Page 41 of My Infatuation with Isabella

“I didn’t lie.”

“You didn’t tell the truth.”

“I don’t understand why this is bothering you so much after all these years. Surely, you’re happy with your wife and this stuff shouldn’t make a difference to you.”

“Yeah, I’m happy. I love my wife, but last week I just discovered that my life is basically the Truman show, and if you think that doesn’t make a difference to me, you’re dead wrong.”

There it is. The crack in her indifferent composure. I saw it the second I said I love my wife. She flinched and now she’s trying to cover it up by keeping herself cool and distant.

“Schrödinger’s cat.” She takes two steps toward me, tilting her chin up to look at me. “I didn’t lie, but I didn’t tell the truth. Both possibilities existed safely in the box. You were happy to live under the pretense of one because the alternative was a mere possibility.”

She places her hand on my chest and my breath stops. I’m kinda ashamed that I still react to her like a seventeen-year-old kid. Something about her touch sparks something inside me. This woman is the only person who can make me feel the extremes of everything, every emotion that makes my heart race. Anger. Anxiety. Desire. Lust. I don’t know how it’s possible to feel all those emotions at once, but I do. I watch as she traces her fingers over my chest, and the contact isn’t enough. The second I acknowledge that is the second I know that I’m in trouble.

The first signs of doubt begin to stir in my stomach. I wanted this confrontation, but I underestimated the effect she still has on me. I thought I’d feel nothing when I saw her again, but just one touch and those undead feelings are let loose. I can’t seem to get them under control. I’m standing here frozen, my eyes intently focused on the way her lips move as she speaks, and all I want to do is taste them again, feel that plumpness between my teeth.

She smiles like she knows exactly what she’s doing to me. “It only hurts now because the truth was revealed, and that possibility just became your new reality. If you wanted to live your life in eternal bliss...you shouldn’t have opened the box.”

And that’s when I realize it. This is a power game for her. Right now, she knows she has the upper hand. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t stoop to such low levels, but today I just want to hurt her.

“Don’t think for one second that my life isn’t blissful without you,” I say. “I’m married to a beautiful woman who isn’t a treacherous snake like you.”

I hit her where it hurts with that comment. I know I did, but her face and body language give nothing away. “So, then, why aren’t you at home with her? Instead, you’re here with me.” Her sultry voice drops to a whisper as if it’s some dirty secret between the two of us, and an arrogant smile curves on her lips. “And don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you’re looking at me...the way you were watching me all night. I was with you long enough to know what that look means. I know exactly what you want to do to me.”

“Trust me,” I bite out, and even I can admit that my threatening tone should never be used on a woman. “If you knew what I wanted to do to you right now, you wouldn’t chance being alone with me.”

Her smile widens, and she steps closer, so close her supple tits rub against my chest when she lifts onto her toes. “Do it, De Lorenzo,” she taunts, running her tongue over her lips. “Do whatever you want to me.”

This is just another power play, another way of getting the upper hand, and it works because I. Fucking. Snap!

I surge forward, slamming her against the bar. The impact knocks the breath out of her with a small gasp. It’s been six years and all it took was a few minutes alone with her to turn me into a raging lunatic. She takes me from zero to sixty in ten seconds flat.

My hand snakes up her back, fisting into her short hair, and I yank her head back for her to look up at me. “Don’t fuck with me,” I rasp through gritted teeth.

She raises her chin, angling her mouth toward mine, offering me those full, sexy lips like I could have them if I wanted. And I want them. I want them so bad I can almost taste them. The tip of her tongue darts out to moisten her lips, and I catch the flash of her silver tongue ring. I remember how it feels, and it only heightens the overwhelming urge I have to kiss her.

“By the way your dick is throbbing against me,” she whispers seductively, “I’d say abigpart of you wants me to fuck with you.”

She shifts her hips, rubbing herself along the length of my cock, and my forehead drops against hers. I shut my eyes when she moves again and a strangled groan echoes in my throat. Our breaths mingle with each other, heating the space between us. I’m lost in a haze, intoxicated by the feel of her, the smell of her. The toffee-vanilla scent on her skin is driving me wild.

“So hard and eager,” she murmurs, her husky voice laced with lust. “It makes me wonder how many times you think about me.”

“You don’t even cross my mind.”

An amused smile lifts the corners of her mouth. “And yet you’re here.”

I want to slam my mouth on hers just to shut her up. “I’m here because you lied. I’m not interested in anything you have to offer.”

“Maybe I’m misreading the signs, then.”

She rubs herself against me again, and my hand clamps down on her waist to stop the movement. She’s toying with me, but she’s forgotten that she exposed her weaknesses. It’s not like me to purposely be an asshole...but I just want to hurt her. I don’t know when I lift her up. I don’t know how I get her onto that countertop. All I know is I have her on her back in a matter of seconds, my upper body trapping her there when my arms cage her in from both sides.

“Stop projecting,” I say. “Your life is filled with toyboys, and it’s empty. Antonio. Jonathan...Diego.” My jaw tightens, my jealousy rising at the thought of her with them. My eyes move up from her heaving chest along the smooth skin of her neck, and then I see it. The trail of hearts from behind her ear to the edge of her jawbone with a little K above the last one. Seeing it renders me motionless for a moment. Slowly, I raise my hand to tuck her hair behind her ear. “Does Diego know about this?” My thumb circles the tiny K. “Does he know this spot is mine? Does he know that even though you gave him your body, he could never haveallof you like I did?”

Her silence and the way she stares at me with longing is the only answer I need.

“You were mine.” My thumb runs over her lower lip, moistening it with her gloss. “You still are. Six years later, and you can’t get over a ten-month fling. You can try to move on, but you’ll never find another me. All your toyboys don’t match up. They don’t compare to me because none of them will ever love you like I did. None of them can make you moan like I can, kiss you like I can,fuckyou like I can.” I grind against her and prove my point when my name comes out with a needy moan. “But you threw that away under the disguise of a lie. So, you can go through life having these empty flings with these guys who mean nothing to you, and you can spend the next few years pining over what we had...because now you mean nothing to me.”

This power game isn’t a game I should play with her. She tops me on every level. I’m not even in the same league. I’m going to lose. I know this the second she arches her back off the counter, pressing her breasts against the hard wall of my chest. The movement highlights the fact that our clothes are just thin barriers between us, and I have to keep reminding myself that those barriers need to stay in place because my hands are itching to rip every stitch off her body. I want to feel her soft skin on mine, run my hands over every voluptuous curve.

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