CHAPTER NINE
ADRIAN
“Hello, wife,” I rasped against her ear.
Her body tensed beneath mine, every muscle drawn tight like a bowstring. A captured little bird, she was. That silly game of hers has come to an end.
The fury that had been building in me since I first saw her pressed against that stranger on the dance floor surged hotter, darker. She had done this deliberately—every sway of her hips, every arch of her back, a performance designed to torment me.
And torment me, she fucking did.
My hand remained at her throat, not squeezing, just resting there. A reminder of who held the power now. My thumb pressed against the pulse point beneath her jaw. Her heartbeat hammered against my fingers, fast and erratic, betraying her fear, or perhaps it was from something else entirely.
I wasn’t too sure yet.
My wife, after all, was still a bit of a mystery to me.
Maybe she enjoyed the chase.
Maybe she desired my savagery.
Maybe she craved my wrath.
Because why else would Serafina tempt me like this?
“Did you enjoy your little dance?” I asked, my voice low and deep.
She said nothing. Her silence was its own kind of provocation.
Three months.
Three months of following her across countries, watching from the shadows yet never closing the distance. I enjoyed the chase, truly. Her little games. Her little victories, as I was sure she liked to believe.
And now she was here, pinned between my body and the wall, her vanilla scent mingling with the musk of the club.
I had her. Finally.
This wasn’t her victory.
It was mine.
And it was purely for my enjoyment.
The weight of her body nestled into mine was a revelation I hadn’t allowed myself to imagine, because imagining it would have made the waiting unbearable.
She felt smaller than I remembered. Fragile in a way that was deceptive, because nothing about Serafina was fragile.
The bones of her wrists were delicate, the column of her throat narrow enough that my hand could encircle it entirely.
But the woman beneath that small frame was made of something harder than bone.
Something that had tried to kill me and almost succeeded.
Almost.
I pressed closer, eliminating the last fraction of distance between us. My body molded over hers, feeling the soft curve of her ass against my groin. The contact sent a jolt racing through my veins, and my body responded in the way I had expected. It was undeniable.
It had been three very lonely months after all. Well, more than that if I were to count the days I was in the coma and then while Rocco tracked her down.
To be more accurate: (exact number of months, days, minute), since she had put a bullet through me and left me bleeding on my brother’s carpet. Not that I was counting.
Serafina was warm—impossibly, maddeningly warm—and the heat of her bled through the thin fabric of her dress and into my skin like a molten brand.
I could feel the flutter of her heartbeat against my forearm where it crossed her collarbone as my fingers remained splayed around her throat, anchoring her to me.
And beneath the heat, beneath the warmth of her body pressed into mine, something darker lived inside me.
I remembered how her body moved against that fucker. He wasn’t her type; I knew that with utmost certainty. He was too young, too pretty… too docile.
But still, he touched her. She touched him.
I had watched her hand drift into his hair, her fingers curling around the strands at the nape of his neck. Had watched her hips move against his in slow, seductive circles that were meant for me and me alone.
My jaw tightened at the memory. The rage inside me was exquisite, and I welcomed it, surrendered to it. Let it sink its claws into my flesh and burrow into my bones, like a poison.
And that same rage… it pulsed through my hardening cock. It lived in the memory of her naked body in that hotel window, the calculated provocation, the way she had touched herself… knowing I had been watching.
She had made me into a voyeur. A sick, twisted man who stood in the dark and watched while his wife gave herself to the shadows.
Fuck her.
And fuck me for falling for her ridiculous, desperate antics.
My hand slid from her mouth, moving down to her hips, fingers splaying across the curve and resting there for a mere moment before sliding lower. I gathered the hem of her black dress in my fist and pushed it upward, exposing the pale skin of her thighs to the dim amber light in the corridor.
She was bare beneath. No stockings, no garters, nothing between the fabric of her dress and her skin.
My fingers found the slickness against her inner thighs, and I swallowed back a groan.
Fuuuuck.
“Did you get wet because you were dancing with that man?” My voice was low, barely audible above the muffled bass bleeding through the walls. “Or did you get wet knowing I was watching you put on that little show?”
Serafina hissed between her teeth at my voice, at my words.
How goddamn adorable.
My lips brushed against her ear, a featherlight touch that sent a small tremor through her body.
I pressed closer, my mouth hovering just beneath the sensitive curve of her jaw.
“Did you enjoy me watching, wife…?” I let the word linger, savoring the weight of it.
“Knowing what I would do to that man afterward?”
Serafina pressed her lips together, refusing to answer. But her small body trembled once, the tiniest shiver that didn’t go unnoticed. Defiance ran through her veins; I could see it in her clenched jaw and the way she held herself rigid.
But her body betrayed her. It always did.
I rubbed my fingers against the stickiness of her arousal, touching her inner thighs, feeling her skin on mine. It had been too goddamn long since I’d felt her like this.
“Does violence turn you on, Princess?”
My hand moved upward, and when I found the wet heat between her legs, I shoved one finger inside her. Rough. Hard. Merciless in my assault.
The tight, clenching wetness of her cunt swallowed me whole, and the sound that escaped her was barely human—a sharp, broken moan that vibrated into my chest.
Her eyes widened, shock and desire coursing through them.
She didn’t fight me. She could have, but she didn’t.
No…
My wife whimpered again, her hips bucking greedily against my hand, chasing the pressure, the friction, the cruel invasion.
“Oh yes,” I rasped into her ear, my voice thick with triumph, but the words tasted like damnation. “It turns you on.”
I pulled my finger out slowly, feeling the desperate clench of her inner walls trying to keep me inside.
I teased her opening and then I thrust back in—harder this time, deeper, curling my finger against the spot that made her breath hitch.
I did it again and again, loving the way she responded to my touch.
Her lips parted with a silent gasp, her pussy pulsing and clamping around my finger, almost like she was begging me to stay inside.
So desperate. So needy.
Fuck, I loved that.
The fury in my chest hadn’t dimmed. If anything, it intensified, feeding on her response, on the way her body opened for me even as her mouth refused to speak.
She wanted this. She wanted the violence of it, the roughness, the way I took what I wanted without asking permission.
She had spent months trying to provoke me, and now that I was giving her exactly what she’d been begging for, she couldn’t maintain the facade.
I brought my face closer, leaning my forehead against the wall beside her head, and our eyes met. “You’ve missed me, wife.”
My words seemed to drag her out of the lustful haze, and her eyes sharpened with defiance, but not her body. No, she still clenched around my finger even as her face transformed into a sinister, beautiful expression of abhorrence.
“Missed you?” Serafina laughed, a cruel, heartless laugh. “I wanted you dead, Adrian. Every day, every minute, every second…” Her voice dropped lower, intimate in its cruelty. “I had reveled in the thought that I put a bullet in your heart.”
The words should have sliced through me; her malice should have pained me. But it didn’t. The scar tissue beneath my shirt tightened, and I felt nothing but a dark, twisted satisfaction.
“Except you didn’t.” I pressed my finger deeper, and she gasped. “You missed.”
“By accident.”
“Was it?” My thumb found her clit, circling with deliberate pressure. Her hips jerked. Oh yeah, she liked that. “An accident? I think your aim is pretty good.”
Her jaw clenched. I could see the tendons in her neck flexing, the effort it took to maintain the mask when her body was screaming its surrender.
“I won’t miss next time,” she whispered, and the words were meant to sound like a threat but came out breathless. “I promise you that.”
“I look forward to it.” I pressed my cock against the curve of her ass, letting her feel the full, aching hardness of what she did to me.
She gasped again—a sharp, involuntary sound that went straight to my groin.
“I have found that you trying to kill me is quite entertaining...” I rolled my hips against her, grinding the rigid length of me into her. “It turns me on.”
Her body responded before her mind could catch up—a full-body shudder, a clench of her inner walls that nearly undid me. A flush spread across her neck despite her cruel words. Her heart hammered against her ribs, and her breath came in shallow pants.
My hand was still between her legs, my finger still buried inside her, and I could feel her pulse around me, feel how wet she was despite everything she said.
She hated me so much and yet her body said something else entirely.
My wife loathed me. Her cunt weeped for me. How cute.
“The next time you have a gun in your hand,” I said, my voice dropping to barely above a whisper, “make sure your aim is precise.”
I pressed my mouth against the curve of her shoulder, teeth grazing the skin. “Don’t disappoint me, Princess.”
I withdrew my finger slowly, watching her face as the loss of contact registered. Her lips parted, and for one unguarded moment, I saw it—the want, the need, the raw, unfiltered hunger that she spent every waking moment trying to bury, to deny.
Then the cold, indifferent mask slammed back into place.
I brought my finger to my lips, tasting her, my eyes never leaving hers. My dick was impossibly hard, to the point of pain, and fuck me, I almost came right there in my pants like a fucking horny teenager as her decadent taste filled my mouth.
“Sweet,” I said roughly, enjoying her arousal on my tongue, savoring every bit of it. “Sweet and bitter, just like you.”
She said nothing, but her lips curled in disgust. The silence between us was its own kind of conversation—heavy with everything she wouldn’t say and everything her body had already confessed.
I released her slowly, stepping back just enough to create space between us. The loss of her warmth was immediate and unwelcome, and I fought the urge to pull her back, to press her against the wall and take what my body was demanding.
But I did none of those things.
Serafina didn’t spin around like I had expected her to.
She didn’t come at me swinging and yelling. She remained as she was, the front of her body pressed into the wall and her fists clenched at her sides.
I took a step back. And then another. Away from her. Until I was carefully hidden into the darkness once again.
“We’ll see each other a lot more again, Princess.”
My words seemed to have the effect they needed.
I watched in the shadows as her careful patience snapped and she spun around, snarling, expecting to see me. Too late.
Confusion masked her face as she looked around wildly, searching for me. I was right there, like I had always been, so close to her yet just far enough that she would never see me unless I wanted to be seen.
Her shoulders tensed, and she hissed under her breath. “Bastard.”
My mouth curled with a smirk.
Serafina marched away, heels clacking against the floor with each angry step.
I licked my lips, the taste of her pussy still lingering on my tongue. I brought my hand up, holding my damp fingers to my nose, and I inhaled. My eyes closed as the scent of her filled my senses.
I breathed in again.
My wife smelled divine