Chapter 60
Decker
I practically drag her into my bedroom. Our journey to this end of the cabin is punctuated by her huffs and exasperated sighs.
When we get inside, I close and lock the door.
By the time I turn around, she’s perched on my bed, arms still tucked under her breasts in a way that rearranges my insides.
“What?” she pushes.
“Let me have it.” Arms raised in surrender, I stalk toward her. I stop a few feet away, giving her space. Letting her choose how she wants to proceed.
“Let you have what, exactly?” she challenges. “I just agreed to marry you, Decker. What more could you possibly want from me?”
I laugh—a humorless chuckle. “What more could I want from you?” I grind my jaw so hard it aches.
She hits me with that haughty stare, her blue eyes sparkling like fractals of ice.
“I want it all, Siren.” Fisting my hands at my sides, I risk taking one step closer. “Your anger. Your hate. I won’t marry you with all this resentment and animosity hanging between us. Get it out of your system right now so we can start this right.”
It’s her turn to laugh.
She pushes off the bed, squaring up until we’re toe to toe. “You think getting it off my chest will miraculously repair what’s been irrevocably broken?”
I raise one brow, but I hold back a retort. I told her to let it out, so I’ll keep my mouth shut and take it.
“You think we can just have a conversation and that’ll reverse the hell you put me through? All the pain you caused?”
Shrugging, I push harder. “I don’t know,” I admit. “But it’s worth a try. Give it to me, Siren.”
“There’s nothing left to give!” she screams, her hands fisting her hair in frustration.
“Come on,” I goad, jerking my neck to one side, then the other, reveling in the shot of pain each crack sends through me. “You can do better than that.”
My argument is nothing but a farce, but I play it cool. My insides twist every time I provoke her. Because all I want to do is hold her. Because she’s dimmed so markedly over the last few weeks, and it’s my fucking fault.
Her fire doesn’t burn as hot.
The passion between us has been reduced to a flicker.
But it’s not out yet.
And now that we’re alone, I intend to reignite it and set us ablaze.
“I thought I was the coward here. I didn’t think you’d give up so easily, Josephine.”
That does it.
The ice blue of her irises ignites, and fury takes over.
“You think I’m a coward?”
There she fucking is.
“You think I’m the one giving up? You think I’ll make this easy on you?”
I bite back a grin as she charges toward me. My Siren.
“Do you know how hard I worked to break through to you the first time? It took so much out of me to crack your shell. All that effort… all that love,” she chokes out the last word. “When I’d finally tunneled my way in, you threw it all away. You threw us away.”
She stands up straighter, glaring at me with so much force my instinct is to cower despite our size difference.
“I honestly believed you were worth it. Once we were finally together, I thought nothing could keep us apart. I never imagined you’d shatter us and just move on like I’m nothing to you.”
I hold back all the words I want to say. Swallow down the apology on the tip of my tongue. It’s all useless now. I’ve weaponized my words against her too many times. I’ve made promises I couldn’t keep, and I’ve lied to her face to protect her. All I have left are actions.
Thankfully, because of the arrangement we came up with tonight, I’ll have a lifetime to make it up to her and prove myself worthy.
Her shoulders shake with a dismissive huff. “You know what’s funny about all of this? I’m not sad. I was at first, but now I’m just mad.”
Good. I want her mad. I want to feel that fire.
“And why’s that?” I ask, inching incrementally closer.
“Because I see right through you, Decker Crusade. I see through your bullshit armor and this martyr act you love to default to. You’ve been pushing me away to protect me, but I’m still so fucking mad at you.”
She grits her teeth, her arms still locked tightly in front of her. Her leg twitches, as if she’s holding back from stomping her foot.
“So punish me,” I offer.
Her pupils blow wide—from surprise or desire, I’m not sure.
“What?”
“Punish me. Make me pay for putting you in this position, for all the pain I caused. I know there’s nothing I can say to make this up to you. So punish me. Use me however you see fit.”
Her face screws up. “What is wrong with you?”
“You’re about to be my wife,” I remind her.
Fire flashes in her eyes when I murmur those last two words.
“In name only,” she sasses.
“Punish me,” I repeat. “Let me have you tonight. Then you can go on denying me for the rest of our lives.”
My proposition lingers between us, desire thrumming in the room.
She has me pegged. I am a coward. I’m weak. But if she’s going to spend the rest of forever spiting me, then I’ll take the scraps she’s willing to give.
I’ll do anything to be closer to her in this moment.
I’ll give anything to chase the high only she brings, to taste her and savor her one more time. To make her come undone just for me. Even just this once. To prove to myself that the night I claimed her wasn’t a fever dream. To remind myself that she was fucking made for me.
“Punish me or go back to your boyfriends, Josephine. We don’t have all night.”
Except we do.
But just as I suspected, my flippant remark sets her off.
She charges forward, claws at the back of my head, and growls. “You are infuriating.”
She slams her mouth to mine as the energy notches up in the room.
Dipping down, I palm her ass and sweep her off her feet.
She clings to me with fervor and desperation as I march to the bed. Fuck, I can’t help but revel in the moment. It’s impossible not to get caught up in her desire.
When she nips at my lip, I remember it’s not desire. At least not right now. It’s anger. It’s deeply seated frustration. It’s loathing fueled by every fucked-up thing I’ve put her through, culminating in tonight’s life-changing decision.
A decision that seals our fates, crushes her future, and unlocks my wildest dreams.
Tomorrow, she’ll be my wife.
Tonight, right now, when it’s just the two of us, possibly for the last time—she swears she won’t give up the boys, and she means it with every fiber of her being—I’ll fuck her like she’s the most precious thing in my life.
Because she is. She was. And now, she always will be.
Her mouth fuses to mine again as she unleashes savage kisses. I groan, savoring each and every fucking one, letting the heat of her loathing coat my insides and lick up my spine like uncontrollable flames.
She bites up and down my neck and claws at my back with such ferocity I swear she’s trying to break skin.
“Enough.” With a growl, I throw her onto the bed. Then I make quick work of losing my clothes.
“Strip and spread, Mrs. Crusade.”
Fury flares in her light blue eyes. “I never said I would take your last name,” she contends.
I shuck off my boxer briefs and stand tall, completely naked before her. Gripping my cock, I give it a few pumps.
She’s furious at me, but still, she licks her lips and tracks the movement of my hand as I palm my length and squeeze the tip.
“Oh yes you did.” I step closer and grab the hem of her shirt when she makes no moves to remove it herself. “You said you would be my wife—in name only.”
Her leggings come off next. I rip them down her legs, removing her panties and her socks in the process.
“Fuck,” I murmur, watching her breasts rise and fall with her labored breathing.
“Fine. Call me whatever you want. You know who I really belong to.”
Her words are cool and flippant, in complete juxtaposition to the way her nipples harden under my gaze.
I crawl onto the bed, and her legs fall open, welcoming me right where I want to be. Right where she refuses to admit she wants me.
I nudge the tip of my cock at her opening and pull back to admire the sight of her arousal coating the tip. The way her hips tilt up, seeking more, makes my heart hammer so hard in my chest I worry it’ll pound its way right out.
She wants me.
I want her.
And right now, on the night before our wedding, with no one else present and nothing left to keep us apart, I’ll do the one thing I rarely allow myself to do.
I’m going to take what I want.
“Let me see what’s mine, wife.”
The hatred in her eyes is enough to light this whole cabin on fire. Yet her legs fall open wider. Then her back arches off the mattress and her fingertips graze her nipples.
Gripping my cock at its base, I glide it through her folds again, rubbing the tip over her clit.
“Your sass tells me one thing, Siren. But look how wet you are for me.”
“Fuck,” she murmurs just loud enough for me to hear.
So I do it again. And again and again and again. The crown of my dick tingles from the repetitive, blunt prods against her clit.
The prettiest pink blush blooms across her chest and up her neck, then transforms the color of her cheeks. And fuck if her sex isn’t blushing for me, too. Glistening and dark, so fucking ready for me. It might be the hottest sight I’ve ever seen.
I skim my thumbs over her wet, warm pussy lips, spreading them open and staring at her perfect pink hole. “Look how needy and desperate you are for me. So responsive to your husband’s cock.”
Her eyes shoot open at that word. Husband.
Since I’ve got her attention, I take the opportunity to slide all the way home while she’s watching me.
There’s little resistance thanks to her wetness, but the grasp of her walls around me is even more exquisite than I remembered.
“Fucking perfect fit. You take me so well, Siren. Do you feel how much your body wants this? Get ready to experience just how good your husband can give it to you.”
I thrust deep, setting a relentless pace, and crane up to kiss her again.
She turns her head, denying me.
“Josephine,” I growl in scolding.
Keeping her head turned, she smirks. The look is just visible in profile. Then she scrapes her nails up my bare back, sending lightning bolts of need through me.
I pull out all the way, ready to plunge back in and fuck the sass right out of her.
Only, the moment I pull out, she scrambles back. Flipping over, she rises to hands and knees and gives me a cheeky smile over her shoulder.
“Fuck me from behind, Decker. Make me come and put us both out of our misery already.”
I slam into her cunt, and she cries out, shifting back to match the pace as my hips piston forward. As soon as she finds her rhythm, I make my move.
Catching her by the hips, I pull her back against my chest, still buried deep, and find her clit. With two fingers, I rub hurried, uneven circles around the nub, then give it a sharp slap.
“Fuck. Decker. Yes.” The first quivers of her pussy ripple over me.
I freeze and pull my hand away, then bring my lips to her ear. “Two can play this game, Siren.”
I pull out, spin her around, and pin her to the mattress before she even realizes what’s happening.
With my arms hooked around her shoulders and my body looming over hers, I slide back home and take her how I want her.
“You’ll look at me when I make you come, wife.” I punctuate the command with a thrust.
“You’ll look at me.” Thrust. “You’ll scream my name.” Thrust. “You’ll give me what’s mine.” Thrust. “And you’ll come on my cock, Josephine Crusade. Now.”
She detonates on command, milking my length, hooking her legs behind my low back and screaming my name.
“Thatta girl,” I praise, fucking her hard and fast until the arousal coiled tight inside me explodes and I come in rapid spurts.
I hold myself inside her as tightly as she can take it. Desperate to fill her up. Desperate to never let go. Because I know the moment the fluttering of her pussy stops, she’ll shove me off and run to the bathroom.
So when she stills, smooths her hands up my back until they meet at my nape and pulls my forehead down to rest on her own, I’m staggered.
Tenderness blossoms between us as she clings to me.
Each inhalation quivers as she tries to catch her breath.
Her gaze is solely set on me, searching and forlorn, so full of all the pain I’ve caused her.
Her light blue eyes are wide and filled with unshed tears. Below me, she trembles, so I cuddle closer and hold her as tightly as I dare.
“Decker.” My name on her lips is vulnerable and soft as she stares directly into my soul.
There’s so much I want to say. So many words and actions I yearn to take back. So much pain between us, all dealt by my hand.
I don’t apologize. I don’t bother with words of reassurance.
They’re meaningless. Useless.
I’ve lost the right to comfort her that way.
Only actions will prove my worthiness now.
I hope to God that, one day, I can show her that I’ll always do right by her. Never again will I cut her out, force her hand, or make a decision without her input. Then maybe she’ll know just how fucking sorry I am.
And just how much I love her.
“I know, baby,” I relent, closing my eyes and grinding my forehead into hers as my own tears form behind my eyelids. I kiss the tip of her nose, her lips, and each tear as it falls. “I’ve got you now. I swear. I’ve got you forever, Josephine.”