Page 138 of Sins of Arrogance

How does my sweet ad­dic­tion not re­al­ize that?

I get the right an­gle and kick the back of Wraith’s thigh.

He goes down to his knees, but he’s up again a sec­ond later.

Punch. Kick. Feint. Block. Hit.

We’re pretty feckin’ evenly matched un­til I let the rage out.

Kara should know I have zero bleedin’ in­ter­est in my ex. Even if she strug­gles to be­lieve me, and that just pisses me off. I don’t lie to Kara.

I with­hold, but I never lie to her. Like she doesn’t lie to me.

But even if for some feckin’ rea­son I don’t un­der­stand, she’s de­cided she can’t trust my word – Wraith gets a solid punch into my so­lar plexus.

Pain ex­plodes along my nerve end­ings and I wel­come it.

This is what I need.

Not nearly as strong as the in­ten­sity of my need for Kara, but nec­es­sary to keep the façade in place.

The un­der­boss who is only bru­tal some of the time.

How can my wife not re­al­ize there is no room for an­other woman’s breath, much less her body in my life?

A sharp whis­tle pierces the air, bring­ing me back to the mo­ment.

I’ve got my arm around Wraith’s throat and he’s chok­ing out. He’s not giv­ing the sig­nal for sur­ren­der though.

I let him go any­way and he falls to his knees.

There’s re­spect in the other sol­dier’s eyes. Not for me. That’s al­ways there along with a good dose of fear for some of them.

But for Wraith.

Kieran Lleshi is the only man in this room, be­sides my lieu­tenants, that has lasted longer than five min­utes against me.

“And that, gen­tle­men, is how you fight.” I walk out of the gym to the sound of my sol­diers con­grat­u­lat­ing Wraith.

It’s time to feed my ad­dic­tion.

Kara’s not ex­pect­ing me. Bro­gan is. But his of­fice isn’t where I’m headed.

I need to see my wife. Con­firm she’s still there.

I pull up the cam­era feed from in­side our place and find her in the bed­room work­ing on the com­puter.

Classes started the day af­ter her birth­day. Odds are good she’s study­ing this time.

I’m about to in­ter­rupt her con­cen­tra­tion. Fitz is in school un­til 2:45. That means we have the apart­ment all to our­selves.

No in­ter­rup­tions.

I don’t bother tak­ing a shower be­fore get­ting into my car and head­ing back to the man­sion. Maybe I can con­vince my wife to take one with me.

Kara is more than will­ing to be dis­tracted, but there’s some­thing dif­fer­ent about our sex now. She’s hold­ing part of her­self back from me.

That place I need to live in­side of her is closed to me and no amount of plea­sure and wild pas­sion will open it We’re both get­ting dressed and I’m about to sug­gest an­other swim­ming les­son in the bay with Fitz, when my phone buzzes.