Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Robyn
I wanted to laugh, but the stark seriousness on his face guillotined the sound in my throat.
Damon wasn’t kidding. He slowly lifted his arms from his sides, an invitation to take the next step. To commit to getting my answers. This was the price to know the truth, and the smug liar thought it would be too steep for me to pay.
“Fine,” I said, aiming for a breezy tone but falling sorely short as I reached for the flaps of his lapels.
The heat of him infected the layers of his clothes, oozing through the fibers and coating my fingertips. I kept my eyes locked on my own hands, my fingers as they gripped the fabric and pushed his jacket over the broad stretch of his shoulders.
A hard exhale wedged through his lips. Pain, for sure, but the cause I couldn’t tell. Was it an injury? Or was it the same pain I felt—the pain of being this close?
I glanced up, catching how his chin was tipped up and his eyes shut. A mistake because I couldn’t look away from the chiseled edges defining his face and the way their edges carved deeper as I worked his jacket down his arms, letting it finally fall to the floor.
Damon’s eyes opened, catching mine and the way I stared.
Heat stamped the skin of my cheeks, my lips parting on a sharp breath. I quickly caught myself, snapping my attention to his vest, my fingers slipping as they fumbled with the three buttons.
“Did you send all my hats to a watery grave, Robber?”
I smiled, skating my fingers up to the edge of the vest to draw it, too, over his shoulders. This time, I could feel the ripple of his muscle quake under the surface of his shirt.
“I’m sure I didn’t send all of them,” I said, my voice husky.
“Just the most expensive ones,” he grunted, a stream of air pushing through his tight teeth.
“Hopefully,” I quipped as the vest joined his jacket on the floor.
I knew what I’d signed up for. In theory, I knew what stripping him involved. We’d been this close last night, minimal clothing between us. But in practicality, stripping him myself felt like a far greater intimacy.
“What happened when you went to see Belmont? What did you say?” I lifted my hands to his collar, his tie the only thing already removed.
His pulse jumped against my fingertip as I went to free the first button, his throat bobbing as soon as it was loosened.
“I told him I wanted to solidify a business arrangement where I would broker the deal between him and Shazad and use my contacts to provide support and transport routes and end-user commercialization,” he began, finally giving me a thread on which to tug.
“And he wasn’t happy with that?” I popped the second button free .
“He doesn’t have a choice. That’s the part he needs.”
Because I was so close, my eyes focused on the inches of his skin peeking through his shirt. I caught the flex of his jaw, the tension cascading down the column of his throat when I pressed to loosen the next button.
“So, what didn’t he like? That we showed up to his party uninvited? That you insulted him in his own home?”
Hot air streamed through his lips. “No one would like those things, but I wouldn’t be who I am—wouldn’t have my reputation—if I waited for an invitation or sugar-coated the reality of his situation. He needs me, and he needed to know it.”
“What aren’t you telling me, Damon? I know there’s something.”
I was over halfway through the buttons on his shirt, and the fabric gaped, taunting me with the bare chest and ridged abdomen I’d admired far too many times and fantasized about even more in the last week and a half.
How could I not, knowing the strength of those toned muscles when they held me? How could I not remember their masterful flex and contraction when he’d hold himself above me? The way they’d quake with every deep grunt of hunger when he’d pleasured me? And lower, the coordination of every brick of his abdomen when he’d thrust inside me?
My mouth turned to a bucket of sand, every drop of moisture pooling and leaking from my throbbing core.
If I continued to stare—even for another second—I could lose my control. I could lose the already precarious hold I had on this situation and my proximity to the answers I wanted.
Answers I wasn’t finding on the unblemished bronze of his skin.
How? How was it that he leaned on Pat for support to enter the room, but there was no evidence of injury anywhere on him? Frustration coiled like a spring in my stomach, pushing both on the throbbing ache in my pussy and the anger brewing in my chest.
Instead of working the next button free, my hands dropped suddenly to the waist of his pants.
Damon stilled, a whip of heat coming off him like a flame starved for fuel. I didn’t need to look. I knew he was hard from the moment I touched him. I hated how I knew that. I hated knowing the effect I had on him was the same as he had on me…and still it wasn’t enough.
“Careful, Robber,” he warned, the tremble in his body mirrored in the tone of his voice.
My nerves braced, and I snapped my eyes to his. “What else did he want from you?” I gripped his shirt and tugged it free from his waistband, eliciting a deep groan from his throat.
“Restitution.” A sheen of sweat formed on his brow.
The last three buttons caved with a deft flick of my fingers, and his shirt parted fully to reveal the exquisite sculpt of his bare chest. And still no sign of injury.
“He wants me to pay him—donate to his charity at the fundraiser,” he kept talking, but my focus was anchored elsewhere. I pushed the last barrier from his shoulders, my movements bordering on frantic as I searched for what I knew to be true but couldn’t see.
The rumpled shirt joined the rest of his clothes, his entire torso exposed to my scrutiny.
I shivered at the magnificent sight. My pulse spilled with no restraint into my chest as I stepped back and let myself fully take him in. So much was what I remembered, and yet so much was different.
I felt the track of his stare like the laser of a scope pointed at me as I began to circle him, inspecting everything I just revealed. Every swell and valley in the geography of his muscles. All the scars that marred his flesh, clearly not new injuries for him, but new to me.
My tongue weighed down to the floor of my mouth under the stack of questions I had. What were they from? When did they happen? Who did this to you?
I let his too-long-for-me jacket sleeves hide my hands and the way they balled at my sides. I might hate him. I might want to strangle him and have him arrested. But only I got to harm him. He was my husband. My lying, betraying husband. Only I got to hurt him.
His head gave a small turn, his eyes following as far as they could as I moved slowly around to his back. There were even more scars there. Several with the distinct round outline of a bullet.
Feeling the back of my throat start to burn, I jerked my attention to the column of his spine and quickly slipped into the recollection of how every muscle moved like ribbons around a maypole when he swam laps at night. Their breathtaking synchronicity only outdone by the powerful kick of his legs, driven by his tightly honed ass.
My chin snapped up, and I quickly put one foot in front of the other, bringing me back to his front.
Now, his gaze was as openly assessing as mine, roaming with flagrant vagrancy over my front. Even though I knew it couldn’t be possible, I still glanced at my chest to make sure my pebbled nipples weren’t poking through his jacket. They weren’t, but I doubted it mattered. He stared like he could see right through the layers of wet fabric to the physical confession of my desire.
His head lifted, the wool of his eyes wrapping mine in a kind of lethal hypnosis that made me shiver, bringing full awareness to the fact that my nipples weren’t just exquisitely hard but also painful where they pressed to my clothes .
“Are you satisfied now, Robber?” he demanded roughly, the sound grating on my nerves.
No, but my voice got lost in the column of my throat.
It was a trap. He knew I wouldn’t see any damage, but he’d lured me with the possibility anyway. There had to be another way to prove I was right—that he was still holding back.
I reached out, and with a speed I wasn’t expecting, found the slender joint of my wrist imprisoned in his firm grip.
A hiss bled through my lips. Or maybe it was through his.
“I know you’re hurt.” Our stares sparred, the clash as hard and threatening as swords.
His head dipped lower, and my heart pushed against my chest, preening for the feel of his breath against its beat. “I’ve been hurting every day that I’ve been without you.”
I stiffened, the tenderness of his words was just as much of a shock to my heart as the thought that followed them. Then you shouldn’t have left.
Thankfully—miraculously, the thought didn’t materialize in my voice, so instead I was able to say, “I mean, I know that Belmont injured you.”
“Do you see any injury?” He gave one last-ditch effort, his fingers clamping around my wrist.
The tip of my tongue pushed out and dragged along my lips, armoring them for the truth that would hurt me, too. “I think we both know that the worst injuries aren’t the ones that are seen.”
Anger injected another pulse into his jaw.
“But if you want me to believe you, then let me feel,” I went on, giving myself the freedom to step closer—to put myself right inside the jaws of the lion and trust him not to bite as I taunted, “Just think of the opportunity you’d be wasting…to have me willingly…touch you.”
I fed the beast in him. The one that clawed dark desire into his gray eyes. The one that hammered heat into his thumping pulse. And the one that swelled his cock until it stretched the fabric of his pants so tight, the zipper threatened to pop.
“Do you want to touch me, Robber?”
I clenched my jaw. “I want to know what happened.”
“Do you.” He lowered his head an inch. “Want to.” And another. “Touch me?”
It was another trick. A piece of bait laid in the center of a trap. But God help me, at what point would I just admit I wanted the bait… and that I wanted to be trapped.
“Yes.”
It shouldn’t thrill me the way he quaked at my response, like he was the one made vulnerable, rather than me.
“Then I want a trade.”
I stiffened. I drew the line at him touching me. I had to because I knew the moment he did, I wouldn’t be able to resist letting him take everything. And for no other reason than I missed him. I missed the man I’d let into all the shadowed recesses of my lonely, fractured heart. I missed the man who hadn’t shielded me from danger but brought me into its fold to fight by his side. I missed the man I’d married without question because I couldn’t imagine a single day without him.
“I’ll give you your answers if you give me some in return.”
The relief I felt was momentary. He wasn’t asking to touch me in return, but somehow, I knew his questions—whatever answers he wanted would be just as dangerous.
But at this point, what was one more deal with the devil?
“Fine.”
He dragged my hand to his chest, the first touch felt like hot coals branded to my palm.
“What did Belmont do to you?” I asked for the final time, lightening my touch to nothing more than a feather-like swipe of my fingertips, and it still drew a blanch of pain over his face.
“A bag of oranges,” he rasped.
I blinked, sure that I couldn’t have heard him right. “He beat you with…oranges?”
Damon’s chin jerked. “It’s an old-school mobster trick. A bag of oranges can do massive internal damage but leave no trace.” He breathed a little easier when I pulled my fingers away. “At least, that’s the rumor. I’ve never tested the theory…or been the guinea pig.”
“How do you know there isn’t massive damage? That he didn’t rupture something or cause a bleed?—”
“I was checked,” he cut me off. So, that was why it had taken them so long to come back. Damon’s fingers gripped my chin, eyes sparkling at mine. “Worried about me, Robber?”
I frowned and replied tartly, “Worried someone will kill you before I get the chance.”
His laugh split into a groan. “Don’t worry, you’re killing me now. Being this close. Seeing you wearing my jacket. Feeling your hands on my skin…it’s been…” He couldn’t even get the last words out, emotion strangling the words. He cleared his throat, surprising me but not pushing the subject. “I need to sit. And ice. According to Pat.”
Guilt washed over me, blinding me momentarily to all my righteous anger I usually armed myself with. I knew he was injured, but I made him stand here the whole time, in pain. Although if he’d just answered me in the first place…
“I’ll get the ice.”
I left him to make his own way to the bed, slipping from the room and quickly padding to the kitchen. On the counter lay two bags of crushed ice already prepared; I would’ve thanked Pat on my way back, but he wasn’t by his puzzle. My guess was he didn’t want to be anywhere near what he’d left in Damon’s room.
When I returned, Damon was propped against the headboard, his long legs stretching on top of the covers.
“Is this why you left me?” I asked, and steel orbs speared mine. Shit. “Earlier, I mean,” I clarified and went to his side.
I set both ice bags down next to him, waiting to see if he’d demand I do it.
“Belmont wanted to meet me alone. It was as simple as that,” Damon said gruffly, taking one of the bags and laying it on his abdomen. I bristled at the splinter of disappointment that dug under my skin.
His eyes pinched shut, and he breathed out tightly. “Fuck.”
It was a good thing his eyes were closed because all I could focus on was the melody played out by the tension moving through his muscles, and it was better if he didn’t have a front-row seat to the way I ogled him.
Or the way I searched for a sign that something serious was wrong.
“Did you know he was going to hurt you?” I bit into my bottom lip.
The column of his throat went taut as he swallowed. “Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why do you think, Robber?” he rumbled.
Because I would’ve argued against it. Because I stupidly cared enough to not want Damon beaten to a pulp for me.
I stiffened, unsure what annoyed me more. His presumption or the knowledge he was right.
“And what if I didn’t care that you were heading off to a beating?” I attempted to deflate some of his confidence .
His eyes peeled open, and slowly, he looked at me. “Then I guess I spared myself the pain of being tortured twice today.”
My lungs deflated. Damn him.
“So, Belmont beat you with oranges for insulting him in his own home?” I veered back on course.
“How many questions have I answered for you and you’ve yet to answer any of mine?”
“Then ask.”
I gripped the sleeves of Damon’s jacket, bracing for whatever the depths of my husband’s devious mind would conjure to know…and wondering just how much truth I was willing to give.
“What was your happiest memory in the last fifteen years?”
I swayed, feeling blindsided by the…simple request. I’d expected him to ask any one of a thousand things, all revolving around him. Did I miss him? Did I think of him all these years? Did I still want him? Still love him? All questions I was more afraid of the answer than I was admitting it to him.
But this…
“My younger sister, Isla, getting married and having a whole brood of children.” This was an easy answer. There were few people I let into my life, even fewer that I loved, but my adopted siblings were at the top of the list. Harm, Dare, and Isla.
“With Jackson Pyle.”
My teeth locked, surprised—though I shouldn’t have been—by the knowledge he had about my life and the people in it.
“She owns a flower shop in Carmel Cove. All their daughters are named after flowers.”
A smile tugged his lips. “Cute.”
Cute. The word didn’t seem real coming from a world-class criminal. It didn’t seem right. And maybe that was why I couldn’t stop the image in my mind of Damon meeting Isla’s kids. I saw Poppy stealing his hat and Lily asking for a piggyback ride.
I twitched, and the fragile fantasy shattered. Thank God.
“Now answer mine,” I said.
Damon inhaled slowly and slid the ice to the other side of his abdomen, the cold inciting another shuddering symphony of muscle spasms. He tipped his head back, and a rogue lock of hair crossed onto his forehead.
“One of Belmont’s security beat me with a bag of oranges, but not for what happened at the Christmas party, although I’m sure it made him feel better about it.”
“Then why?—”
“My turn,” Damon interrupted and then slid the ice from his stomach, his skin bright red from the cold underneath.
“Here, let me,” I said with a huff. Going to his closet, I pulled what looked like the nicest shirt from its hanger and wrapped the second bag of ice with a sleeve. Sliding one knee onto the bed, I returned the cold to his stomach without it being too intense.
My heart yo-yoed, drawing toward the intense heat of his stare before dipping back into my chest. Was it a mistake to get closer to him? Yes . Was I going to make it look like I regretted it now? No .
The fingers of his right hand twitched on top of the bed. With just the slightest lean, he’d be able to reach my bent knee. Another lean and he’d make it to my thigh. And with the slightest invitation, all the way to the heat of my sex, the only part of me that grew more drenched the longer I was in his presence.
“What’s your question?” I prompted.
“What was your saddest memory in the last fifteen years?”
Happy—sad—he knew so many details of my life. Facts but not the extremes. Not the moments when my smile attempted to break my cheeks or when tears threatened to drown my chest. He didn’t just want to hear about himself—about what I might feel for him. He wanted these precious parts of me, and somehow, I realized that might be worse.
“I lost a friend…Rosa. She was one of my operatives, and McCullough…he killed her. The son, not the father.” Not that the distinction made any difference. They were both horrible. The father for funneling innocent, grieving people into Sinclair’s scheme and the son for preying on young women.
Damon’s fingers twitched again, as though they wanted to reach for mine.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know it’s not my fault. I know they were—are aware of the danger they signed up for. But I still…I promised to protect her—I would’ve done anything to protect her, but I couldn’t. And when Mara…I feared the worst.” I didn’t know why I was telling him this. It wasn’t part of the answer. It wasn’t part of this game. It was…just part of me.
And part of him. Because he’d been the one to save Mara from being sold to Shazad. To rescue her and bring her back to me.
His hand inched a little closer, and I stared at it, willing it to find mine. To take my fingers in its warmth and to be able to take some comfort, no matter how small, for a pain I was still grieving.
“It hurts when your everything isn’t enough to save the people you care about.”
I lifted my eyes to his, prepared for the waterfall of warmth that cascaded down my chest.
“Why did Belmont do this to you?”
For a second, he sat as still as a statue, his hesitation turning him to stone. But we had a deal .
“To punish me for the damage I’ve done to him over the years.”
My throat grew steadily tighter. “What damage?” I asked like I didn’t know. Like I hadn’t known all this time. Like I wasn’t asking another question out of turn.
His hand moved—crawled across the comforter, up his side, and then caged on top of mine. Ice on one side. Burning man on the other. My hand felt as in turmoil as my heart, torn between the extremes of emotion. Trapped.
“Carson. Wenner. Ivans. Wheaton.” He paused. “Sinclair.”
The names from my past twisted the blade of truth through my chest.
For a year now, I believed Damon had a hand, in varying degrees, in the downfall of all the men associated with GrowTech and the cover-up of my parents’ illness and murders. But watching my enemy’s world burn was different than knowing it was set on fire for me.
Yes, some of the names didn’t cut as deeply as others, where my brothers and the Vigilantes had played a more substantial role in their apprehension and, in some cases, death. But at the root of every downfall stood Remington. My knight in fine Italian armor. My enemy. My husband.
I turned my head away, my fingers curling into the ice, the sound of it cracking and shifting as ominous as the way my walls began to fracture.
“Did you really think it was anyone else, Robber?” His voice gentled to the finest caress, smooth and cool along my burning skin.
No. The word sat like a hook on my tongue.
He’d left notes. Clues. An initialed letter in Sinclair’s pocket when he’d dropped him at the FBI. In fact, it was because of Remington at all that Harm got involved with Sinclair’s daughter, Daria. He’d sent the photos of Ivans to Dare, spurring not only our hunt for him but also Dare’s own second chance with the woman he loved. And then he’d saved Mara from the local faction of the Triad, and he’d taken responsibility for deaths he hadn’t caused—shifted the blame away from my brothers and me.
No, I hadn’t believed it was anyone else pulling the strings, but the truth was simple when it led to the depths of fear and hurt and want circling in my chest.
“I wished it was,” I said instead.
“No, you didn’t.” His lip tipped on one side, his confidence unnerving me. “You’re my wife, Robber. I vowed to protect you, and I promised you justice.”
I shuddered, his words grated the solid block of hurt in my heart into tiny shreds of rage. You promised other things, too.
My body warred with my mind. My body that wanted nothing more than the feel of his, the touch of his, the possession of his…with my mind that spun like a top, poised on a single point in our past. A single point of pain.
I wanted to hurt him. Not with a bag of oranges to his gut or a knife to his throat. I wanted to actually hurt him. Physical pain was nothing to a man like Damon, but denial? Living with an ache that wouldn’t be satisfied? That was a pain that didn’t go away.
My chest caved, releasing a pent-up breath, and then, with a single fluid motion, I swung my leg over him and settled my knees on either side of his hips.
“Robyn…” he croaked, his hands instantly gripping my hips hard.
Heat rolled off him in torrents, dark eyes sparkling with dread and never leaving mine as I slowly lowered myself onto him.
It took my tongue, the strongest muscle in my body, every last fiber of strength to swallow down the moan that unspooled from my chest when I finally settled onto his lap. It felt familiar and forbidden, the safest place I’d ever been and the most dangerous place I’d ever be.
And the hardness of him pressed against my core. He was so thick, the bunched fabric of his pants made him feel ribbed against my center.
Lifting my arms, I grabbed the headboard on either side of him and bent forward. His face swam for a moment as the friction fed the ache between my thighs like another hit of an illicit drug.
I could come just like this. I knew it. Felt it. Just the pressure on my clit was deafening to my senses. Like being too close to an exploded grenade, it warped everything from sight to sound to stability.
It had been so long—mortally long since I’d felt anything close to real desire. Not the fleeting wash of pleasure from my vibrator. Not the transactional sustenance for physical release. But pure, potent desire. The kind that changes the composition of your blood to carry a complete craving for another person. That rewrites the DNA in your marrow, so the only thing expressed is the genetic lust for that person. And that changes the wiring of your brain and heart, where it doesn’t matter how many red flags or roadblocks or utter destruction they are saving you from, because at this point, your entire existence has been altered by needing someone, and not having them is worse than any pain or consequence that comes from giving in.
Knowing he was the man who broke my heart was nothing compared to the awareness flooding me that he was my husband.
Damon gripped the damp fabric of my clothes so tight, I watched the muscles in his forearms tremble under the tension. If there was pain from his injuries—and there probably was—it wasn’t what made him groan. And it definitely wasn’t what made him pull me harder onto him.
“Take it, Robber. Take what you want from me,” he said— begged. “Take everything.”
I was going to resist. I’d kept a reserve of strength to stop. To pull away and leave us both on this precipice to prove I could. But his command was my undoing—my breaking.
Desire overwhelmed me, leaving no room for resistance, let alone regret.
I moved on his encouragement, moaning when his hand slid to my ass, and he manhandled me along his cock. Closing my eyes, I melted into the delicious friction, sinking fully into the depths of desperation and desire.
“God, yes.” His voice was like the slap of silk on skin, soft but stinging. A bite of heat that flung my gaze to his, ravenous for the evidence of his torture.
Even in pain, Damon looked devastating. The sheen of sweat on his brow. The taut suspension of his muscles. His soundless pants knocked against the part of my lips. The warmth of his breath driving between their seam and sinking like an anchor into my own lungs.
“That’s it, Robber,” he groaned. “God, you’re so fucking wet…what are you doing to me?”
“Ruining your pants,” I whimpered, moving faster.
The cords of his neck swelled. “Ruin them,” he ordered, pinning me down harder on his cock and dragging my willing body along his length. “Ruin my jackets. Ruin my hats. Ruin me, Robber. Fucking ruin me.”
“Damon,” I gasped, squeezing my eyes shut as the world started to tip.
What I was really ruining was all the walls I’d so carefully erected around me. And the way Damon wanted me only made it harder to stop. Made it harder to want anything—to do anything but close my eyes and obey. To rock until his broken body broke again because of me. For me.
“God, how I’ve missed you. The feel of my wife’s cunt riding my cock,” he growled, and the ridge against my pussy swelled larger.
God, how I missed his filthy, confident mouth. The praise and encouragement it would lather until my lust was frothing and foaming, a rabid, unstoppable ache.
In a different world where we had a different past and the possibility of a future, I would’ve stopped to remove the vestiges of our clothes and impaled myself on his straining length. The way I wanted him inside me bordered on pain. But having him inside me— letting him back in— risked the greatest agony.
I let his hands guide my hips, moving them faster, pressing them harder until I felt the first threads of my orgasm start to take hold. Another few seconds—another word from his divine mouth?—
Or the press of his thumb to my clit.
A swift inhale punctured my lungs like an invisible knife. I hadn’t even felt his hand move, and suddenly it was there, the firm screw of his finger between my legs as I rocked forward, the bolt of friction right where I needed it most.
“ Damon!” I screamed. I cursed. I came.
Release launched from the depths of my core and sent me flying so fast, so far into the fugue of pleasure, I wasn’t sure I’d come back to Earth in one piece. Sparkling heat flooded my cells. My skin flushed. My body spasmed.
Pure bliss consumed me in a way I hadn’t felt…in all this time.
Slowly, Damon’s expression coagulated back into focus, revealing everything. The carnage of his longing. The threadbare hold of his restraint. The terrifying plea of his desire .
“God, you come so beautifully,” Damon groaned, his own hips trembling and his pupils blown out with desire.
I looked down at the straining fabric between my thighs, his cock still aching for release against the dark streak staining his pants.
It would be so easy to undo the buttons. To take his cock in my hand and stroke him. And then remove the rest of my clothes…filling my long-aching body with the man I desired…
Before I even realized it had moved, my hand was coasting over his chest, the hard beat of his heart thumping into my palm.
“Touch me. Let me make you come again, my beautiful wife.” His unguarded plea was corrupting my fantasy.
I stilled, and my jaw slackened, the endearment like a hand around my throat. His wife.
Moments ago, those words would’ve been knee-weakeningly hypnotic. Moments ago, they would’ve sent my body capitulating over the edge. Moments ago, I’d been so consumed with wanting him, I’d forgotten about hating him. About hurting him. About how he’d hurt me.
Oh, God. Fear grabbed my heart, and fury squeezed it tight. Being his wife had cost me everything. My trust. My safety. Part of my life for the last fifteen years. And my heart.
And after just a few minutes alone with him—injured and hardly touching me—he’d still worked his way underneath my defenses. And I’d gone and prostrated my vulnerability to him by coming all over his cock.
“I’m not your wife, Damon. Not really,” I choked out, scrambling to stop this madness before it broke anything else.
His lust-laden pupils blew out with fury, his hands turning into brackets of steel on my waist.
“You’ve always been my wife. ”
Like a drug, my traitorous body responded to his heady promises on a purely chemical level.
“Fifteen years, and I haven’t used your name. I haven’t worn your ring, and you haven’t kept my vows.”
As I leaned back, anger shattered his invincible veneer of calm. His beauty was exquisite in every scenario, but when coupled with rage, it was dynamite.
Suddenly his hand was on the lapel of the jacket I wore, hauling my face right up to his, the heat of his breath scorching my lips.
“You’re wrong.” Damon’s voice was lethally low. This was the Remington the world was afraid of. The vicious one underneath the suave facade. The one who killed without qualm and ruined those who gave him the barest slight. “It’s only been you, Robber. Ask me to prove it.”
Shock startled my breath. Prove it? Prove what? His celibacy? His love? What kind of man would claim to have proof of those things? And what kind of person would believe him?
A fool, that was who. The kind of fool who’d found herself on top of her hated husband, in his bed, and grinding on his cock to oblivion. A fool who’d forgotten about his lies, his betrayal, and every rational reason to keep her distance because she still so desperately longed for this man and every single one of his promises.
I wouldn’t be a fool for him again.
“Go to hell,” I hissed and launched myself back, slipping from his hold and off the bed.
His arm shot out as he lunged to stop me, but his injuries handicapped him. Breathing heavily, Damon rested against the headboard, breathing raggedly, and dragged the ice to his stomach .
“I need you to trust me, Robber,” he said, his voice pained. “Please.”
His words tugged at something inside my chest. A piece of shrapnel lodged in my heart from the first time he broke it. A piece of the past was working its way to the surface no matter how hard I tried to keep it buried.
My throat worked valiantly to swallow, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t. I couldn’t submerge the sharp slice of bitterness—of brokenness any longer. It clawed up my chest, scraped along my throat, and embedded itself into my tongue.
A bullet in the chamber.
Cocked.
Aimed.
“Says the husband who left me for another woman.” The accusation fired from my lips. An assassination of the apathy I feigned about our past.
“Robyn—”
I walked out of the room before I could hear anything more—before his sweet tongue made me want to hear anything more. It was because of Damon that my body burned with relief as equally as my eyes burned with regret. Lust and loathing etched into the two sides of the same fateful coin.
My breath expelled just as I shut the door. Almost as instantly, a loud crash echoed from in the room like something slamming into glass.
I almost went back inside until I realized what it was—the only thing it could be. The ice he’d thrown against the window.
It would dry. And so would his pants.
In the morning, there would be no trace of what happened between us tonight. Not the way he’d broken me. Not the way I’d broken him.
And definitely not of the shreds of hope still clinging relentlessly to the shards of my broken heart.