temptation. It fed something inside me, the beast that craved blood, now wanted her blood.
It was obsessive.
Serafina would call me a lunatic. A psychopath.
She wouldn’t be wrong.
But she wasn’t afraid of me. Not really. Not yet.
And that was the most dangerous thing about my wife.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Serafina
I woke in the darkness, the weight of consciousness settling over me like a familiar blanket. No startle, no gasp… just the quiet awareness that I wasn’t alone. The air in my bedroom had shifted, grown heavier with the presence of another.
I kept my eyes closed, my breathing even, but I was no longer asleep. I hadn’t been for some time now.
The sound of soft breathing, the subtle shift of weight on the armchair in the corner… I’d grown accustomed to these midnight visits.
Before I fell asleep tonight, I had been expecting this.
For the past week, I had been pretending to sleep while he watched me from the corner of my room. He thought he was stealthy, but how could I possibly remain asleep when such evil was suffocating the air in my room with his presence?
Tonight, I decided I’d had enough.
I opened my eyes and found him exactly where I knew he would be.
Adrian, my husband, lounging in the armchair as if he owned the very air I breathed. His legs were stretched out in front of him, forearms resting casually against the armrests, looking utterly at ease and infuriatingly arrogant. The moonlight caught the sharp angles of his face, casting half of it in shadow. He was shirtless, his stomach carved with hard muscles and they tightened with every inhale, flexing with every exhale.
He had made himself comfortable in my sanctuary.
Our gazes locked across the darkened room.
“You’re not very subtle,” I said, my voice steady despite the rapid pounding of my heart.
His eyes, those piercing blue eyes that haunted my dreams, widened slightly. A flicker of surprise crossed his features before the familiar mask of indifference slid back into place.