Page 69 of Sins of Arrogance

Sur­plus to re­quire­ments.

“You have noth­ing to be jeal­ous over. This is busi­ness.” Those words are fa­mil­iar too, only from a long time ago.

They didn’t work then, and they don’t work now. It all feels too fa­mil­iar.

And yet, I can’t stop my sar­cas­tic re­tort from com­ing out. “Oh, yeah. It sounded like busi­ness.”

Now, it’s an­other voice echo­ing in my head. Younger and less sure of my­self, but still my own. From that bad time af­ter Fitz was born, when I was so jeal­ous of the lawyer who worked for my dad and too closely with Mick (in my opin­ion back then any­way).

My mouth snaps shut and I shake my head, try­ing to dis­lodge the mem­o­ries, try­ing to push away the par­al­lels.

“You had noth­ing to fear then, and you have noth­ing to fear be­tween Dier­dre and me now, mo chuisle.” Mick’s as­ser­tion shows he re­mem­bers those words too.

Again, his as­sur­ances are no more com­fort­ing to­day than they were when I was a young mom. But I’m not the same.

I’m not.

And I won’t let my­self go there again. Not for any­thing. Turn­ing away from my hus­band, I pull my feel­ings back in­side, and bury them deep.

I. Am. Not. Go­ing. There. Again.

MICK

Kara doesn’t re­ply, but turns away from me, her pos­ture stiff her shoul­ders rounded.

Bleedin’ hell. I thought I wanted to trig­ger Kara’s jeal­ousy, but un­der­neath it, I as­sumed she’d know that I don’t want any other woman.

I’m jeal­ous of her too. No other man is al­lowed to touch her and live. It’s that sim­ple. But I have no doubts about Kara’s faith­ful­ness.

Why is she doubt­ing mine?

I step up close be­hind her and cup her shoul­ders, lean­ing for­ward to speak softly near her ear. “You know you’re the only woman I want.”

“Don’t you mean the only woman you can have?” She shrugs, try­ing to dis­lodge my hands.

I slide them down her arms, and grasp­ing them just above the el­bow, I pull her back into me. Let her feel how hard I am. How hard she makes me.

Her breath hitches, but she doesn’t let her­self re­lax against me.

I lean down and kiss where her shoul­der meets her neck, let­ting my tongue flick out to taste her.

Her skin al­ways smells like flow­ers, but lately, there’s a berries and cin­na­mon chaser.

The taste though? A bit of salt from sweat and the rest is pure Kara sweet­ness. I love the fla­vor of her pussy best of all, but ev­ery cen­time­ter of her sates my taste­buds like noth­ing else can.

I lick a line up her neck, sa­vor­ing her. Then I tug her ear­lobe with my teeth. “Only woman I crave.”

Kara shud­ders, but still, she doesn’t lean back.

My wife doesn’t play hard to get. Some­thing’s go­ing on with her and I don’t know what it is.

It’s not the first time. Kara is emo­tional, driven by her feel­ings. I barely have feel­ings.

“Dier­dre is busi­ness, Kara.”

“Are you try­ing to pre­tend I’m some­thing else?” she asks, her breath hitch­ing as I suck on her ear­lobe.

Spin­ning her around to face me, I growl, “You are my wife. The only woman who gets to touch me, the only woman I want to touch.”