Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
AMELIE
Kai walked to the credenza without acknowledging my confusion.
He held the glossy lid open to reveal a bar.
His face was unreadable as he poured himself a drink.
Just like he had done every time he got himself one, he poured me a glass of wine as well.
This time, the effort was mechanical and empty.
I flinched when he shut the lid to the bar without a sound.
The restraint in it was somehow worse than if he’d slammed it.
We didn’t exchange words as we nursed the drinks, but his temper filled the room.
“You’re thinking of him while we’re together.” Not a question. His voice was very quiet, which didn’t seem like a good sign with Kai.
That’s what got his panties in a bunch? Because I mentioned Stefan. “I—”
“Is that what you did during our honeymoon, too?”
I didn’t respond.
He set his glass down on the credenza with a precision that was almost ceremonial. When he turned, his face was perfectly composed, which was how I knew he was furious. “Answer me.”
I didn’t trust myself to speak. My fingers tightened around my glass. The ice in Kai’s eyes had me frozen. He had never seemed so lethal before. The quiet fury radiating from him made the air between us feel dangerous.
My fingers trembled as I pushed my hair back from my face. I pursed my lips, unsure what to do. My thoughts whirled like the drink in my hand, unable to make sense of his mercurial moods. How could talking about Stefan trigger him like this?
Kai abandoned his drink and moved to the window. He stood with his back to me, one hand braced against the frame. The stillness in him made the room feel smaller. “This goes against our agreement.”
“What?”
“Thinking about him goes against our agreement about your wifely duties.”
I wanted to laugh. He was serious. As ridiculous as it sounded, my thoughts were no longer my own according to a clause in the contract.
Kai’s lawyers had outlined the importance of compartmentalization.
They referred to Stefan as my boyfriend since bigamy was illegal.
Thinking about my boyfriend while I was with Kai was strictly prohibited.
I was supposed to make a considerable effort to keep my mind from wandering.
The clause was so preposterous that I never thought he’d enforce it. How was I supposed to control my thoughts? Defiance ignited in my chest.
“It can’t be news to you that I think of Stefan.” Why was he acting surprised that I wanted Stefan during a panic attack? My love for him was what drove me to marry Kai. “Did you think spending a weekend together would erase my husband from my memory?”
Apparently, it was the worst thing I could have said.
Kai pivoted to face me with so much fury that I backpedaled. I had never considered him threatening before.
“I am your husband.” He said it quietly, each word distinct and separate, as if he were speaking to someone who might not understand the language.
“You aren’t supposed to mention him while we’re together.
I deserve that much.” He looked at me for a long moment.
“He left you alone tonight. I didn’t.” A beat. “That should mean something to you.”
Kai’s contempt-filled words struck me like physical blows. Guilt clawed at the back of my mind. Perhaps I was the asshole for thinking about a man who wasn’t even there. After all, Kai dropped everything to console me while Stefan left me high and dry.
I had no idea how the situation had flipped on its head. I was mad at Kai for my new reality, but somehow, I had become the villain.
He looked at me for a moment, then away. “You’re a disappointment.”
His words knocked the air from my lungs. Sure, Kai manipulated me into this marriage and tricked me into consummating it, but so far, he hadn’t deliberately wounded me with his words. No matter the relationship, when someone says you’re a disappointment, it cuts deep.
I swallowed hard.
Kai stared at the wall in front of him. “I thought after we spent some time together—”
He trailed off, the sentence hanging incomplete in the air between us. His expression crumbled, giving way to raw defeat that aged him in seconds. Without warning, he drove his fist into the wall, leaving behind a crater in the plaster. The sound of it was much quieter than I expected.
My hands instinctively covered my mouth.
What the actual fuck?
His knuckles came away smeared with blood, fresh crimson welling from torn skin.
Just as he reared back to strike again, I sprang forward and caught his arm mid-swing.
The momentum carried through, but my grip weakened the blow enough that it only spiderwebbed the surface rather than punching clean through.
“Stop. You’re mad at me. Don’t take it out on yourself.”
He stepped away from me and paced in a wide arc like he was trying to cool off but didn’t know how to.
How had things escalated so fast?
“Is there anything I can do?” I whispered, even though I felt utterly lost by his over-the-top reaction.
“Leave,” he said, his voice as lifeless as his eyes fixed on the hardwood beneath us.
“Kai.”
He didn’t acknowledge me. Didn’t even glance my way. For the first time since meeting me, Kai did something entirely unexpected. He ignored me.
I had no idea how to comfort him or why he was this angry.
I took one step toward him, then another, like approaching a wounded animal.
The man before me, with his bloodied knuckles and rage-filled eyes, wasn’t the same Kai.
The Kai I knew was mature and collected, he didn’t destroy walls with his fists.
The explanation couldn’t be as simple as petty jealousy over my other husband, could it?
“Can we talk about this?” I asked softly.
When he attempted to walk away, I shadowed his retreating form with determined steps of my own. He was unpredictable right now, and it felt wrong to leave him alone.
“Look, Kai, I didn’t mean to offend you,” I told him, surprised that I cared he was pissed. But I couldn’t shake the expression on his face.
Then I clocked it. Behind the anger was a wounded look—my confession had hurt him. My stomach knotted with more guilt as I watched his carefully constructed facade crack, revealing a vulnerability I hadn’t known existed.
“I’m not in the right mindset,” he said stoically. “It’s best if you leave.”
Every instinct screamed at me to obey. After all, why should I care if he was hurting? But my feet refused to move. I never thought there’d be a day when I’d miss the cold, calculating Kai.
“I shouldn’t have been thinking about my other relationship while we were together,” I admitted.
He glared at the wall and didn’t respond.
“I understand how things are supposed to be. I-I just need some time to adjust.”
Again, nothing.
“Kai.”
I reached out with tentative fingers and touched his jaw, even as his eyes flashed with barely contained rage. Again, no reaction. Just as I found myself wondering why I cared to calm Kai Cavendish, of all people, I saw the rage break loose behind his eyes.
He turned his face and pressed his lips to mine.
I jerked away, dropping my hands like they’d touched a hot stove. The sudden shift from anger to affection caught me completely off guard.
It was my turn to retreat. I backed up a step, twisting my fingers together while my cheeks burned so hot I thought they might catch fire. Kai shadowed me.
“At least there is one wifely duty you haven’t let me down in,” he said in a cynical tone.
My mouth dropped, and I raised my hand to slap him. He caught my wrist before I could strike. It was my mistake for showing him an ounce of compassion. I forgot, he wasn’t deserving of it. “Go to hell, Kai. You’re mad at me for thinking about Stefan when you are the other man—”
I fell silent as his eyes darkened. “I am the other man?”
His accusation hung in the air like a guillotine. My breath grew faster, echoing loudly in the quiet. He watched me, unblinking, his gaze immobilizing me even as a flush crept up my neck. I backpedaled without thinking, the wall behind me halting my retreat with a painful impact against my spine.
“Back off, Kai.”
He disregarded my command, which had emerged as more of a plea.
“Legally, you’re my wife,” he said softly as he crowded me.
I swallowed hard, my pulse hammering wildly as my mind scrambled for clarity.
His hand descended between us. A chill shot through me at the tug against my waistband.
I seized his wrist, my head moving in silent refusal.
His eyes never left mine while he eased his hand down my tennis skirt.
The air caught in my throat as his palm covered me.
His fingers applied pressure through the thin cotton barrier of my underwear, not breaching, but insistent enough that the material slipped between my folds.
“Or have you forgotten?”
His voice, rough with anger, caused my insides to clench. Warmth pooled low. I held my breath, hoping he wouldn’t feel my underwear dampen, but a second later, his fingers shifted, rubbed, and then his expression hardened.
His mood shifts were giving me whiplash. He went from being a consoling friend to a jealous husband and now my lover, all within the span of thirty minutes.
He brushed my underwear aside and slipped a finger inside me. I let out a strangled yelp and banged into the wall behind me in a desperate bid to get away, but Kai was relentless. His finger sank so deep, my mouth opened on a silent gasp.
“I can feel how wet you are,” he said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper as my body responded further to his touch. His breath was hot against my temple. “Fuck.”
“Kai…” I closed my eyes as another finger joined the first.
“Were you thinking about him while I was inside you?” he growled.
I clutched his shirt in my fists, words failing me completely. My thoughts scattered like startled birds as sensation overwhelmed reason. My spine curved involuntarily, my body caving even as my mind reeled. I rose onto my toes, a gasp caught in my throat.
“Tell me,” he demanded.
“N-no,” I stammered incoherently as my skirt fell around my ankles. My stance widened instinctively, and he didn’t hesitate to claim the space I’d created.
“No, you weren’t thinking of him, or no, you won’t tell me?” His words came out as a rough growl, barely intelligible through the haze of sensation.
I couldn’t focus on what he was asking, not with his fingers moving inside me like that.
The room tilted as he picked me up and carried me to his bedroom, which was separated by a hallway.
I cursed and screamed until he dropped me on the mattress.
I lay flat, staring up at the ceiling, breath coming fast and shallow.
My thoughts wouldn’t connect, just fragments spinning away from each other while my legs hung off the edge.
When his fingers hooked into my underwear and tugged them down, my body jolted in response.
“What are you—”
I stopped breathing upon hearing the rustle of his clothing. I felt the coarse brush of his sweatpants against my shin as he stepped out of them.
A large hand cupped the back of my knee and lifted it, spreading me wide.
My hands dove between my legs to cover myself.
Perhaps that barrier between us had been broken, but a part of me still wanted to shield myself from letting it happen again.
One look into his dark eyes, which still glittered with banked rage, made my body pliant instinctively.
“You don’t give a shit that I waited for you,” he growled as he dragged my ass to the edge of the bed.
I would argue the opposite was true. He tricked me into sleeping with him on our first night together.
My mind blanked when I felt the pressure of his cock against me. I looked down the length of my body as Kai gripped my hip with his bruised, bloodied hand, holding me in place while he pushed forward.
“Kai! What the hell are you doing?”
I tried to scramble backward, but his fingers dug deeper, anchoring me to the edge of the bed.
His neck corded with strain as he pushed forward, jaw clenched tight.
The low sounds he made swallowed my own gasps.
He pulled back, then eased forward. He closed his eyes, his dick twitching inside of me.
His eyes shot open and bore into mine. “I’ve given up who I am just to be with you,” he said, breath ragged against my ear. “But you still want him.”
My fingers clutched at his biceps, desperate to hold on while my heels scraped against the mattress. His hips were already moving. Each thrust came before I could brace for it. Lost in his own need, he chased his release with single-minded determination, as though I wasn’t even there.
I shoved against his chest, but he didn’t flinch. “Stop. Kai, stop.”
My fingers found their way to his back, nails digging crescents into his skin. Instead of stopping, he groaned and drove deeper.
My voice broke as I asked, “Why are you being this way?”
My struggles turned desperate, my body twisting beneath his weight. The bed was moving from his efforts. It was too much. He didn’t care about the fear in my eyes, couldn’t hear my gasping pleas, either.
His body finally tensed before he collapsed against me with a shout. Fresh tears slid down my eyes silently, disappearing into my hairline, while his breath was hot against my neck.
Kai froze when he felt my tears against his temple. His head snapped up, and I watched shock ripple across his face like a stone dropped in still water. Like he had snapped, and he had no idea what he was doing until he saw tears streaming down my face.
The fury that had twisted his features moments before dissolved. His hands trembled as they wiped my tear-streaked cheek.
“Don’t cry.” His voice was hoarse as he pressed his forehead to mine. “Please don’t cry.”
I closed my eyes as he tumbled out a breathless apology.
“I keep making you cry. It isn’t how this was supposed to go.”
My racing mind stilled. I met his gaze as his fingers brushed my hair from my face. The controlled Kai I knew had returned, even as I felt him throbbing inside me from his uncontrollable behavior.
“You can’t,” he began unsteadily. “You can’t talk about him when we are together.” His eyes moved over my face and landed on my lips. “I hate the idea of sharing you with anyone else.”
I was about to respond that it didn’t sound rational in a polyandrous marriage, but words evaded me. We lay there, side by side, and there was nothing more to say between us. He wanted my submission, which he couldn’t have, and had settled for my body instead.