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)
Her body responded before her mind could catch up—a full-body shudder, a clench of her inner walls that nearly undid me. A flush spread across her neck despite her cruel words. Her heart hammered against her ribs, and her breath came in shallow pants.
My hand was still between her legs, my finger still buried inside her, and I could feel her pulse around me, feel how wet she was despite everything she said.
She hated me so much and yet her body said something else entirely.
My wife loathed me. Her cunt wept for me. How cute.
“The next time you have a gun in your hand,” I said, my voice dropping to barely above a whisper, “make sure your aim is precise.”
I pressed my mouth against the curve of her shoulder, teeth grazing the skin. “Don’t disappoint me, Princess.”
I withdrew my finger slowly, watching her face as the loss of contact registered. Her lips parted, and for one unguarded moment, I saw it—the want, the need, the raw, unfiltered hunger that she spent every waking moment trying to bury, to deny.
Then the cold, indifferent mask slammed back into place.
I brought my finger to my lips, tasting her, my eyes never leaving hers. My dick was impossibly hard, to the point of pain, and fuck me, I almost came right there in my pants like a fucking horny teenager as her decadent taste filled my mouth.
“Sweet,” I said roughly, enjoying her arousal on my tongue, savoring every bit of it. “Sweet and bitter, just like you.”
She said nothing, but her lips curled in disgust. The silence between us was its own kind of conversation—heavy with everything she wouldn’t say and everything her body had already confessed.
I released her slowly, stepping back just enough to create space between us. The loss of her warmth was immediate and unwelcome, and I fought the urge to pull her back, to press her against the wall and take what my body was demanding.
But I did none of those things.
Serafina didn’t spin around like I had expected her to.
She didn’t come at me swinging and yelling. She remained as she was, the front of her body pressed into the wall and her fists clenched at her sides.
I took a step back. And then another. Away from her. Until I was carefully hidden into the darkness once again.
“We’ll see each other a lot more again, Princess.”
My words seemed to have the effect they needed.
I watched in the shadows as her careful patience snapped and she spun around, snarling, expecting to see me. Too late.
Confusion masked her face as she looked around wildly, searching for me. I was right there, like I had always been, so close to her yet just far enough that she would never see me unless I wanted to be seen.
Her shoulders tensed, and she hissed under her breath. “Bastard.”
My mouth curled with a smirk.
Serafina marched away, heels clacking against the floor with each angry step.
I licked my lips, the taste of her pussy still lingering on my tongue. I brought my hand up, holding my damp fingers to my nose, and I inhaled. My eyes closed as the scent of her filled my senses.
I breathed in again.
My wife smelled divine.
CHAPTER TEN
SERAFINA
The ceiling had nothing to offer me but the same answer it had given me for the past six hours since I had been in bed: absolutely nothing.
I lay in the dark, sheets twisted around my legs like restraints I hadn’t asked for, staring at the blank expanse of plaster above the bed. I turned my head and glanced at the small ticking clock on the nightstand. Three in the morning. The hour when the world stopped pretending and the truth, along with the monsters, crawled out from beneath the floorboards of your mind to sit on your chest.
And my unpleasant truth was… I could still feel his hands on me.
Not metaphorically or in some poetic, tortured way. Physically.
The ghost of Adrian’s fingers lingered on my hip where he’d gripped me, possessive and certain, pulling me against him like I was something he’d already decided to keep. The phantom weight of his palm at the base of my throat, thumb pressed against my pulse point as if measuring the rate at which my body betrayed me.
I pressed my own hand to my sternum now, feeling the traitorous rhythm beneath my ribs. Thud. It was steady and calm.
As though my heart hadn’t been so erratic before at his mere presence, his torturous touch.
Stop it.
It wasn’t attraction. It wasn’t desire. It was a tactical error, a foolish mistake… a momentary lapse in my solid judgment, and I wouldn’t let it stand.
“Damn it,” I whispered into the darkness. I hated the thought that his touch could undo me in such a traitorous way.
I had orchestrated this vengeance far too perfectly to let my body betray me like this. It wouldn’t happen again. I wouldn’t allow it.