37. Mila
MILA
I won’t chase you . . .
My husband is magnetic.
Women want him. Men want to be like him.
He keeps his distance from the women who approach him, but when each one comes up prettier than the last, all I can think about are his harsh words.
I won’t chase you . . .
His ring still sits heavily over my heart, as if reminding me that, for all intents and purposes, he told me he was done with me. With my dramatics and venom. My rough edges and thorns.
We may still be married, but marriage is just a word to pretty up what it really is. A contract. Judging by the fact that he hasn’t even glanced my way once tonight, that contract is about to be null and void.
I’m angry with him. Angry with myself. I’m Sick with jealousy when woman after woman comes up to him, speaking to him. Laughing with him because I can’t.
How long has it been since we’ve laughed together?
I’m in love with him, and I know he loves me, but sometimes, that’s not enough, is it?
Like the idiotic fool I am, I fell in love with the secret language that only he and I seem to understand. The way he holds me when the world feels like it’s closing in on me. The way his body shudders when he presses himself inside me.
The way he clung to me like he’d been starved for me after being gone for three weeks.
I want to hate him, but in the end, I can’t.
I can’t hate him for saving me. I can’t hate him for marrying me, even if it was all a trick. I can’t hate him for leaving because I know the real Christian, and I also know he wouldn’t leave unless he had to.
Most of all, I can’t hate him because no matter how toxic it may be, I’ve fallen in love with every dark, deadly part of him.
A laugh sounds across the room, and a shiver runs up my spine.
Talia.
She’s as beautiful as ever—her long raven hair sleek and cascading down to the curve in her back. She looks elegant and poised in a black cocktail dress, the back completely open to showcase her thin waist. She leans in close to Christian, her hand resting on his arm.
From this distance, they look like lovers. The way she looks at him. He delicately removes her hand from his arm, but the fact that she’s touched him pisses me off. Especially after he answered her call and couldn’t find the time to call me.
They’re the picture of a power couple. A tux looks good on him, and my heart aches to be near him, even though I know I have no right.
Was I wrong? Probably. Am I sorry? No. I miss my family. I’ve been away from them for too long.
“Trollop,” Bella murmurs, stepping up beside me.
Talia laughs at something Christian says, and I’ve never wanted to bite someone more than I do at this very moment.
I hate her.
Turning away from the scene, I down the rest of my drink.
“Whoa, killer, slow down.”
“What’s it matter?” I grumble, chewing loudly on a piece of ice since using my teeth for other purposes would probably land me in jail. It’s not like my husband would bail me out. He’d probably pay them to keep me. “We’re done.”
“You can’t just be done with your husband.”
“Why not?” I shrug. “He is.”
“I want you to know he’s told every one of those girls he’s here with his wife, and she’s feral enough to bite.”
I roll my eyes, fighting back the smirk that tugs at the corners of my lips.
Guess he knows me better than I thought.
“Can you just go talk to him?”
“No. He’s the one that should be talking.”
“As your friend and sister-in-law, I have to tell you, you’re being a real butthole.”
I gawk at her. “Rude.”
“True.”
I roll my eyes, turning to go get another drink. Maybe I’ll just get a bottle this time.
Unfortunately, Bella has other plans. She catches my hand, tugging me back before I can walk away.
“Tell me what you’re so worried about.”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” I grumble, but she’s got the grip strength of a pitbull, refusing to let
“You can never move forward until both of you lay it all out. Otherwise, it’s just playing Russian Roulette every day you wake up. Wondering which day is going to be the day another lie is uncovered.”
“I didn’t lie . . .” I correct. “I evaded the truth.”
She fixes me with a look.
“That’s basically a lie.”
I grab her drink, taking a sip. It’s unfortunate that there’s no alcohol in it.
“Drinking isn’t going to make you feel better.”
“Okay, Mom. What will?”
She smirks, nodding across the room.
“Do you think Talia will make a good sister-wife?”
“I must admit . . . I thought you were better than this.”
I pause, turning to her.
“What?”
She shrugs. “Letting other women try to swoop in on your husband. I would have thought you would have put a stop to it by now. Especially since he’s all you’ve been thinking about the last three weeks.”
“That’s not true.” It is. “I’ve had plenty to keep me occupied.” I haven’t. Squaring my shoulders, I throw my chin up. “If he wants to see other women, then let him.”
Bella snorts.
“Infidelity is not funny.”
“No, but the fact that you can’t see what’s right in front of your face is.” She waits for me to say something, and when I don’t, she explains. “You love him. He loves you.”
“It’s not that simple . . .”
“Of course, it is. You’re the only one making it hard. Well, him too.”
I shake my head, crossing my arms over my chest and leaning back against the bar.
“There is so much baggage between us; I think we’ll be tripping over it the rest of our lives.”
“Every relationship has baggage. You’ve just got to be able to step over it to get to the clear path.”
As if he knows we’re talking about him, Christian looks up, his dark eyes locking with mine across the room. I can’t read his expression, but a tingle of awareness slips through me under that thoughtful gaze. Like he’s ready to accept whatever fate I’ve given him, even if it kills him.
I should be happy that he gave me the option to leave. I mean, look at everything he’s done.
But . . . look at everything I’ve done, too.
A rush of confusing thoughts enter my head in that moment where we lock eyes. Like why I’m so concerned with the bruises that cover his body. Where he’s been and why he was so exhausted when he came home.
Talia’s gaze follows his, her eyes locking with mine in a challenge she’s too idiotic to realize I refuse to take part in.
If I have to fight with another woman for a man, is he really mine at all?
She says something, but he doesn’t respond, his stare burning through me instead.
“Mila,” Paulina says, emerging from the shadows like Batman .
“Someone should put a bell on you,” I grumble, but she flat-out ignores me.
“Go . . .” she urges quietly when a soft song comes on. “Go dance with your husband.”
“I’d rather eat gum off the gum wall,” I retort, but she’s not listening to me. She and Bella both shove me forward, and I teeter in my heels, throwing them a glare over my shoulder.
As if this is a Disney movie and we’re the unwilling prince and princess who just found out they’re expected to wed in a fortnight, Levi shoves Christian towards me, and he jerks away from his grasp, ignoring whatever Talia says.
Yeah . . . really looks like a man in love to me.
“Go,” Paulina urges quietly from behind me, and I grit my teeth.
Fine. One dance to appease the masses, and then I’m going home.
Wherever that is now.
Christian stops in front of me in the sea of dancing, happy couples, his gaze indifferent. It doesn’t even sweep over my dress. My chest tightens, but I let the anger cushion the blow when he reaches for me with a sigh, looking over my head, no doubt at Paulina and Bella with a glare.
He takes my fingers in his, and I stiffen when his hand comes around my waist. He moves me along to the music, but I can’t bring myself to look at him, let alone lean into him.
It feels . . . foreign. This distance between us. Even when he was gone, he never felt this far away.
“I see you’re still here,” he mutters dryly, so quiet that only the two of us can hear. My chest tightens at the bitterness in his voice, my eyes stinging, but I refuse to cry. I didn’t work this hard on my makeup to cry it all off.
“Would you like me to leave?” I keep my face neutral so even Talia Taylor couldn’t spot the tension flowing through us.
I feel everyone’s eyes on me. Like the entire room is waiting for the drop of a bomb.
It’s human nature, isn’t it? Wanting to watch other people’s lives fall apart while never partaking in the act itself.
“I would have thought you would have run the moment the opportunity presented itself,” he retorts, his tone clipped. Controlled.
He’s not speaking to me like Christian.
He’s speaking to me like a job. Like I mean nothing to him.
I don’t know if his anger or his indifference is worse. Either way, I know there’s a pit opening up in my stomach, threatening to swallow me whole.
“I’ll leave the disappearing acts to you,” I reply, equally as icy. If he wants to be a dick, so will I.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see his jaw tick, his hand tightening around mine almost instinctively.
“Yes, but I know your affinity for hiding things. I’d like to spare the poor souls who have to clean this place if possible.”
“Wouldn’t that be the perfect way to start this marriage?” I ask, my throat threatening to close. “Oh, right, how could I forget? We’ve been married for almost two years, and you just forgot to mention it to me. It’s pathetic.”
“Funnily enough, the happiest this marriage has been is when you didn’t know about it.”
“Fuck you, Christian,” I growl, showing at his chest.
“In case you forgot, I’ve been there, and it’s not that impressive.”
I come to a stop, my heart cracking in my chest at the weight of his words. I finally look up at him, and I’m met with nothing but gray, cloudy indifference. Nothing of the man I loved.
I think it would hurt less if he’d slapped me in the face. Anger seeps through me, and tears gather at the corners of my eyes. I want to hurt him as badly as he hurt me.
“I wish I could forget you,” I breathe, and his nostrils flare, his eyes darkening to midnight.
Turning, I hurry off the dance floor and out of the ballroom, my legs carrying me not to the bathroom like I had originally intended but straight towards the back door to pack my things.
I won’t stay where I’m not wanted . . . no matter how much I don’t want to go.
I suck in a breath in the night air on the short walk to the family’s quarters, but it’s painful, my throat closing up like all the air was sucked out of the room.
I won’t chase you.
This is good , I tell myself. Better now than later when he decides he doesn’t want you.
He tricked me into marrying him. Kidnapped me and brought me to a deserted island. Disappeared—again—and lied about why he’d been hunting me.
He has no one to blame but himself.
Then why does it feel like I ripped my own heart out of my chest and shoved it through a meat grinder?
I don’t need Christian to survive. I made it on my own for months. If it weren’t for him, I’d probably still be out there, traveling the States.
Starving yourself .
“Fuck off,” I growl at the voice in my head.
He gave you your freedom. What are you still doing here?
—I don’t want to leave.
He may be rude. He may have tricked me. He may have broken my heart.
—He also pieced it back together again after I was shattered. He bathed me when I couldn’t do it myself. He made me feel like a human being for the first time in a year instead of a defective replication.
He’s fucked up . . . but so have I.
I have spent the last three months fighting these feelings every step of the way. For what? To end up desperately in love with him anyway?
I storm through the front door and head straight towards the stairs, ignoring the aching sorrow building in my chest.
“ Mila .”
The hair on the back of my neck rises at the volatile presence behind me, but I don’t stop, hurrying up the stairs as fast as my heels will allow me.
“I’m going, Christian. You’re getting what you want; why are you still following me?”
“We have unfinished business.”
I push through the doors into the hall leading to his bedroom, scrubbing at the angry tears that slip down my cheeks.
“Like what?” I whirl on him, finding him only a foot away from me. “Like how I’m not enough? Not impressive? Not happy enough for you? Don’t fit into your little protective box where you can lock me in your big fancy lodge in case you decide to show up?”
Shoving at his chest, I turn to storm away, but his arm wraps around my waist, tugging me back to his front and locking an arm around me. His hand covers my mouth, and I dig my nails into the skin, hoping to God it draws blood. He deserves it for what he said to me.
Leather, whiskey, and the forest coats my senses, and despite myself, my body yearns for him. To feel him the way he was last night. Dominating yet controlled. Needy, like I’m breakable, but his to break.
He turns me around, his hand sliding up to fist my hair and tug my head back at a harsh angle. His eyes consume me, his lips so close I can taste him. His lips skim mine, and we share each other’s air. Neither of us moving.
Then he releases me, and I stumble away from him while he scrubs a hand over his face.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he rasps. “I can’t fucking think around you.”
Silence falls over us, bitterness coiling inside me like a venomous snake. His breathing is ragged, matching my own, and when his eyes meet mine, there’s something dark and pissed off and bleeding.
And I realize he doesn’t want me to leave.
In fact . . . he’s desperate for me to stay.
“Why did you leave me in LA?”
“Mila—” he grits, trying to evade the question again.
“No,” I growl through the tears in my eyes. “You married me. Then you left.” My voice cracks, and his eyes come to mine, and his jaw ticks, his gaze flaring with heat before it’s quickly masked by something else. Something dark and wounded.
That makes two of us.
“I loved you. I would have done anything for you. You made me think you cared, and then you left like I meant nothing to you.”
Still no answer.
“Goddammit, Christian, answer me!”
“You want to know why I left?” he chuckles darkly, and the bitter laugh sends a shiver down my spine.
“Yeah, I do.”
“I left because your mother asked me to.” I freeze, the weight of his words sliding over me. “Because she told me to stop Parker from marrying you off and I made sure no one would ever get the chance.” He takes a step towards me, throwing his arms out at the sides. “You think I didn’t care. But you fail to realize you meant fucking everything to me. Still fucking do.”
I fall back a step. My mother . . . My mother made him leave.
Christian takes another step towards me. “You are the only fucking thing I have ever wanted,” he growls. “Fucking you. You can think you care about me? I promise you’ve never been in this as deep as me.”
I blink, and a tear slips down my cheek. Christian watches it’s descent like he despises it.
“So, why did you marry me, then?”
“I don’t know, Mila,” he growls, throwing his arms out at his sides. “Maybe because I’m fucking in love with you?” My heart bottoms out in my chest, each heartbeat ticking like the hands of a clock. “Did you ever stop to consider that?”
I open my mouth to speak, but the words get stuck on my tongue.
“You can’t mean that?”
“I can’t?” he challenges, his voice rough like sandpaper. “You want to know the truth, Mila? I knew a man like me would never get a woman like you to marry him unless he found a way to cheat the system. So, I fucking did. Was it wrong?” He shrugs. “I don’t fucking know. I know it kept you from a far worse fate and that’s what I cared about.”
“You were engaged—” I breathe, unable to finish the sentence.
He steps towards me, and I back up to the wall. His body cages mine and the heat rolls off him in waves, sending a shiver up my spine. His heavy scent is intoxicating as it slips over me, and my nipples harden to sharp points.
I’m suddenly acutely aware of how much I’ve been aching for him in the last three weeks.
“You have no fucking idea what you do to me, do you?” When I don’t answer, he steps even closer, and the brush of his body against mine has heat gathering between my thighs. His fingers capture a lock of my hair, twisting the strands. Somehow, I feel his touch between my legs. “You think I could look at another woman while all I see is you? You and that soft fucking heart and those beautiful fucking eyes that make me feel like I’m losing my goddamned mind.”
“Christian . . . I . . .”
“Do you know what I’d do to another man if I found out he’d touched you?” he asks, and my hands come between us, fisting the material of his button-up beneath his open suit jacket. “
“I’d start by cutting off each of his fingers for daring to touch what’s mine. While he bled out, I’d let him watch me fuck you. Let him see how badly you beg for my cock in your pretty little cunt. Then when you were satisfied, I’d slice his dick off and feed it to him while he bled out at your feet.”
I shiver at his admission, sucking in a shaky breath. He moves closer until his lips are at my ear, his breath tingling against the side of my neck.
God, I want him. I want him bad enough that my body feels like it’s vibrating with need.
All our drama, baggage. None of it matters at this very moment because all I can think about is how badly I’ve missed him. How when he showed up in the bedroom last night, it felt like home had come to me.
Then leave . . .
With a rush of resentment, I shove him back. Harder than I would have thought I could.
He looks startled before the look in his eyes is replaced with a dark, searing warmth.
I shove him again, and this time, he catches me around the waist, the twist of a wry smile on his lips when he pulls me into him. And then, the moment our eyes meet, something in me snaps.
Lunging for him, I press my lips to his, and he tugs me against every inch of his hard body, the growl reverberating through him the most erotic sound I’ve ever heard.
His tongue licks into my mouth, the taste of whiskey, mint, and tobacco on his breath. My back hits the wall, and my arms wrap around his neck. He hoists me tighter against him, pressing my knees apart.
We’re all nails and teeth and heavy breaths and absolute chaos as the three weeks we’ve been apart finally catch up to us.
He groans roughly, only breaking the kiss long enough to let me shrug his suit jacket down his arms. He reaches between us, popping the button on his dress pants and fisting his rock-hard cock in his hand. I grip the buttons of his shirt, and he stops me by ripping the remaining few away, scattering them on the hardwood floor.
I whimper, body on fire, and a desperate urge to feel him inside me consuming me. He fists my dress, hoisting it up around my waist, and takes my knee, locking it around his hip in a quick, fluid motion.
“Mine,” he rasps against my lips. Then, his mouth is back on mine, and he’s sinking two fingers inside me. My back arches away from the wall, my knee tightening around him. My fingers run along the bruises and tattoos that cover his abs and chest.
“Yours,” I breathe, eyes half-lidded and hazy when he lines himself up at my entrance.
“Fuck, I’ve missed you.”
And then he’s sinking balls deep inside me.
“ Fuck .” His head falls to my shoulder with a feral groan.
“Oh my God,” I cry out, my head knocking back to hit the wall.
“Not God, baby,” he rasps, lifting his eyes to meet mine. “Me. Only fucking me.”
He fucks me like he’s trying to brand himself on my soul. He doesn’t realize he’s already there. Our bodies meld together against the wall, his breathing rough and my heart pounding in my chest.
The sound of his hips against mine echo in the space between us as he fucks me with a brutal pace.
“Please, Christian,” I moan, my nails digging into the muscles of his back.
It’s not enough. It’s never enough. I need to stake my claim on him as violently as he does me.
“Fuck,” he curses under his breath, forcing my legs wider with his hips and powering into me. There’s a reverence in the way he fucks me. Like touching me is as vital to him as breathing.
“Christian?”
The door to the suite opens, and I freeze, locking eyes with none other than Talia. She stands just inside the door, halted midstride, her eyes wide with shock and horror at the sight of Christian powering inside me.
He doesn’t even look at her. In fact, one might go as far as to say he blatantly ignores her when he grabs my chin in a rough palm, forces my gaze back to his, and seals his lips over mine with a harsh groan.
Everything tightens with violence, the brush of his groin against my clit enough to make my eyes roll and draw a moan from my lips. He captures the sound, his tongue tangling with mine as he kisses me like it’s the only thing he’s ever wanted.
When I look up, our audience has vanished and the door’s shut tight.
He breaks the kiss with a rough nip to my lips.
“You going to come for me?”
I moan in acquiescence, and he keeps up his brutal pace, fucking me until it feels like the walls will crumble around us.
“Come for me, Mila,” he rasps, burying his face in the side of my throat, kissing his way up to my lips.
Heat swirls in my stomach, tightening viciously before it releases in a burst of fire. The orgasm crashes through me like a wave of fire, and I cry out, my knees shaking and threatening to give out.
I get lost in him, letting him own me in those few brief seconds where heaven and earth don’t exist. Just Christian Cross and the miraculous things he can do to my body.
“Fuck . . . Mila ,” he groans with a ragged sound. “Just like that . .”
A convulsive shudder wracks through him, his entire body shaking with the force behind his orgasm. His cock jerks inside me, filling me until I feel it slip down my inner thighs.
When he lifts his gaze to mine, I don’t have a second to react before he’s stooping down, gripping me around the thighs, and hauling me up and over his shoulder. My ass is on display for God, the devil, and anyone else who happens to walk through our door.
I surge in his grasp, and his hand connects with my bare skin, making me yelp. Heat liquefies in my core, so intense it takes my breath away.
Or maybe that’s just him.
“Where are we going?”
“Bed, Mrs. Cross,” he grunts. My nails dig into his skin, but he doesn’t stop. “I’m far from finished with you.”