Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 86768 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86768 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
“He touched you?” I ask, using my free hand to unhook the bra and let it slip away.
Her expression hardens, jaw setting. “Of course he did,” she says, her tone goading. “You weren’t here, remember? Tell me something, Santos.”
I let my gaze move over her bare chest, her breasts. I can see the beginnings of the scars that line the undersides of her arms. What state of mind is one in to do that? To self-mutilate?
That dark presence inside me laughs out loud at that because I should talk. But my scars, they’re different. They’re punishments I deserved. I can’t imagine she deserved that mutilation, the self-harm.
“Are you even listening to me?” she asks.
I blink, forcing my eyes to focus on hers because she was talking, and I was so lost in thought I didn’t hear.
“Tell me something,” she starts again. “Am I yours?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“Like that jacket is yours. Am I yours?” She points to the jacket I’d tossed aside. I’m not sure where she’s going with this. “Because you discarded that easily enough. Am I like all your possessions? Easily discarded?”
“Christ, Madelena,” I say, the beginnings of a headache throbbing against my temples. I shake my head, lift her. She yelps when I do, but I carry her to the bed and sit her on the edge of it, standing close enough so she can’t run away. I undo more buttons of my shirt, hearing it tear as I tug it off.
She sets her hands on my stomach, gaze moving over me momentarily and her eyes widening as she takes in the map of a violent past. She tries to push me backward to stand, so I let her, holding her close, skin to skin. She is still for a moment, and I take in the warmth of her, lean in to kiss her neck. But what I smell is another man’s scent on her. Brother or not, I don’t like it.
I meet her eyes, wrap my hand around the back of her neck, and weave my fingers into her hair to tug her head backward and sniff like I’m a fucking dog. I draw back, and she stares up at me.
“Why do I smell my brother on you?”
“Because you weren’t here, remember?”
“What did he do?”
“Do you care?”
“What. Did. He. Do?”
Her gaze falters. I hear how I sound, and I know how I must look because she looks wary of me. “He took me to the dinner.”
I grip her jaw, see that smear of lipstick. I touch it, wondering suddenly if it was her who wiped it away or if it’s smeared from kissing because Thiago’s damning words keep going around and around in my head.
Caius wouldn’t touch what’s mine. Would he?
“Did he see you?”
“See me?”
“Like this.” I draw back, sweeping my gaze over her. Her nipples pebble, and her arms are dotted with goosebumps. “Did he see you undressed?”
“Would you care if he did?”
“Damn it! Did he see you?”
“Would you care if he did?” she asks again, dropping into a seat, no longer fighting. Just quiet. Just sad.
It’s that sadness that makes me pause. “You are my wife, Madelena. You belong to me. Only me.”
“I’m your possession.”
I study her. And I see her. Beneath that sadness, I see her—and I see hurt.
I draw her up to stand, pull her to me, because I realize something as I look into those honey-colored depths and see the stain of tears. I know it as I caress her hair, my touch gentle. Careful. It’s a thing I’ve always known about her on some level. And I know it now in the twisting of my gut.
“Are you so unaccustomed to being wanted?” I hear myself ask, and it’s those words that make her go perfectly still, that have tears streaming from the corners of her beautiful eyes. Those words that have her resisting, fighting, but also giving in, hands coming to my shoulders not to push me away but to hold onto me.
She looks at me through that veil of sadness, touches my face, pushes my hair back. And then she kisses me. Eyes open, she kisses me. It’s the first time she’s done that, the first time I haven’t taken the kiss. And that kiss, it moves something in my gut. My chest.
That kiss, it’s everything.
My exhale is her name as I lay her on the bed, stripping away her panties and pushing into her. She clings to me, arching her back with an audible exhale as I watch.
I’ve only fucked one other woman apart from her. I’ve never wanted anyone else, not even for simple release. What I want with her now, it’s not sex. It’s not to come. It’s more, so much more. I need to be inside her, to be close to her. It’s raw and full and I can’t get close enough to this woman.