Chapter 29 #2
His mouth found my ear, low enough that no one else could hear a thing underneath the words. “Exactly. Every man watching should already know who you’re going home with.”
Unfortunately, his display only drew more men to me. The next time he was pulled away, a dark stranger asked me to dance. I declined, and this time, Kai dragged me off the floor altogether.
“Where are we going?” I asked, half running to keep his pace, my wrist swallowed in his grip.
“You’re never wearing this damn dress again,” was his only answer.
“You bought it for me.”
“Now I’m going to burn it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Where are we going?”
He kept walking, growling something angry under his breath that I couldn’t catch. He pulled me into an elevator and produced a room key before pressing the floor button.
“Are we staying the night?” I whispered since we had company in the elevator—an elderly couple.
“Yes,” was his curt response.
The elevator climbed in silence thick enough to chew.
“You’re angry,” I observed in a quiet voice.
Nothing.
This was irritating. His anger was utterly irrational. Even though the elderly couple glanced at me awkwardly, I couldn’t help speaking my mind. “You bought the dress, Kai. You picked it. Just because a couple of men noticed me—”
“I’m not angry about the dress.” His eyes stayed fixed on the numbers climbing above the doors. His jaw was granite. The other couple was trying very hard to pretend that we weren’t arguing in front of them.
“Then what?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to, I just didn’t want to hear it named out loud any more than he wanted to say it.
These men who had approached me tonight meant nothing to Kai.
I understood that now. He’d dispatched every one of them without breaking stride—reflexes, not rage.
The real thing hadn’t even walked up to me tonight.
Instead, it had lit up my phone at dinner, and there wasn’t a bouncer in the world who could throw it out of the building.
The elderly couple rushed out of the elevator as soon as we reached their floor. The moment they did, Kai’s hands were on me. He pushed me against the wall, his lips on mine.
“Someone could get on,” I murmured, eyes half closed.
He didn’t respond, openly squeezing my breast with his large hand.
Luckily, we arrived at our floor without interruption.
He grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the elevator.
My breath caught as we entered the room.
It was unlike any presidential suite I had ever seen.
It had an imposing archway at the entrance and a staircase to the second floor.
The windows were made of stained glass, and the ceiling was a single massive skylight.
“This is beautiful,” I marveled.
“You’re fucking beautiful.” He grabbed my wrist, held it, and looked at me like he was deciding something. A beat before he spoke again. “He still texts you every fucking day.” Not a question, rather an observation. His grip didn’t hurt, but it didn’t loosen, either.
“About the children.” My explanation felt faint.
There was no solution to Kai’s jealousy.
There were three people in this marriage, he was well aware of it.
How could he be angry with me if the other person in our marriage contacted me?
Did he think I’d never speak to Stefan again?
Stefan was the glue, the one related to the kids by blood.
I could never cut him or them out of my life. Kai knew that.
“Every day,” he repeated, like the frequency was the wound and the subject didn’t matter. “And every day you answer him.”
“Kai—”
Before I could finish, he lifted me into his arms and carried me inside. He set me against the cold glass and tore the dress. Yes, he fucking tore it. He was in a different headspace right now.
“Say you’re mine,” he said into the dark, one hand sifting through my hair.
“I’m yours,” I whispered easily.
He exhaled like a man who’d been holding his breath for a week, his arms closing around me until there was no space left between us. His jaw pressed hard against the top of my head. When he spoke again, his demand was far more dangerous. “Say you are only mine.”
I went still.
He felt it, of course, he felt it, because his muscles were now taut. “Say it.” His hand didn’t stop moving through my hair, gentle, at odds with the iron underneath.
“I’m—” The words only yours sat in my throat but wouldn’t come out. There were three children who came as a package deal with a man I couldn’t untangle myself from, and Kai was asking me for things I couldn’t cut out without bleeding.
He was asking me to choose.
“It’s two simple words, Princess.”
For a moment, his whole body went rigid against mine at my refusal. Then he pressed his mouth to the crown of my head and held it there, breathing me in, like he thought he could keep me by inhaling. To my relief, he didn’t make me finish the sentence. I think he was afraid of how it might end.
Instead, his hands shook as he tugged at my panties, like he was barely holding on. He tore open his own trousers to free himself.
There was a feverish energy in the air. His jealousy had flared, and now he was determined to brand me. He pushed me high against the glass, braced my hips, and drove into me in one fierce motion. I gasped, my body pinned like a butterfly as he pounded into me, each stroke rocking my spine.
Every thrust seemed like his proprietary claim.
“Kai, slow down.” I pressed my hands on his shoulders.
His hand merely fisted in my hair as he sucked my neck.
I was helpless as pleasure tore through me. My vision blurred, and I cried out while my body clenched and quivered around him, milking him until he cursed and spilled inside me.
He held me against the cool glass while he caught his breath, then slid us down to the floor, where I curled into him.
For a while, neither of us spoke. His heart was still beating too fast to speak. I leaned against his chest as he carried me to bed, barely aware that I had nothing to wear when we checked out of the hotel. I was mostly focused on how overwhelmed I was by his claim.
Moreover, I was absolutely terrified by how I had reacted to it.
I should’ve been horrified by the brutal attack. Instead, everyone else in the world had ceased to matter. What did that mean for the other person in this marriage?
Kai’s dreaded request rang in my ears.
Say you are only mine.
He demanded that I become only his, even though he knew the reality of our situation. I was his, but I could never be only his.