He stops, meeting my gaze. I hold it. He takes another step closer. When I show no reaction—on my face or in my body—his eyes come alive for a heartbeat, a strike of light across ominous clouds on a dead horizon. Then it’s gone again, swallowed back into darkness, leaving me waiting for the next strike so I can see the clouds clearly, to decide if I want to risk going out under them or if the storm they might bring will be too much and I should stay away.
“Why?” I ask again, my voice lower.
“You know very well why,” he says, a little colder.
“I don’t.”
He moves a little closer. I tilt my head up, keeping our gaze locked. He lifts his hand slowly, giving me time to refuse his touch.
He holds my chin in a gentle grip, bending down slightly to bring his face closer to mine. “You are my wife. That’s the only thing I want you to be.”
“Our marriage isn’t like that anymore. Either we become friends and come to speaking terms, or we stay the way we are.”
He pinches my chin before releasing it, then straightens. “Okay, let’s become friends. What do friends do?”
I shrug. “What friends usually do.”
“I don’t know what friends usually do. I don’t have any,” he says, matter-of-fact.
“Well, they hang out. Do things together that they both like…”
“Like fucking till you black out,” his voice soaked in raw hunger.How fast this man gets horny should be concerning.
I clear my throat. “No. That’s not what they do.”
“But you said we’d do things we both like. And we both love fucking you until you pass out.”
My face burns. I look away to take a few steadying breaths. After collecting myself, I glare at his now-smirking face.
“Friends don’t say such nonsense.”
“Shouldn’t I share my thoughts with you, since you’re my friend?”
“Not those thoughts,” I grit out, then hop down from the counter. “You know what? You were right. We can’t become friends.”
He grabs my waist and sets me back on the counter. This time, he doesn’t shy away from keeping any distance between us. He parts my legs and stands between them. His hand moves from my waist to my hair in the time I spend thinking about our proximity, and while I’m still processing how his hands are gripping my hair, tilting my head back, his mouth comes crashing down on mine.
Neurons fire in the parts of my brain he fucked with last night, and I accept his hot, hungry kiss. And when he finds me not resisting, he goes wilder, sucking my lips with more force, feeding on my mouth like a hungry beast finally out of its cage, the prey he watched from inside now under his claws.
His other hand on my waist pulls me closer; his hardness presses against my core. My whole upper body tilts back, and he bends over me, pressing himself against me, leaving no space between us. His tongue moves inside my mouth, licking every corner.
He pulls away, just his mouth. His body doesn’t move an inch. I pant against his lips, breathing through both mouth and nose.
“I can become your friend, but not just a friend,” he whispers against my tingling lips. “I can never stop wanting to fuck you.” I feel each word against the skin he’s kissed raw.
I push against his chest. He releases my head and waist and moves back, though reluctantly.
“We can slowly figure out how to be friends,” I murmur, avoiding his eyes, looking around the kitchen.
He grabs my jaw. I let him read me as he searches for something in my eyes. I hope he doesn’t find anything that could ruin my plan. Finally, he nods. I hold back the sigh of relief that almost escapes.
I hop down from the counter again. “I’m going to take a bath.”
Hunter
I watch her as she leaves for the room. I want to believe things are getting better, but that would be very stupid of me.
She can’t change this much in one night, or can she?
