Page 34 of Sinful Bride

He leaves before I can respond and tell him he's wrong. But deep down, I know he’s right. And that makes me hate him even more.

But it's not just the arguments that unsettle me. It's not just the constant friction and the cutting remarks exchanged between us. It’s all the moments over those first two weeks or so of living with him that catch me by surprise and steal my breath away, making me feel something other than anger or irritation with both my situation and my husband.

Like when I'm walking past the home gym late one afternoon and catch a glimpse of him through the open door.

He's shirtless again and covered in sweat. His copper hair is damp, pushed back from his forehead, and his skin gleams in the overhead lights. He's hitting a heavy bag, his muscles flexing with each punch, his tattoos shifting across his skin. He gleams under the lights, and I’ve never seen anything so primal… so powerful.

I should keep walking, but I don't. I stand there in the hallway, hidden by the doorframe, and watch him. The power in his shoulders as he drives his fist into the bag. The strength in his arms as he follows through with each punch. The way his gym shorts hang low on his hips, revealing the V of muscle that disappears beneath the waistband and makes my mouth go dry.

Heat pools low in my belly. My breath catches. My nipples tighten beneath my blouse, and I have to press my thighs together against the sudden ache between them. He looks so ferocious. So masculine…

No.

I force myself to walk away and pretend I didn't just spend five minutes staring at my husband like some desperate, sex-starved woman who can't control herself. I'm not desperate. I'm not sex-starved. I'm just⁠—

Frustrated. That's all. Frustrated with this situation. With this marriage. With him and his arrogance and his inability to be what I needed him to be.

Not with the ache between my thighs or the way my body responds to him despite everything I tell myself. Not with the way my skin feels too tight and my pulse pounds in places I don't want to think about, or the way I lie in bed at night and remember the feel of his hands on me, his fingers inside me, his mouth on my neck.

Stop it.

I lock myself in my office and try to focus on work and ignore the heat in my body. The wetness I can feel in my panties. The way my hands shake slightly as I type. I'm fine. I'm in control. I don't need⁠—

You're lying to yourself.

His voice is in my head again. And it’s getting harder and harder to ignore it.

—

It happens again two days later, and this time I can't pretend it's an accident that I catch him in less clothing than I should ever want to see him in.

I'm in my office, reviewing household accounts, when I hear the shower turn off in the guest bathroom down the hall. Declan's been working out, and he always showers after. I know his routine now, even though I try not to pay attention. He has no decorum, no sense of manners. He’ll walk through the house shirtless or in only his boxers, like the fact that he owns the place means he doesn’t need to have some sense of propriety.

I should stay in my office and give him privacy to get dressed and leave. But I need something from the bedroom—a file I left on the dresser this morning. I’ve been telling myself to go get it for the last hour, and getting continuously distracted.

I tell myself that's why I leave my office. That's why I walk down the hall toward what I’m beginning to think of as my room, just as the bathroom door opens.

Declan steps out in nothing but a towel.

Water drips from his hair and runs down his chest in rivulets that follow the contours of his muscles. The towel is slung low around his hips, barely covering him, and I can see the trail of copper hair that leads down from his navel and disappears beneath the white terrycloth. His skin is flushed from the heat of the shower, his tattoos glistening, and he looks like a fucking god. Like he rose out of some fantasy river solely to tempt me into losing my own sense of propriety.

He stops when he sees me. "Elena."

"I—" My voice comes out scratchy. I clear my throat. "I need a file."

He raises an eyebrow. “Okay⁠—”

“I was just… going to the bedroom. For the file I left.” My cheeks heat. I don’t want this man thinking about me going to any bedroom. I don’t want to even say the word in front of him. Especially not like this, when he’s half-naked, the towel shifting on his hips and threatening to fall. Threatening to reveal everything I've been trying not to think about.

I can't look away.

I'm frozen. Rooted to the spot. My eyes track the movement of his body like I'm starving and he's food. Like I'm dying of thirst, and he's water. The towel rides lower as he shifts his weight, and I can see the sharp cut of his hipbones, the definition of his obliques, the way his muscles move beneath his skin.

My breath comes faster. My heart pounds. Heat floods through me, pooling between my thighs, making me wet and aching and so desperate I could cry.

“Okay.” He shrugs. “Knock yourself out.”

And then he walks past me, down the hall to the room he’s been staying in, like nothing just happened.