Serenity stepped away and pulled something out of a bag on the nightstand. Her eyes were cold, still locked on mine, unreadable and sexy as hell. She knelt between my thighs, grabbed my dick, and slid a silicone ring around it, trapping my balls. The pressure was brutal, pain and pleasure warring insideme. Then she spat on my dick, letting it drip down before she wrapped her fist around me tight and started jerking me off. The ring made every stroke more intense.
“Hmm... Fuck... This is... Hell... fucking good.”
“Oh? You dare moan when I haven’t given you permission? Keep quiet. I don’t want to hear a thing.” Her grip tightened around my balls.
“Yes, Goddess.” I answered, fighting back my groan, biting down hard.
Being pleasured and forced to stay silent was cruel torture I wasn’t sure I could take. Every muscle trembled, desperate to give in, to explode.
“So, you’re in such a rush to put me in the ground, you thought it’d be smart to send me funeral flowers? White lilies, Konflict. You want to decorate my grave with white lilies? Two weeks left in this marriage, and you’re already choosing the flowers for my funeral?” Her jaw clenched.
I didn’t get a chance to answer. The whip crashed down, over and over, each strike harder, each squeeze of the ring tighter. Pain drowned out everything else, ripping moans from my chest. I couldn’t hold back anymore.
“Fuckkkkkkkkkkk! Shit… I… I didn’t mean to send them,” I blurted out, realizing too late I’d just answered her as Konflict, not Knox.
Serenity’s eyes locked on mine. For one breath I worried she might tear off the last shreds of my disguise, but she stayed in character, rage thick in her voice as she came for me.
“You didn’t mean to send them? Then what the fuck were you trying to do? Tell me.”
I sucked in a breath, willing myself not to hide. I didn’t care if she saw the truth anymore. I just needed her to understand what I wanted and meant to do.
“I wanted to send you love flowers. I… I wanted to say sorry.For hurting you all those months. I wanted to take the first step, but I fucked up. I didn’t bother checking what those flowers meant.”
The whip cracked again, burning my skin. “Fuckkkk!”
Yanking the leash around my neck, she dropped herself onto me, pinning my dick beneath her. The pain bit deep, but the guilt bit deeper.
“You think I’m an idiot, Konflict? Why would you send me love flowers? Why would you ever apologize for the way you’ve treated me when I know you don’t give a fuck about me. Youknowthose lilies are the same flowers I put on your mother’s grave every month. You visit her grave all the time, Konflict. You didn’t miss that. You knew exactly what you were doing—sending me a warning, telling me my grave would be next.”
Her voice trembled and her eyes filled with tears. This time, the anger faded and what I saw was pain. Real pain. Breaking pain. And my chest clenched. I’d done this to her. All those months of cruelty had carved wounds I could never take back.
“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to repair something I knew I couldn’t undo.
Tears streaked her cheeks, and the sound of her crying destroyed me. I wanted to rewind time, to fix everything I’d broken. To go back and stop this stupid war before it was too late, before I lost my chance to have her to myself. I wanted to pull her into my arms and try to apologize for every tear I’d made her cry, but she jerked back, scrambling off me. Her absence left a cold ache burning under my skin. I wanted to beg her to stay, to free my hands so I could hold her, show her I could be something else, someone better. But she disappeared into the bathroom, and when she returned, my heart slammed in my chest because she was pointing a Glock straight at me.
I forced myself not to flinch. Some part of me thought she’d seen through everything, figured out who I really was, anddecided to end it here. And hell, maybe that would be justice—Konflict Korven, head of a family, dying at his wife’s hand in a brothel. Another part of mewantedher to pull the trigger. I deserved it for making her cry, for shattering her over and over.
She cocked it back, then stalked to the bed, pressing the muzzle to my head.
“What if I killed you right here, Konflict? What if I finished you before you could finish me?” she spat. “I’m done taking your anger. I’m done being hated, done being treated like I deserve to die, while all I ever felt for you was love.” Her voice broke as she screamed, tears streaming down her face.
Fuck. My heart shattered watching her break like this. I’d spent so long telling myself I had to keep my distance, had to be cruel so I wouldn’t drown in her, lose myself in her, forget the war. I clung to the Korven-Veylor grudge just to keep from admitting what I truly felt. And this right here was the price.
“I fucking loved you, Konflict! From the first day. When you saved me from that pool, I fell for you. I carried that love into our marriage. But you destroyed everything. You keep hurting me, and now I hate you more than I’ve ever hated anyone.”
Her words sliced straight through me. She loved me. The day I fell for her, she’d fallen too and I ruined it. I wanted to kill whoever I’d become.
“I’m sorry,” I managed.
“Shut the fuck up, asshole!” she snarled.
The warmth in her eyes froze into ice. “And you fucked that bitch?” she growled, sliding the gun from my head to my chest.
“No,” I told her honestly.
“I said shut the fuck up! You fucked that whore, and she showed up at my office playing a video of you, naked, against her naked body. I didn’t see all of it, thank God, but I’m not a fool. I know what happened next. You gave her what was supposed to be mine. You denied me everything and gave it to her. If I shootyour dick off how are you gonna fuck her again?” She pressed the Glock to my dick.
My throat closed up because she might actually do it. Then—
