Page 31 of The Vow

“Fine.” I tipped my head to the side, giving him the expanse of my neck. “Go ahead and feel my pulse when I tell you I don’t want you.”

My body revolted at the words. I was a liar, but he was never going to know.

He said nothing, taking his time tracing from my jawline to my ear, then sliding down the slope of my neck all the way to my collarbone.Wait—andthen lower along my sternum, my breath catching as his finger skimmed the edge of my towel.

I locked my teeth so hard I swore I heard them cracking. I could tell him to stop—should tell him—but it felt so good to be touched. So warm and electric and forbidden.

And because I didn’t stop him, he didn’t stop. His finger breached over the crest of the towel, and I swore I stopped breathing as it moved on top of the cloth and along the slope of my breast. From the looks of it, he did, too.

He stared at his hand like he’d give his own life if that single finger could roam forever over my body. A crease blemished his brow, the beauty of his face exaggerated as every muscle drew taut.

His head drifted lower, his heavy breaths soaking the skin of my lips. “I’ve missed you, Robber. God, how I’ve missed you.”

My throat constricted. I should hate those words just as much the second time, if not more. I should fight them harder. Push them—him—away. But God help me, those words felt like rain on arid soil. So unreal, they almost felt imagined. So precious, I wanted to siphon them off and bottle them up for the day when I’d finally be free of him for good.

I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself to stop this. He was too good at being him, and I was too good at falling for it. But what were a few more seconds when my heart was already broken…

Heat sloughed off him with every ragged breath as he marked a path straight to the bud of my nipple as though he could see straight through the thick cloth. Pain and pleasure skipped along my nerves, and my fingers dug into the granite counter so hard that tomorrow, I was sure I’d find dents.

He swirled and rubbed, his head drifting lower like he was slowly losing the reins he held on his mouth. God, to feel the pull of his lips on me. The heat and pressure. My nipples had always been so sensitive. Something Damon had magicallybeen in tune with—knowing when they were too sensitive to stimulate and when they were just sensitive enough to send me soaring over the edge with a single expert touch. A singledeadlytouch.

“You can’t feel my pulse there.”

A noise rumbled out of him, but instead of moving his finger back to my neck, it sank lower, tracing the fold of my towel down my front, all the way to where the edge kissed my thigh.

“This isn’t for your pulse, Robber. It’s for your pussy,” he ground out, the brush of his fingertip on my bare skin creating a riot of tension in my core. “One touch and I’ll prove how soaked you are for me. How you want me just as much as I want you. How your mouth has the only lips that can lie.”

His words twisted the knife he’d buried in my chest over a decade ago, each of them a brutally sharp slice of the edge.

With my pulse pounding in my ears, I grabbed his wrist and pulled it from my leg, at the same time securing my towel with the other. My thighs were slick with the telltale truth as I stepped back, finding his silver gaze that punctuated his fierce face.

With his flared nostrils and knotted jaw, he looked like a bomb unable to explode. A restraint I was almost tempted to admire…if it hadn’t been a trap.

My mostly naked husband held the advantage—knowing I needed him in more ways than one, and as soon as I gave in, he’d be the first to use that against me.

And I hated that.

“Yes, well, how much you want me must be seriously clouding your ability for rational thought.” I latched onto the loathing in my voice like the only life raft in this storm, even though it would betray just how precarious I felt. “How could Iwant a man who was unfaithful at the first opportunity and then disappeared for fifteen years?”

He shoved his plate away from him like the thought of food suddenly made him sick and then shot to his feet. Briefly, I noted the distorted drape of his towel over his massive erection as I skittered to the other side of the island.

“First off, my darling wife, rumors are easy to spread, especially when it boosts everyone’s reputation in the process and when I line their pockets to do so.”

What was he saying?That he didn’t sleep with scores of women around the globe for the last fifteen years?No. He was lying. He had to be. He was toying with me. Toying with the strings of my emotions and desires, and my mind was too jumbled to see it clearly.

“And second.” Damon tipped forward, his palms flattening on the counter. His eyes pinned mine, and my lashes fluttered, something distinctly vicious entering his voice. “Call me unfaithful again, and I will assume you want me to force-feed you the rest of the truth and then fuck you like the man who’s been starved and rabid for his wife’s tight cunt for fifteen fucking years.”

It was a crack in his calm veneer. A giant fracture in the fine lines and smooth smile of his chivalrous persona, revealing the possessive man underneath.A man I dreamed of every single night we’d been apart. The hook of his gaze. The pull of his touch. The combustion of our bodies.

Everything inside me from the fringes of my scalp to the ends of my toes went up in flames. Beautiful, destructive flames, licking at my deepest wants and begging me to step into their burn. To drop my towel and let the animal in his eyes come for me.

Could he be telling the truth?All I had to do was ask—was trust.No. I stiffened and shivered off the ashes, jerking mychin higher. He couldn’t. I saw the note. I knew what happened. And I wouldn’t be the fool who begged for a different story just because I still wanted him.

“Come here, Robber. Ask me for the truth,” the king beckoned to his queen. Too bad this time I knew we weren’t building a kingdom but playing another twisted game.

“I don’t want your truth,” I said, my voice strong but brittle. “I don’t want anything from you except help getting to Belmont.”

Damon let out a pained exhale, staring at me like he was the one tortured. “You’re my wife, Robber. You’re going to get a hell of a lot more than that.”

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