55. Rico
Rico
I'd like to go on record that I am, in fact, sorry.
Not for what I’m about to do to my wife. No, I have zero regrets about the plans I have for her body.
But for earlier? Yeah. I might actually be sorry for that. Which, for the record, is new territory for me.
I don't think this is going to miraculously fix whatever is currently boiling in that sharp, lethal mind of hers, like a pressure cooker set to explode.
Nor am I doing this, for the record, to distract her from murder.
No.
I’m fucking crazed.
The second her hand lands on my chest, the part of me that no one touches, no one sees. It’s like a match dropped onto a lake of rocket fuel.
Her mouth—God, that smart-ass mouth—is still moving against mine when she moans, and that’s it. Game over.
I tear at her clothes, no thought spared for buttons or seams. There’s a rip. Another. A snap of elastic, and then she’s bare—soft, warm, mine.
She doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t shrink away. Doesn’t so much as flinch when my scars are laid out before her.
No.
She slapped me.
Right on the chest, where the scars wind across my skin like a roadmap to every painful memory I don’t talk about.
Marco always looked at them like they were some grotesque masterpiece. My parents avoided them like they were a stain on the family name. And me? I stopped thinking about them altogether.
Until now.
Until her.
And now, she’s wrapped around me, her legs locked at my waist, her hands stealing another piece of me I didn’t know I was offering.
I drop us onto the mattress, covering her body with mine, and the second her bare skin presses against my scars, my entire nervous system forgets its primary function.
Because this—this—shouldn’t matter.
It’s skin. Flesh. Nerve endings. Biology, plain and simple.
So why does the feel of her against me ignite something I don’t know how to name? Why does her touch—her bare, fucking skin against my wreckage—send something real slithering up my spine?
A catalyst.
A live wire.
A big fucking problem.
I tear my mouth from hers, trailing hot, open-mouthed kisses along her throat, tasting her pulse, the faintest trace of wine on her skin—her.
I press into her just enough to feel the way her body molds against mine, the warmth of her skin fusing into mine like she belongs here, tangled up in my bed, in me.
And then my mouth brushes against the cool metal of her chain.
A metallic clink.
I freeze.
All logic, all rational thought, every shred of self-control I pride myself on? Gone.
My teeth clench as I lift the chain, dangling the rings between us, my irritation a tangible thing that coils low in my gut.
The rings she should be wearing.
The same rings I slid onto her finger when we sealed this whole arrangement with a signature and a contract.
“Yes?” Her voice drips with challenge, with amusement, with her. Like I just interrupted her primary plan to get me to snap and do something stupid.
Like I’m not already so far past that point, I can't recall where the line to good decisions begins.
“Why aren’t these on?”
“Oh, are we really talking about rules and expectations right now?”
No. Absolutely not.
Not when my dick is this hard. Not when I’m two seconds away from forgetting why I’m even mad.
Still, I don’t let it go.
I reach around her neck, unclasping the chain, yanking it free with an irritated flick of my fingers until the rings slip into my palm. Snatching her left hand, I slide each band back onto her finger, my grip firm, my movements deliberate.
“These stay here.”
“Says who?”
The grin is still there. Just enough light from the bathroom to catch the wicked glint in her eyes. She lives for this. The push and pull. The battle of wills. The war she’s waging without ever declaring it.
I exhale sharply, shaking my head. “You know, I was going to apologize by licking every inch of your body—”
“Was?” She tilts her head, faux innocence dripping from her voice.
“Yeah.” I lean in, my lips ghosting over her jaw, down the column of her throat, my fingers tightening on her hip. “Not feeling as sorry anymore.”
I brace for the fight—expect her to shove me, to smirk up at me with that infuriating mouth and tell me to earn my way back between her thighs.
Maybe she’ll demand I grovel, make some smart-ass comment about how I should be on my knees.
For the record, I'm so desperate, I would do it. She doesn't need to know that though.
But she doesn’t.
She surges up instead, her hands skimming over my skin, her lips finding my chest—soft, teasing. And then she bites.
A sharp sting. A possessive fucking claim.
Heat licks up my spine, my breath locking in my throat as her tongue flicks over the mark, soothing it before her teeth drag again, slow and deliberate, over my skin. Not just biting. Branding.
She’s not just beneath my skin—she’s under it, woven into every part of me, leaving her fingerprints all over my soul.
Always fucking stealing.
And I let her. I want her to.
Because as long as she never stops, she can take whatever the hell she wants.