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)
“I’m saying that I shouldn’t have made you watch.”
I took a step closer, shaking my head at his poor attempt at pacifying me. “So, this is an apology?”
His lips twisted but he didn’t respond.
“Your mouth just has to form the word sorry and speak it out loud. That’s how someone properly apologizes. Say it after me, s-o-r-ry.”
His jaw tightened, his full lips pressed into a hard line. His eyes darkened at my laugh, and his biceps flexed as he crossed his arms over his chest, the movement drawing my eye to the strength in his arms.
I could easily snap my neck if he wanted to.
But he wouldn’t…
He couldn’t…
I was his wife.
And our families had an alliance.
“I’m not very good at apologies.”
Despite everything, despite the horror I had just witnessed, despite the hatred I felt for him—my stomach still pooled with a dark, unwanted desire at the sight of him.
It made me sick.
It made me hate myself almost as much as I hated him.
“No, you’re good at cruelty. At manipulation. At making people suffer.” I took a step toward him, anger replacing the fear that had consumed me moments before. “What was the point of that little demonstration? To scare me? To break me? News flash, Adrian…if you needed to show me that to prove you’re in control of my life, then you’re not really in control. You’re losing it, husband.”
He took a step toward me, closing the distance between us. “I wanted you to understand what I am. What our world is.”
“I already know what you are.” My voice cracked.
And I hate that I was attracted to him. I hated that my body betrayed me every time he was near. I hated that I couldn’t control how you made me feel.
“And it doesn’t scare you,” he rasped. “What I am. Who you are. What we can be together.” Adrian took another step closer. “You’re not scared of me because of what I can do. You’re scared of what I make you feel.”
My fists clenched at my side. God, he needed to leave right now. He needed to get out of my room and never come back. “You don’t own any part of me just because we’re married.”
The words hung in the air between us.
Adrian’s expression changed. And there it was…
Dark hunger, something akin to feral need, flashed in his eyes. He took another step toward me, and I found myself backing up until I hit the wall.
Thud.
“Don’t,” I whispered, but my body was already responding to his proximity, my breath coming faster, my heart racing.
“Don’t what?” he asked, his voice a rough whisper as he moved closer still. “Don’t touch you? Don’t make you feel? Don’t show you that you’re not the only one who’s conflicted?”
He was so close. Too close.
Thud. Thud.
I could feel the heat radiating from his body, could smell the clean scent of his soap mixed with something muskier, more primal.
The tension between us was undeniable, a living thing that crackled in the air, growing hotter with each passing second.
“I hate you,” I said, but the words lacked conviction.
“You keep saying that.” He placed his hands on the wall on either side of my head, caging me in. “But your body tells a different story.”
We were so close now that our chests were almost touching. My nipples hardened.
I could feel the warmth of his skin, could see the pulse beating at the base of his throat. My own heart was hammering against my ribs, a wild, desperate rhythm that matched the turmoil inside me.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
His breath fanned against my cheek, before his lips brushed against the top of my left ear. “I owned every part of you long before I put that ring on your finger,” he rasped, his voice dropping low, a deep cadence that traveled all the way to my toes.
My spine tingled.
Goosebumps peppered my skin.
“I’m angry at you,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “For forcing me to be a part of your cruelty.”
“I know.” His voice was soft, almost gentle.
It was the closest to a real apology I would ever get from him, and somehow, that made it worse. Made the emotions swirling inside me even more confusing.
“You can’t just—” I started, but he cut me off, pressing his body against mine, one leg sliding between mine to force them apart.
The contact sent a jolt of electricity through me, my body responding despite my mind’s protests. My heart ricocheted, pulse thundering in my throat… and my core tightened. A tingling spread through my stomach.
My body betrayed me.
Adrian fisted my nightgown, hiking it up, baring my thighs and pushing it up to my hips, exposing me to him. He pressed his thigh between the juncture of my legs.
I was bare.
And I throbbed.
He moved his thigh back and forth, pressing against my heated flesh, creating a friction that made my breath hitch in my throat.