Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 70097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
His body caged around me, broad shoulders and solid muscles pressing against my back until there wasn’t an inch of space left between us.
His mouth found my ear. God, he was so close. So impossibly close the familiar scent of him filled my senses, his heat spreading through my body, covering me like a second layer of cloth.
His warm, controlled breath feathered against the shell of my ear, his lips barely touching my skin.
Finally, I won. The realization sent a rush of triumph surging through my veins, hot and intoxicating. Every ounce of victory pulsed through me, alive and utterly satisfying.
I broke him.
CHAPTER NINE
ADRIAN
“Hello, wife,” I rasped against her ear.
Her body tensed beneath mine, every muscle drawn tight like a bowstring. A captured little bird, she was. That silly game of hers has come to an end.
The fury that had been building in me since I first saw her pressed against that stranger on the dance floor surged hotter, darker. She had done this deliberately—every sway of her hips, every arch of her back, a performance designed to torment me.
And torment me, she fucking did.
My hand remained at her throat, not squeezing, just resting there. A reminder of who held the power now. My thumb pressed against the pulse point beneath her jaw. Her heartbeat hammered against my fingers, fast and erratic, betraying her fear, or perhaps it was from something else entirely.
I wasn’t too sure yet.
My wife, after all, was still a bit of a mystery to me.
Maybe she enjoyed the chase.
Maybe she desired my savagery.
Maybe she craved my wrath.
Because why else would Serafina tempt me like this?
“Did you enjoy your little dance?” I asked, my voice low and deep.
She said nothing. Her silence was its own kind of provocation.
Three months.
Three months of following her across countries, watching from the shadows yet never closing the distance. I enjoyed the chase, truly. Her little games. Her little victories, as I was sure she liked to believe.
And now she was here, pinned between my body and the wall, her vanilla scent mingling with the musk of the club.
I had her. Finally.
This wasn’t her victory.
It was mine.
And it was purely for my enjoyment.
The weight of her body nestled into mine was a revelation I hadn’t allowed myself to imagine, because imagining it would have made the waiting unbearable.
She felt smaller than I remembered. Fragile in a way that was deceptive, because nothing about Serafina was fragile. The bones of her wrists were delicate, the column of her throat narrow enough that my hand could encircle it entirely. But the woman beneath that small frame was made of something harder than bone.
Something that had tried to kill me and almost succeeded.
Almost.
I pressed closer, eliminating the last fraction of distance between us. My body molded over hers, feeling the soft curve of her ass against my groin. The contact sent a jolt racing through my veins, and my body responded in the way I had expected. It was undeniable.
It had been three very lonely months after all. Well, more than that if I were to count the days I was in the coma and then while Rocco tracked her down.
To be more accurate: Four months, thirteen days, twenty hours and fourteen minutes, since she had put a bullet through me and left me bleeding on my brother’s carpet. Not that I was counting.
Serafina was warm—impossibly, maddeningly warm—and the heat of her bled through the thin fabric of her dress and into my skin like a molten brand. I could feel the flutter of her heartbeat against my forearm where it crossed her collarbone as my fingers remained splayed around her throat, anchoring her to me.
And beneath the heat, beneath the warmth of her body pressed into mine, something darker lived inside me.
I remembered how her body moved against that fucker. He wasn’t her type; I knew that with utmost certainty. He was too young, too pretty… too docile.
But still, he touched her. She touched him.
I had watched her hand drift into his hair, her fingers curling around the strands at the nape of his neck. Had watched her hips move against his in slow, seductive circles that were meant for me and me alone.
My jaw tightened at the memory. The rage inside me was exquisite, and I welcomed it, surrendered to it. Let it sink its claws into my flesh and burrow into my bones, like a poison.
And that same rage… it pulsed through my hardening cock. It lived in the memory of her naked body in that hotel window, the calculated provocation, the way she had touched herself… knowing I had been watching.
She had made me into a voyeur. A sick, twisted man who stood in the dark and watched while his wife gave herself to the shadows.
Fuck her.
And fuck me for falling for her ridiculous, desperate antics.