“Says the woman who has taken over ninety percent of my closet.”
She narrowed her eyes, and I returned her glower with a wolfish smile and a wink. I couldn’t help but study every inch of her, from her electric blue toenails, up her strong legs andcorduroy skirt, past an Alkaline Trio band T-shirt—whoever that was—to her plump, bare lips and dark hair piled atop her head.
She was fucking stunning.
The realization that I would find her irresistible even if she was sick in sweatpants and a stained shirt, mixed with the rollercoaster of emotions I’d been riding all day. It wore me down until I couldn’t trust myself in my own mind for too long before bumping into something or setting off alarms.
Needing an escape, I reached for the one thing that was always safe between us—our physical relationship.
“Come here,” I ordered, my voice rough and deep.
“What?” she breathed, her eyes wide.
“Come. Here.”
She swallowed before her face transformed. Her eyes turned heavy and heated. Her lips parted, her tongue peeking out to slide across. Everything about her relaxed posture screamed vixen. I almost moaned when she dropped to her hands and knees and crawled to me, never once looking away.
My breaths grew ragged and uneven. My cock strained against my pants, eager for her as she rose to straddle my lap.
“You’re right. These pillows are comfortable,” she murmured, adjusting herself and driving me insane. “Did your ex-wife like throw pillows?”
I blinked, struggling to process the question when all the blood resided in my crotch. “She loved them.” I gripped her hips. If she wanted me to answer questions, then she needed to sit still. “She liked to have an exorbitant amount—the definition of frivolous and uncomfortable.”
“That sounds about right,” she laughed.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, just from our one meeting, she seemed excessively bitchy. So, I assumed the excessiveness carried over to other things about her as well.” She shrugged, dragging her nails upand down my chest before resting her hands on my shoulders. “If I’m correct about her personality, I’m surprised you two got married. And since I’m such a good judge of character, I’m sure I’m right.”
“A good judge of character?” I barked a laugh and met her cocky gaze. “You thought I was an arrogant asshole when you first met me.”
“Because you are,” she exclaimed, slapping my shoulder.
We laughed, the sexy edge softening into playfulness, then slowly giving way to something more somber.
“She wasn’t always that way. In fact, a bitch is the last thing I would’ve called her when we got married.”
Her wide eyes matched my shock over the confession, unsure of why I said it. I never talked about Daria if I could avoid it, but sitting there with Aspen in my lap, I couldn’t imagine a safer place to share a part of myself I didn’t even know I wanted to.
“What changed?” she asked tentatively.
I took a deep breath and remembered the moment everything flipped on its head. “I guess she just got tired of pretending,” I answered simply. But the answer wasn’t enough; now that I’d started, I wanted to give more than simple, straightforward answers. For the first time, I wanted to explain. Something about Aspen made me want to share my side of it all, and, as if I couldn’t stop them, the words came pouring out.
“We started dating early in college. She held me together after my parents died. She never complained when we had to adjust our lifestyle while I fought with lawyers about inheritance and the rights to my father’s business. She stood by me when I struggled adjusting to running the company before I was ready. She was the doting and caring wife I’d dreamed of—someone I could raise a family with and grow old with.”
I laughed when she looked at me as if I had a dick for a nose, but I didn’t stop to explain, needing to get everything out.
“I had no clue that she never wanted to be a mother. I had no clue that her main goal in life was to be a trophy wife. I found out in the end that she actually chose her school—her major—for the sole purpose of ingratiating herself with eligible bachelors who were more likely to have high incomes. Unfortunately for her, she found me first. So, while she didn’t want the same future as me, she settled for the security and lied about the rest until something better came along.
“That something better ended up being my college buddy, John. Their affair began soon after we got married, but I didn’t find out until three years later—soon after I got my full inheritance. Before that, she put more effort into keeping it hidden. Once I had my money, she stopped caring about trying to convince me of her lies. It didn’t take long for me to find out about her and John, and once I confronted her about it, she dropped the act completely and filed for divorce within the month. To add insult to injury, I found out that she’d been planning for our divorce since before we were married.”
“What the fuck?” She muttered the words as if she was too shocked to even try to hold them back.
I gave a commiserating wince and continued revealing every dirty detail. “It wasn’t until after my parents’ death that I was introduced to BDSM. Having control when everything else spun out of reach settled me, and she participated with me. Eagerly. At least I thought so. I found out during our divorce that she’d only played along to garner cropped videos and photos of marks. She threatened to use them as proof of abuse if I didn’t give in to everything she wanted. She threatened to tarnish my father’s name and company by telling everyone I abused her because my father abused my mother. Which is fucking insane because my father worshipped the ground she walked on, and my mother was a strong woman who’d never allow any form of abuse.”
I sucked in a deep breath and slowly released it to calm myself down. I still struggled to accept the way she threatened my family after they’d been so accepting of her. My mother had reservations, but still supported our relationship. I’d been too naïve and in love to listen. And she’d assumed she’d be around to pick up the pieces if she was right. After another deep breath, I wrapped up the long story. “I needed to save my parents’ reputations and ended up agreeing to what I had to, almost losing my company in the process. Which was when Felix stepped in and made his bargain.”
Unable to meet her gaze and try to decipher what she was thinking, I focused on the steady thrum of her pulse at the base of her neck and the soft skin of her waist where my thumbs stroked back and forth.
