41. Christian
CHRISTIAN
A fter dinner, I have a call to take, and when I return, I find Mila in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room. Snow falls from the sky, blanketing everything in a spray of white that glistens like fine glitter on the trees beyond.
I don’t know what’s fucking happening to me, but I know it’s her fault. My chest hurts when I look at her. My cock throbs when she touches me. Fuck, she’s all I can think about, even when she’s lying in our bed beside me.
Is this what love feels like? Like cutting yourself open, time and time again, just for the off chance you’ll get to see their smile? Hear their laugh?
It really was too simple. I was fucked the moment I saw her. Before her, I was merely existing. Living to work. Going through the motions of what everyone thought my life should be.
Now, for the first time, there’s something greater to lose if I don’t come home. Something far more important than my own life, and I’m learning, I don’t have much control over it.
I’ll live for her. Bleed for her. Fuck, I’d take another bullet for her.
Ask me to give her up?
Good fucking luck.
“It’s snowing,” she says softly when I hand her a glass of wine and sit down on the couch across from her.
“First snow of the year.”
“I’ve seen snow once. When Marcus took us to Aspen for one Christmas.”
Every day, I find more and more things that I want to show her. Experience with her.
Guess we have to add snow to the list now.
“Mom loved the snow,” I murmur without thinking, taking a drink of the whisky in my glass and watching the large snowflakes fall outside.
“Christian . . .” she starts, staring at the wine in her glass as if it holds the secrets to life. “Why was Talia here today?”
Fuck.
Her gaze burns when it meets mine, and I know what she’s thinking.
“I told her I never wanted to see her again.”
Her head snaps up from where she twists her fingers in her lap, eyes narrowing on mine.
“Why . . . would you do that?”
I shrug. “Because she made you uncomfortable.”
“That’s it, then?” she chuckles dryly, shaking her head.
“Not all of it,” I murmur gruffly. “Because I won’t tolerate someone disrespecting you.” Her gaze tells me everything I need to know. “Whether I’m around to see it or not.”
“She was your friend, wasn’t she? Bella said you two were close after your mother and brother . . . passed.”
“We were, but that was then, and this is now.”
Though I would normally love the possessiveness in her gaze, I fucking hate it right now. I hate that it was put there at all.
“I haven’t touched her in years, Mila.”
Her shoulders stiffen, and her eyes meet mine.
“I didn’t ask,” she counters, though the bite in her voice is gone.”
“Talia and I grew up together. Our fathers were friends. We all used to spend a lot of time together. Over time, she started to view me as hers, and I started to view the world with a cold shoulder after Mom died.”
“You . . . were in love with her?”
“Fuck no,” I murmur under my breath, then I scrub a hand over my face, knowing how bad that sounds. “I guess, in a way, I loved her. I cared about her. Didn’t want to hurt her. I suppose I loved her in a way you’d love a friend but nothing more.”
“You were engaged,” she points out.
“We were,” I concede, finally meeting her gaze. “It was the worst mistake of my life.”
“Why did you agree, then?”
Fuck.
“I didn’t exactly have a choice,” I admit, and she pauses.
“It was a marriage of convenience?”
“More like an engagement built on a lie. The night we had sex, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was drunk . . .” I don’t know why thinking back to that night makes me feel sick to my stomach. “Anyway, after, she told me she was pregnant. Then, proposed we get married. When I found out it was a lie when I overheard her speaking to my father, I broke it off.”
She shakes her head, tears brimming in her eyes.
“I need you to know, Mila.”
I don’t know why. Maybe because I don’t want any more secrets between us, but also maybe because I’ve never told a soul, and she’s the only person I think I’d ever want to say it out loud to.
“She raped you,” she breathes, and I don’t try to deny it.
“Hard to believe a man as big as me could be raped by a woman as small as Talia, but . . . shit happens, I guess.”
“Christian—”
“I don’t want your pity, Mila.” I can’t look at her. I fucking can’t look into her eyes and see pity. “I just want you to hear me.”
Carefully, Mila stands from the chair and crosses the room, her eyes on mine like she’s approaching a wounded animal. I lean back on the couch, watching her, my chest aching with something bleeding and unresolved.
Reaching for my whiskey, she takes it from my hand and places it on the stand beside me before slowly sinking down to straddle my lap.
Her hands rest on my shoulders, her gaze soft on mine. I force myself to look at her. Really look at her because I’ve been avoiding it since I opened my mouth. Instead of the pity I expect, it’s something else that makes a tremor slide through me. A burning desire to protect that I know all too well.
Her fingers come up to my cheek, brushing gently over the scar on my face.
“I hear you,” she breathes, her eyes shining in the firelight. “I hate her, Christian, and it makes me sick what she did to you. I know you don’t want to hear that, but I hope karma comes after her for what she did.”
She falls silent, studying my face. I can only imagine the shit she sees there.
“When this is all over . . . If you want to, I’ll let you leave, Mila. I won’t force you to stay.”
“And if I want you?” she asks softly, her fingers sliding over the tattoo on my chest with our secret wedding date and her initials. My skin burns at the contact. “If I want to stay?”
“Why would you want to?” I ask, not to drive her away, but to understand.
Her lips tip up at the corners, her soft smile going straight to my cock.
“Because maybe I’ve always been in this as deep as you have. You just couldn’t see it.”
Her hands slip over me. Down my arms and back. Up to my chest and over my heart that I know is beating fast.
Her breath catches in her throat, her eyes slipping from mine down to my lips and back.
“You once told me we’ve all got demons,” she says softly. “But I don’t want to think about them tonight. All that matters is us right now. Not my past or your past. I just want to be with you.”
Fucking hell, how is this girl real?
A tear slips down her cheek, and leaning forward, I capture it with the barest brush of my lips. She tilts her face toward me, and I take the bait, closing the distance between us and
Our breathing grows shallow as the kiss starts out soft, bleeding into something desperate and hungry.
Lifting her, her legs wrap around my waist, and I carry her back to our bed, laying her on the sheets.
“So fucking perfect,” I murmur against her skin, kissing over the flat planes of her stomach and then moving higher, slipping her shirt off as I go.
I strip her bare and take my time worshiping every scar, every curve and mark on her body that she finds so unappealing, but I find absolutely addicting.
“Please, Christian?” she begs, desperately trying to get me closer when I run my lips over her inner thigh, not touching her pussy where she wants me.
I’ve never been a man who makes love. It always seemed . . . boring to me. Now, with her underneath me, I know even if we’re taking each other to the brink of insanity, it’s never been just sex with her.
She moans into my mouth when I toss my clothes to the floor and settle over her. I drag my lips up the smooth column of her throat, to her lips, and my chest feels like it’s going to explode when I push inside her, a rough groan rumbling through me.
“Christian . . .” she whimpers when I take her slow, as deep as I can, feeling every inch of her clench around me.
Fuck, it’s not enough. It’ll never be enough.
“Shhh . . .” I breathe against her lips, giving her everything we’ve both been asking for and fucking her slow and rough, my groin brushing her clit with every pass.
Her legs wrap around my hips, her arms holding me tightly as if she can’t bear the thought of losing me and I don’t stop, even after both of us comes.
“I love you,” she breathes against my lips, and a growl reverberates through me.
Neither of us has said it since the day we moved into this house. It’s been a no-fly zone since. Both of us tip-toeing around the phrase like it’s an armed nuke.
“ Fuck , I love you.”
I want to tell her to stay. To give us a chance. That even if I’ve fucked up every step of the way, I want to be a better man for her. I want that little bakery she dreamed about. The kids running around the yard, and the quiet evenings at home nestled under the fire while the snow falls outside.
I want all that and more. Fuck, I want everything, but who knows when this shit will end. When we’re free of the past and can move on to our future.
So I tell her with my body what I can’t say with my lips. Stay. Live a life worth living with me.
Whether it lasts a minute or a lifetime is inconsequential. I don’t give a fuck how much time we have.
I want to spend it right here.
“Did you buy another house?” Mila asks when I lead her out into our garage after dinner.
She stops short when she sees the black SUV sitting in our garage. Coincidentally, it’s the same one she showed me a few months ago when I asked her what vehicle she’d pick if money weren’t an issue.
“You tricked me.”
I grin. “Did I?”
She jerks her hand back at the new SUV. “What is that?”
I step up behind her, pressing my lips to the top of her head. “It’s yours.”
“What?” she jumps, spinning around to face me, her eyes wide and her cheeks red. “You did not buy me a car.”
“Of course I did.”
“I can’t accept this,” she shakes her head, attempting to back away from me—key word, attempting. I don’t let her, only pulling her closer until her front rests against mine. I walk her backward until her until her ass is pressed against the hood of her new SUV.
“Of course, you can. You’re my wife. My money is your money. Which brings me to my next point.” I reach into my back pocket and pull out the new card attached to our account.
“This is fast,” she whispers.
I fix her with a look. “You’ve been mine for years.”
I grip her ass and lift her to the hood to bring her closer to eye level with me.
“It’s too expensive,” she winces, and if she didn’t look so damned sweet, I’d spank her ass for not seeing the value in her that I do.
The money is easy. I can come by more whenever I want.
Her, though . . . She’s fucking irreplaceable.
“Mila—”
“Christian, I’m serious,” she frowns when I take her face in my hands, forcing her gaze to mine.
Her pretty grey eyes are filled with guilt as if the money I spent on the new SUV could have solved world hunger.
“So am I.” Dread, hope, or maybe even a bit of both makes my chest tight. I can’t tell which. They both feel the fucking same. “I need you safe, Mila.” I search her face, feeling her heartbeat racing under my fingertips when they slip down her throat. “With your new job at the lodge, I don’t want you walking there on your own.”
My chest grows tight when I pull back and take the last gift I have for her from my pocket, holding it up for her.
Her eyes go wide when she sees the phone in my hand.
“I don’t want that.”
“Mila—”
“We nearly divorced because of a phone only a few weeks ago, and now you’re giving me another one?”
“This one isn’t traceable.” I hold it out for her, and tentatively, she takes it. “I don’t want you to feel trapped, Mila. And I don’t want to keep you from your family.”
Her eyes widen, and her lips part over a quiet breath.
“Besides,” I drop my hands, running them up her bare thighs to part them. Stepping inside them, my cock aches with her warmth pressed against me. “I want to spoil my wife, and it’s time for you to accept that that’s what you are.”
She draws her bottom lip between her teeth, her eyes half-lidded and hazy as she stares up at me. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes soft and full of apprehension and desire. Like she needs me as badly as I need her, and that concerns her.
Leaning forward, I run my tongue along the seam where her teeth dig into her lip, capturing it with my own and tugging it free. She lets me slip my tongue into her mouth, dancing it across hers and tasting the mint of toothpaste on her breath.
A quiet growl slips up my throat, rumbling through my chest, and finally, she opens for me, letting me in. Lazily, her arms come around my neck, her legs around my hips, and she kisses me back.
I’ve never given much of a fuck about kissing. Kissing my wife, though . . . fucking hell. Her lips may as well be laced with fucking heroin.
My hands slip into her hair, angling her head to where I want her, and the blunt ends of her nails scrape along the back of my neck, pulling me closer, her soft whimper in my mouth.
I can’t stop the wicked grin from pulling in my lips at my little wife’s neediness. How bad she wants me.
“Jesus, are you two done yet?”
Mila jumps away from me at the sound of Levi’s voice behind us, but I don’t move. I love the blush that lights her cheeks, like we’re two teenagers caught in the act and not husband and wife in our garage.
I chuckle under my breath, brushing my lips across hers one more time before I help her down from the hood.
“What’s got you in such a pissy mood?” I ask Levi as he stomps past us towards the house.
“Women,” he grumbles before the door shuts behind him.
Mila stares after him, worry on her pretty face.
“Let me speak to him for a moment,” I tell her, taking her hand with a chuckle to help her down. “Then, we’ll take your car for a test drive.”