Chapter 8 – Noa
I’ve developed a routine the past few days.
It’s helped with the loneliness—as much as it can.
I eat dinner with Magdalena or by myself, and I read.
However much an insignificant pawn I’m regarded as, any one of the servants is ready and willing to fetch me whichever volume I’d like.
Time passes until I get dressed for bed.
Then, I read some more until slumber takes me.
There is another world eternally waiting to be drifted into. That’s something.
Sometimes, I’ll even listen to music on the record player in the corner of the room. For the different species of human that my husband seems to be, it’s been a pleasant, if painful, revelation to find we’ve got similar taste in music.
This doesn’t change that Matías hasn’t slept here since our squabble by the koi pond. I’ve spent night after night in this massive, foreign bed, growing to expect nothing but harrowing quiet as a bedfellow.
My astonishment is warranted when Matías follows me inside tonight.
My heart rate picks up at the creak of the door behind him.
He moves like a predator reclaiming his territory, stepping in after his prey, ensuring there is no escape.
His presence fills the space, a consuming pressure like a black hole, lurking behind me like a phantom I can’t shake off.
The room feels smaller than it ever has before.
I don’t turn to face him. I can feel him.
I can smell him. I can still taste his whiskey in my mouth.
Every particle of air in the room is charged, electric, a livewire just waiting to jolt my system that already feels fried.
It’s nothing like the loneliness I’ve been trying to make some grudging peace with. His proximity turns my breaths shallow.
I step toward the dresser, reaching for something to ground myself, anything to distract me from the blistering heat wound low in my pelvis.
My fingers graze over cool metal—a bracelet, a pair of earrings—little baubles I’d adorned myself with earlier.
I can’t even look at my reflection when I press them flat against the wood instead, willing myself to steady.
Behind me, Matías moves. Not disruptively loud, but hardly soundlessly either.
The clink of a glass against the nightstand, the gush of water poured out of the carafe.
The subtle rustle of fabric, the shifting of his stance.
It’s the dull, domestic clatter of the person with whom you share a room, a life—except he’s made it clear that’s nothing he is interested in.
And there is nothing dull, or domestic, about the sensation of his gaze caressing me.
I know he’s watching me without turning around, without needing to see the dark intensity in his eyes to feel it searing into my back.
I swallow hard, my throat constricted. “Are you staying?” I ask, choking the words out so softly I’m unsure he’ll even hear me.
But he does. Another moment of silence, then, “Yes.”
The admission licks over my skin, igniting every nerve ending.
I keep my hands pressed against the dresser, focusing on the cool, polished surface beneath my fingertips instead of the man behind me—the man who, not even an hour ago, had taken me apart and reduced me to a trembling mess with his driver able to hear the cries he’d incited.
My husband. The beast who’d only been interested after I’d laughed for another man.
I say nothing more.
Matías doesn’t move closer either. Yet neither does he quit watching, an unnerving spectator.
I bend at the waist to slip off my heels, setting them down with careful precision beside the dresser.
The tile is cool beneath my bare feet, and my wriggling toes ground me.
My spine remains straight, my chin lifted.
He will not see me shaken. He doesn’t want me.
From the corner of my eye, I can see his casual lean against the bedpost. An arm is folded across his chest, his elbow propped atop a forearm while he sips water like it is vodka.
Luxuriating, infuriatingly calm. Like a man who has already won.
And hasn’t he? I let him make a mess of me.
I let him take as he wanted. I let him punish me, as if I had done anything wrong.
As if he isn’t the one who is absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt insane.
I turn away from him with a huff, and stomp toward the bathroom.
“Running, Noa?” His mockery digs into me, burrowing under my skin.
It lights a spark of white-hot anger within me, shooting through the pluming fog of shame that fills me.
I stop mid-step over the audacity. My fingers curl into fists by my sides.
I swallow down my fury as I turn. It takes too much effort to keep my voice even, and my expression neutral, when I counter pettily: “I’m showering.
I reek of the man who touched me tonight. ”
A thrill roils through me when Matías steps closer at that, his dark eyes gleaming.
The warmth radiating from his body reaches me before his hands ever could.
It pervades instantly, leaking into my pores, wrapping around my throat like his hand had in the backseat of the car.
My pulse betrays me first, pounding harder, demanding an escape my pride refuses to allow.
I purse my lips, steady my stance. I won’t give him the satisfaction of blinking twice.
His lips curl at the edges, a predator entertained by the trembling creature before him. “Oh? What’s wrong with that?”
I lift my chin, locking my spine, and will my voice not to betray me next. “I feel dirty.”
He has the gall to laugh. The sound is tender, a cruel mockery of intimacy. He had pressed the same sound into my skin earlier. Without the distraction of his dizzying touch, it slithers through my veins like poison.
“You feel dirty because you came for me,” he says.
The sickening amalgamation of fury and shame swirls inside me.
No. No, no, no. He does not get to hold this over me.
He does not get to twist my body’s betrayal into a weapon against me.
Now it’s me who steps closer. Not away. Toward him, I lift my head with all the arrogance I don’t quite feel.
I let my gaze cool, let my voice turn to ice.
“If you’re expecting gratitude for forcing my body to react, you’ll die waiting,” I bite out. “Maybe you should try it, actually.”
His smirk only deepens, unerringly amused.
Like he likes this. The fight, the venom, the push and pull of my resistance.
His fingers lift lazily, trailing over the strap of my dress.
A touch so casual it could be meaningless.
But it isn’t. The contact is barely there, the barest skim of fingertips, and still my skin erupts in goosebumps.
I can’t bear to look down at the body he ogles so shamelessly.
I can feel the way my breasts peak over the potential of his attention.
Betrayal, I think. My body is betraying me again.
Matías revels in it. This is just a game for him. A way to make himself feel better.
The distance between us is a mere suggestion now, as insubstantial as the fabric of my dress. My breath stalls in my throat, but I force myself to hold his gaze, to keep my spine straight even as my nerves riot beneath my skin.
“Try again,” he drawls. The words quiver through the space between us, sinking beneath my skin like ink staining paper.
I choke on a breath despite myself. “Wh—what?”
“Lie to me,” Matías says, a challenge embedded in every syllable.
I should walk away. I should run. I want to. So, why can’t I move? My feet remain rooted to the ground. My own limbs forsake me. I fight the need to lean into the heat of his body, coaxing mine with primal magnetism.
It’s warfare when Matías tugs at the thick, bejeweled strap at my shoulder. “Tell me how much you fucking hated it.”
I don’t move. I can’t.
“Tell me how disgusting I am. Act like you’re a prissy little virgin, Noa.”
His fingers ghost along the bare skin along my neckline now, tracing fire in their wake. My breath catches in my throat, my resolve unraveling thread by thread.
“Tell me you weren’t fucking dripping over the things I make you feel,” he dares. “Tell me you weren’t begging for it. Tell me it didn’t make you feel more than you ever have. Tell me that tight little pussy doesn’t want more.”
I clench my fists, nails digging into the freshly healed skin of my palm. I need to spit vitriol back in his face. I need to say—fuck, anything. But my mouth won’t form the words.
Matías hums, the sound rich with satisfaction, with certainty.
His eyes never sever the connection to mine, not even as his finger hooks through and cajoles the strap of my dress down my shoulder. His knuckles drag across my collarbone. He doesn’t look away from the violent shiver that rattles through my fickle body.
Step away, I plead with myself. Move. I need to yank the fabric back into place, force space between us, reclaim the body that seems to lean toward him against my will.
I do none of those things. My lips part.
I can taste the spice of his cologne as he leans into to me.
The heat of his breath licking at the shell of my ear is torment.
I grind my teeth against it, holding a whimper at bay.
"I’ll give you until morning," he says.
A frown tugs at my brows. "For what?" I ask, hearing how dazed the words sound.
His teeth catch on my earlobe for a second time tonight. Then he laughs again, and says, "To figure out how badly you want me."
My lungs squeeze, trapping my next breath in my throat.
I don’t get the chance to spit back my own venom to melt down the serrated edges of his confidence because he steps back.
Just like that. His alluring heat evaporates, the spellbinding wall of his presence receding so suddenly that I almost stumble forward.
I should feel relieved. I don’t.