Page 50 of Merciless Promise
“You're the one who's wrong.”
“Not about you. You want me. I see it...feel it...know it...and it eats away at you because you do love me despite everything you’ve always hated me for.”
I closed my eyes because she did have a point. Only, she wouldn’t let me get two words out edgewise, so I could neither confirm nor deny what she was saying. I couldn’t even tell her that I had done some looking into things I should’ve looked into before. Things that I now knew were the truth, and not justbecause they were written. Documents and confessions could be forged or falsified. It was why I’d needed to interview several of the kids at that party that night, and they all exonerated Ekaterina once I did.
I ripped my hand away from her throat. “Let’s continue this inside.”
“Whatever,” she said flippantly as she hurried out of the car as soon as I unlocked her door. I followed her inside, and had no sooner set my things down when she walked over to the window. “There really isn’t anything more to say.”
“How in the hell can you fix your mouth to say that?” I asked as I came up behind her.
She flinched without me even touching her. Her anger was rolling off her in waves, and it only made me harder. I hadn’t fucked her since the miscarriage, but the doctor did give her the all clear this afternoon. I knew where this dance was headed, so as I went to touch her, she tried to pull away, but I was too fast and too strong for her. After pinning her against the heavy paned glass, I heard a moan escape as well as a few incoherent words I knew were likely curses.
“You see those things when we fuck because they’re true. For as much hell as you put me through, being inside of you is Heaven. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be, but it’s not because you’re some damn whore. My speed dial list is full of them. You’re my wife. You’re going to be the mother of my child one day. It’s only when my dick is inside of you, puisín, that you’re my filthy whore. It’s the only place you need to be one.”
“Kingston,” she said as I spun her around.
I didn’t want to hear what came next, so I fused my mouth to hers. My hand returned to her throat as I held her in place, and I drank from her lips. I could barely get my tongue past them, but the second they parted just a smidgen more, I thrust it inside, eliciting a moan from her.
Her dainty hands clutched my wrist as she tried to remove my hand, but I’d been dreaming of being with her again over the last several days. It’d been all I could think about, and I didn’t know if I could stop touching her now. But I would. Just not now.
I continued to kiss her, and eventually she relaxed in my arms and began to return the kiss. I slid my tongue along hers, twisting and tangling them together, all while pressing her back harder into the glass. The things she fucking did to me. Ekaterina was driving me fucking crazy, and it was already a short route to begin with.
This man had the power to weaken me, and he knew it as he so effortlessly wielded it over me like the most effective weapon in his arsenal. He had been talking in riddles tonight, his attitude a bit different than the usual indifference I had come to expect from him. I almost didn’t want to know what caused the change in him, and I wouldn’t as long as I didn’t let him speak.
He called me his wife and the mother of his potential son, but he never once did anything to indicate that either of those things meant anything different than the papers he’d made me sign before the nuptials. Some people had prenuptial agreements to separate wealth and assets, but his had been a binding contract to take his name, wear his ring, and hang on his arm in public. It was also legally binding for me to produce an heir that I’d never have sole rights to. Just the thought of actually having to fight him in court for custody, or god forbid visitation, would rip my heart straight out of my chest.
Anything to do with Kingston had the power to do that now. If only I knew then what I knew now. Hindsight was quite thebitch. Of course, I could be too. And I supposed that I had been. While I was upset that I had lost a baby, I hadn’t known I was even pregnant, so I had never had a chance to truly embrace the idea of being a mother. Maybe I hadn’t wanted it enough. Or maybe I hadn’t deserved it enough. Whatever it was, it was gone now.
“Fuck, puisín,” Kingston rasped the moment he tore his mouth away from mine. “Why can’t everything be as easy as this?”
“Because life isn’t easy,” I replied before pushing at his chest. Kingston took about three steps back, which allowed me just enough space to slide past him. Once I did, I headed toward the stairs until he called my name. “What?”
“I know it’s hard to fathom, but I do believe you.”
I turned in that moment. “Believe me about what?”
“Does it matter?”
“You’re the one who brought it up,” I said, and when he said nothing, I threw my hands up in surrender. “But never mind. You don’t have to say it, or anything else. I’m going to take a nap.”
“Don’t go,” he said to me, then added, “Please.”
Never one to grovel, the pleading in his voice caused a fresh batch of tears to spring to my eyes. “What do you want from me, Kingston? I’m so tired of trying to figure you out. It’s a mission of futility, and I’m too tired to play this game tonight. And I’ve come to realize that I no longer need to.”
“Ekaterina,” he said to me, and I flashed a watery smile at him as the first tear fell.
“I already know what you’re going to say to me, and in case you haven’t caught on, I don’t want to hear it right now. I can’t bear it.”
“You have no idea what I want to say to you. I?—”
“It could be any number of things, so I’ll make it really easy on you. Just pick something for fuck’s sake so I can go upstairs to be alone for a while.”
“What do you want me to pick?” he asked as he moved toward me.
I backed my way to the staircase, then grimaced the moment my upper back made contact with the sharp edge of iron on the railing. “You either want to tell me that you’re handing me off to my father and/or Aram, or that you’ll never get past me killing your brother, and—” As something flashed in his eyes, I knew the latter was it. “I’m sorry that you lost Princeton, but he wasn’t the man you knew. At least not that night. I’d never intended for him, or anyone else, to lose their life, but?—”
“I know that now. That’s what I’ve been trying to say. It was an accident. A tragic one, but an accident nonetheless.”
