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“Get what?” He asked, brows furrowed in confusion.
“I understand that this is a business transaction. I get that you didn’t choose to be married to me.”
“What makes you think I see this as a business transaction?”
“The way you keep calling me your ‘duty’ and saying that your ‘job is to take care of me.’” I threw up sloppy air quotes around his words, laughing bitterly at the reminders he’d thrown in my face tonight.
“That’s not how I meant-” Dev tried to speak, but I was on a roll, my emotions boiling over as the whole night flashed through my mind.
“Not to mention the fact that all I seem to do is make you unhappy! You smile with everyone else, these huge, wide grins, and yet all I seem to do is make you frown. I never see you do it with anyone else but me, as if being in my presence is painful for you.” I was being melodramatic, pointing out a handful of Dev’s frowns among a week of smiles, but I felt each one so acutely, knowing I was the cause.
“Your presence isn’t painful to me,” his voice was quiet, pained, as if my accusations were causing him physical harm.
Good, I thought to myself bitterly,Maybe then we’d been even. But the thought didn’t last long. The hurt on Dev’s face was enough to have my anger floating away, leaving only hurt behind.
“Then why do you treat me just like your friends?” I sounded tired now, tears still tracing down my face. “Not even like your friends. Your friends get the real you, and when you look at me sometimes, I see you’re holding yourself back.”
I saw it, then. In the change in his face, the way the hurt turned into a smirk. I saw it in the feral look of his smile, the way his lips tilted in a slightly sinister way. The Dev behind the sunshine-y smiles and the sweet forehead kisses. The Dev that killed men who tried to hurt me, who worked with the mob without blinking. The Dev he’d been hiding these past weeks, covering him up with restrained smiles and shuttered eyes.
He prowled toward me, like a predator sizing up his prey, and even his voice changed, deepening into a growl as he rasped, “Baby, the only thing I’m holding back is just how much I fucking want you.”
Chapter 22
Dev
Tonight was a fucking nightmare.I’d thought a dinner with the six of us would go smoothly, the way the last week with Rory had been the best of my life. Since our wedding, she’d let down the walls she’d attempted to build up against me, and we werehappy. At least, I thought we were.
But first there was the hostess, hitting on me in front of Rory, and even though she didn’t seem to blame me for the interaction, she had been off the rest of the night. I’d tried to give her the space I thought she needed, only to look over my shoulder and find the spot behind Bex empty.
I could’ve had a heart attack in those moments, the ones between realizing Rory was gone and hearing her call my name. It was all too similar to the nightmares I’d had during those weeks of watching over her, the nightmares that pulled me from my bed and had me sitting outside her apartment in the middle of the night, just so I could be close to her.
And seeing the blood on her face? I would’ve killed the man if Bex hadn’t dragged me off of him, if only for daring to touch Rory. The only thing that kept me from going to Cillian’s private prison cell and finishing the job I’d started was the knowledge that we needed whatever information the attacker might have.Not to mention that I was sure Cillian and his men would make sure he’d at least be missing a few fingers by the time we interrogated him tomorrow.
But none of that - not the way Rory pulled away at dinner, nor the worry that she could’ve been taken - compared to the pain of the blame and anger on her face, directed toward me. Each tear running down her cheeks was a slice in my heart, the pain worse than any wound I’d ever received.
Then there were the words she spouted, the belief that I saw her as nothing more than a friend. My first urge was to deny it, but that wasn’t enough. Just the fact that she’d ever believed I cared for her less than my friends, that I was holding myself back because I only saw her as a responsibility, proved I hadn’t done enough to show her how much I wanted her.
So when she pointed out how I’d been holding myself back, I stopped trying to hide what had been simmering underneath my skin all week. Weeks, really. Months. Since that first moment I’d seen her.
I allowed every ounce of want and need to show on my face as I prowled toward her, ready to show her just how much I didn’t see her as a burden.
She wanted me to stop hiding? I’d show her exactly what I’d been holding back and make her love every fucking second of it.
I let the thin veneer of composure I’d kept a stranglehold on this past week fall as I stalked closer to her, edging her against the bedroom door. Just the sight of the room made me angry, the idea that she thought she’d sleep anywhere but our bed. That she thought I saw her as afriend, that I wasn’t fucking hard and aching for her from the moment I woke up to the moment I was inside her. That my dreams weren’t filled with memories of her.
So I let all that hunger show on my face, didn’t bother to hide just how much I wanted to own her body and bend it to my will,as I rasped, “Baby, the only thing I’m holding back is just how much I fucking want you.”
Her lips fell open in surprise at my words, and I took advantage of the opening, sealing my lips against hers and swallowing her noises as I thrust my tongue into her mouth. She whimpered at the sudden contact, body lax against mine as I pressed her against the door.
I’d taken control every time we fucked this past week, but I’d reigned in just how brutally I wanted Rory splayed out underneath me, boneless and weak. I’d let her lead indirectly, following her gasps for ‘more’ and allowing her to ride my face or my fingers or my cock to bring her to orgasm.
But I was in total control now, my mouth devouring hers, tongue moving against hers so brutally she couldn’t keep up, her head tilting back at the force of my lips. I bit her lip hard enough to bruise, my cock twitching when she moaned at the bite of pain.
“Feel how much I want you, meri jaan?” I growled against her lips, grinding my cock against the apex of her thighs, tilting my hips until I hit the right spot and she moaned. “I want to fuck you into theground. I want to fuck you until you scream, make you come until you’re boneless with it.”
Rory only whimpered at my words, and I took that as the permission it was, pressing her against the door and hiking her leg around my hip so I could grind against her easier. I had planned on tasting her first orgasm on my tongue, but the idea of fucking her through her clothes until she came was suddenly much more appealing.
Rory’s legs were already shaking, a string of nonsense syllables spilling from her mouth as I pinched her nipple, the taut bud visible through her sweater dress.
