“Fucking seriously, ma?”
“Completely fucking seriously. If Lionel Messi’s first contract was written on a napkin and was binding, ours should hold up, too.” She taps the top of the paper. “I’ll wait.”
“Nah.” I fold my arms across my chest, still holding the pen. “There are a few more things we have to discuss since we’re putting everything down in a… contract.” She sighs, and I’ma let that slide. For now. “I don’t know what you have planned in your head, but this will be a real marriage. No separate residences. You’ll be living with me as husband and wife.”
“Oh hell no,” she balks, backing away from the desk as if creating distance between my words. “I’m not giving up my home for this shit that’s not even real. That’s my property. My…mine. I’m not abandoning the only peace I have.”
“I’m not demanding you have to sell it. Keep it. Rent it out. Hold on to it. I really don’t give a fuck. But in four weeks, you will be moving into my home and living with me for the next three years.”
She laughs, but it’s caustic, resentful. And her gaze gleams with those same emotions.
As well as fear.
My stomach hollows, as if a huge spoon scraped it out. The fuck? I doubt she’s even aware of what that stare holds. If she did, I know for a fact, Ember wouldn’t allow me to see it. She’s been fly at the mouth with me, stood up to me in ways no one else would dare if they valued breathing.
So what…?
“What’re you afraid of?” I bluntly ask.
“What?” she snaps. “I’m not afraid of shit.”
“Yeah, you are. You’re mad as fuck. And right now you want to go for my throat. But you’re also afraid. Don’t bullshit me. What is it?”
She starts to shake her head, but then stops and turns away from me, tunneling her fingers through her hair. In a moment so quick that if I wasn’t obsessively watching her, I would’ve missed it, her shoulders sink, as if a huge weight bears down on her. On instinct, I move forward, about to round the desk and get to her, but before that step is completed, she straightens, those same shoulders drawing back, her back arrow straight. And when she pivots to face me again, she’s expressionless except for the small smile touching her mouth.
“Don’t bullshit you.” The smile deepens but it’s heavy with disdain instead of humor. “Okay. Let me ask you a question instead. Can you think of any reason why I would object to living with you again? Especially given how truly fucked-up the last time we cohabited went? You really believe I would willingly consign myself to that hell again?” she asks, her voice rising with each question.
Fury pours through me, burning like a corrosive acid. I’m flush with it, fucking sweating. I backpedal several steps because if I don’t… if I don’t, I just might take my anger out on that pussy or throw her through that window—it’s a toss-up.
All these years and she still doesn’t fuckingsee.
And short of stapling her fucking eyelids to her forehead, I can’t force her to.
“Willingly or not, it is what it is. And come four weeks fromnow, your li’l ass is going to be in my house as my lawfully wedded wife. Being happy isn’t a requirement of this arrangement. Fake that muthafucka.”
“I’m not faking shit,” she shouts, slapping her hand down on the desk. “If you wanted a phony bitch like your mother, you should’ve had that ho who was just sucking your dick marry you. Fuck I look like pretending to be ignorant of or delighted with myhusbandslinging dick all over the fucking West Coast while I bury myself in a lab earning his ass money. You got me fucked-up. Michelle might’ve been okay with looking like a fool for Marcus as long as he threw a black card and jewelry her way. But I’m not her. Never will be.”
“You seem real preoccupied with my dick, Ember.”
Pure, unadulterated joy and brutal lust punch through me, so strong my veins sizzle with the power. My body sways a bit before I go still.
Even across the distance that separates us, I catch the stiffening of her voluptuous frame. I wish I would stop myself from tracing the heavy, full curves of her breasts, the deep valley between them bared by that jacket that I both want to worship and incinerate. Her catch of breath is as loud as a bullet’s report as I don’t conceal my open scrutiny of the lushness of her hips and that fat, perfect ass that I can see even though she’s facing me. The high-waisted pants only emphasize those thick-ass thighs, and shit, I want to switch out the diamond studs in my ears and wear those instead. Li’l baby got a sick-as-fuck body. I have to suppress an almost animalistic urge to make her list every man who had the pleasure of exploring it so I can take their lives before our wedding. It’ll be her gift to me.
“And you seem real enamored with it,” she sneers, although there’s still a little tremor threading through her voice. “My point remains. If you’re expecting me to be one of these silent, turn-a-blind-eye Mafia wives, then you’re going to be disappointed. I match energy and body count.”
Thathas me charging across the room and in her face, backingher up against the curtained window. Slapping my palms on either side of her head, I cage her in between the glass and my body. I lower my head, then my hand, and slowly wrap it around the front of her throat. Given the nature of our… history, I don’t tighten my grip—I don’t hurt her—but it’s firm enough to let her know I can. At any time, I can.
“Say it again. I dare you. Tell me again how you’re going to give away my pussy.”
She glares up at me, fisting my shirt at my waist. Unease shimmers in her golden eyes, but it’s nearly drowned out by the anger. Anger and more. It’s themorethat has my hand remaining around her neck.
“Ain’t nothing over this way yours,” she says. And I would’ve believed she meant that shit if not for the shivering in her voice.
“Nothing?”
“No.”
“You sure about that?” I murmur, pressing my fingertips into the sides of her throat, savoring the throbbing of her pulse against my palm.
