Page 77 of Iron Cross

"Because you are my wife. What other explanation is there?"

She tried to look away, tried to turn her body from me, but I was through with giving her space. I was done with giving allowances when it was clear as day that we belonged as one. I grabbed her face with one hand and circled her waist with the other.

"You are my wife and the mother of my child," I growled, "and no one gets to touch either of you without my say-so."

I kissed her lips, taking her mouth, and she moaned into it, wanting it as much as me.

When I pried my lips away, I smirked. “I told you, I was not an inconsistent man. You are mine. You are my family. And now, it’s time we make it right between us.”

Chapter twenty-three

You Robbed Me

Kira

Idon’t know what I expected.

He had already fucked me, that was true. He had taken me as I was still shocked by his… transformation. His change from being Aaron Jackson, to suddenly being Eoghan Green. Had I protested? Yes. I had said no every step of the way, even as my body craved him. Even as I clung onto him for dear life, needing his body to fulfill a need that I despised within myself.

Now, here we were, standing in a closet full of my old things. Old clothes I had never worn, dresses he had gifted me, jewels that I had never tried. All the luxuries he had given me had been undisturbed in the past three years, as if they were in suspendedanimation, waiting for me to return to them. But as they had been still, I had changed. I was no longer the woman in the gallery.

My body had changed. My mind had changed. I was at least twenty pounds heavier and far less fit than before. I was not the woman who had a narrow waist and an easy time wearing high heels.

“You say you have changed, but how would I know?” he whispered, his lips still sweetly on my clavicle. “I was not there to observe it.”

Finally, there was the malice I knew would come. The bitterness of my betrayal.

“I did not watch your belly grow, and I was not there to hold your hand as you pushed our child out.” His voice cracked under the heaviness of it all, as he came to his knees before me, his golden hair soft against my stomach. “I was not there to see his first breath.”

I could hear the pain in his voice, and it broke me. I felt a hot tear forming on my right eye, and I tried to blink it away.

“You robbed me of it. No, don’t pull away now,” he whispered into my skin, his hot breath rolling over my navel, over the stretch marks I had earned from carrying Cillian… our son. “You robbed me of my job as a man, as a father, of being there. Of caring for you. Of holding him as he opened his eyes for the first time.”

My hand trembled as I stroked his hair, wanting to comfort him, but also fearing him at the same time. His temper. His unpredictable and volatile nature.

“Tell me about this scar,” he said, and I felt the hot flush of embarrassment, as his fingers traced the ugly scar that ran below the pouch of my belly. It was long and white with age, but was still no less hideous.

Shame. That was the feeling that went through me. Why, exactly, I wasn’t ready to examine.

“Pre-eclampsia,” I spat out. “My heart rate was very high, and I fell going to the grocery store. I fainted.”

He pulled away, his eyes looking up at me in complete, genuine misery.

A misery I felt down to my core.

“It was Magda, actually, who called 911 and came with me to the hospital. They had to do an emergency C-section—”

I didn’t need to finish the story. I couldn’t. Not when I saw a tear roll down his perfect cheek. Not when I saw the anguish written all over his handsome features.

Helovedme. He lovedus.

How had I discounted that?

“I could have lost you both and not known. I might not have even been able to find your unmarked graves, emblazoned with the wrong fucking names. Myson!” His hand circled my hip, histhumb hooking over the pelvic bone, his fingers digging into my skin. “You believed the witch over me.”

He bit down on the loosened skin. Softly. Lovingly, at first. Then harder, angrier, until I whimpered at the pain. I wanted to pull away, but his hands kept me still. He was obsessed with these changes in my body - changes that I hated.

“I loved you, and you left me.” I tried to pry myself away, my mouth open to plead my case and explain, but he held on tighter, his hands digging into my hip bone. “Shhhh, no, Kira, don’t move. Don’t provoke me.”

---