Page 76 of Vow to Claim You

Ayanna isn’t asleep as I expected. Instead, she sits on the edge of the bed in a sheer white robe, with nothing beneath it. Her dark hair falls loose down her back, the lamplight gilding the long line of her thigh.

For half a second, I genuinely wonder if it’s déjà vu, or if I’m imagining her.

“Waiting for someone?” My tone comes out dry, as if my blood isn’t running hotter than it has any right to.

“For my husband.” She holds my gaze, lifts her chin.

“That’s unfortunate.” A corner of my mouth lifts. “I’m told he’s around here somewhere.”

She doesn’t smile. Doesn’t roll her eyes. Doesn’t fire back with one of the sharp remarks I’ve become entirely too accustomed to.

“We should end this. The waiting. The pretending it isn’t hanging over us.” She lets out a soft breath. “Let’s just get it over with.”

Get it over with.

The words kill the heat stone dead.

I want her.

God knows how badly.

I want her sarcasm. Her temper. The way she looks at me when she’s trying very hard not to smile. The way she challenges every order I give her. The way she somehow made my house feel less empty simply by existing inside it.

And I want her the way a man desires a woman—with a hunger that’s becoming impossible to ignore. More than I’ve allowed myself to admit. Far more than I should.

I want to feel her bare skin under my fingertips, see her body shudder when I touch her, hear her moans when I pleasure her.

I’ve wanted her since she walked down an aisle toward me with hatred in her eyes, and the wanting has only sharpened every day since, until it sits behind my ribs like a blade I’ve trained myself to ignore. I’m leashing it now by something thinner than willpower. One step. That’s all it would take.

And that’s the problem.

Because she wouldn’t stop me.

I can see it. Her eyes have gone dark, pupils blown wide. Her breath’s turned shallow. Her lips are parted just enough that one more inch would burn every rational thought out of my skull and hers both. If I crossed this room and put my mouth on her, she’d let me. She’d give herself over completely, but she’d be giving herself to me like she’s signing another contract.

And that’s exactly what stops me.

The thought of her under me, wearing the same look she wore at the altar—doing her duty, fulfilling a clause, ticking a box on the long list of things this marriage demands of her body. Looking at me like I’m one more obligation she has to survive.

I don’t want her like that.

I want all of her, or none of it. I want the day she comes to me because she can’t help herself—because the wanting has consumed her the way it’s consuming me—and not one minute before.

Not because she wants to get it over with.

I exhale slowly and walk toward her. She never breaks eye contact. Her breathing turns uneven as I stop in front of her, close enough to feel the warmth radiating from her skin. I reach down, and tip her face up with two fingers beneath her jaw, the way I did at the altar. Only this time, nothing about this is for show.

“No,” I murmur.

Her brows draw together. “No?”

“Not like this.” I hold her chin a beat longer than I should, because letting go is harder than it has any right to be. “When you come to me, Ayanna, it won’t be to get it over with. It’ll be because you can’t stand another second of not. And when that happens”—my voice drops, rougher than I intend—“you won’t be able to stop me.”

For a moment she only stares at me, something flickering behind her eyes. Surprise, maybe. Then her jaw sets, and the defiance comes roaring back.

“You’re either horrible at maths,” she hisses, “or I’m going to start believing you actually enjoy my humiliation and want me to fail.”

Humiliation? My brows twitch. “Fail at what?”