Page 37 of Souls and Sorrows

“I want you to shut up. Unless you’re planning on telling me something worthwhile.”

A couple of minutes pass, and she settles back in her seat, staring out the windshield as I turn onto a highway, heading for my apartment.

“When will I be able to get my stuff from my place?”

“Already taken care of.”

She whips her head toward me. “What? You can’t—you went through my shit?”

Glancing over at her, I see what appears to be genuine fear flash in her hazel eyes, which fix on the dashboard. She doesn’t blink for a good thirty seconds, and her hands curl into fists in her lap, trembling slightly.

“Do you know if they got everything?”

The shrinking of her voice splits a cavern of concern open in my chest, though I try to ignore it because I refuse to let the performer in her pull one over on me.

“I have no idea. I had your belongings packed and delivered while we were at the church. I didn’tgo throughthem. I’m not your father.”

“Aw, you don’t wanna be my daddy, Counselor?” She pushes her bottom lip out. Her mood swings are giving me whiplash. “Don’t wanna spank me? You could punish me for being bad and not feel so guilty about it.”

“I wouldn’t feel guilty.”

“No?” Unbuckling, she re-situates in her seat, propping her elbow on the console between us. Her hand falls to my knee, and she drags it up slowly, pressing the pad of her thumb into the tender muscle of my upper thigh. “Then, why are you holding back?”

“Because I’m not interested in that. In this.”

“Your body suggests otherwise.”

My knuckles whiten on the leather steering wheel, my fingers curling until they’re numb at the tips. She drifts higher, drawing every tendon in my body taut with red-hot liquid desire.

“Ariana.”

Leaning in, she brushes her hair over her shoulder. Her lips are wet, fiery, on the shell of my ear. “It’s okay. You don’t have to fight it. I’m your wife now. This is what I’m supposed to do for you.”

I’m only partially listening to what she says. When she reaches my cock, palming it from the outside, I almost floor the accelerator.

Stopping at the security gate to my building, I type in the code quickly and then make my way to the private parking garage.

We pull into my designated spot, and I shut the vehicle off, pushing her hand away.

“Strip,” I tell her, chest heaving.

Her eyes light up, and she hooks her fingers in the top of her dress, yanking it down. Completely uncaring that we’re in a public space and the potential to get caught is painfully near.

Maybe that’s what makes it so hot. The threat of discovery—of being watched while we sate some of our primal, baser urges—propels the forbidden, sending it cascading over us in imperceptible flames.

My throat tightens when her breasts pop free of the bodice, and I realize she meant what she said earlier about not having anything on underneath. They bounce, perky and round with dark pink peaks I want to feel pucker beneath my fingertips, and then she’s arching her back and lifting her hips, letting the skirt fall to the floor.

Yesterday, when she bared herself before me, I didn’t allow myself to look. Didn’t want to indulge in such sins of the flesh before she was officially mine.

But now, she is.

Mine.

And I’m free to do with my wife as I fucking please.

Even if I don’t know the first place to start.

As she kicks free of the lace and satin, she plants one foot on the floor. The skinny black heels and the amethyst necklace stay on, contrasting deeply with the flush of her skin. With the allergy shot she got at the ER, the blistering on her hands has gone down, and her fingers are their normal color again.

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