Page 82 of Sins of Arrogance

I’m not the key player in any­one’s drama in my life, not even my own. But al­ways be­fore, for the time he kept me bound, I felt like I wasn’t just the cen­tral player, but the only one he could see.

My hus­band’s body vi­brates with ten­sion. “The cuffs?”

I nod.

“I don’t be­lieve you.”

“You’re con­ceited.”

“This isn’t about con­ceit. You melt un­der my touch. Your body craves the plea­sure I give you.”

“Not that way. Not any­more,” I add when he looks un­con­vinced.

“Be­cause I an­swered the phone?”

I shrug.

“You’re go­ing to have to ex­plain.”

Like it’s so easy. “I’m sure you can fig­ure it out.”

“Nah.” His green eyes nar­row. “Your brain isn’t like mine. Sure as cer­tain, I’d guess the wrong thing.”

Are we re­ally that dif­fer­ent? “You wouldn’t like it if I left you like that to an­swer the phone.”

Some­thing flick­ers in his gaze. Arousal?

His slacks are al­ready tented, but they have been since I turned on the light.

“I can’t let you cuff me. I can’t pro­tect you if I’m im­mo­bi­lized.”

“No one’s go­ing to at­tack us here,” I scoff.

“The men I’ve killed in their homes would dis­agree if they could.”

The re­minder of what he is should scare me. Or at the very least turn me off. It doesn’t do ei­ther.

Maybe it’s be­ing raised as a mob princess, but the men in our world aren’t squeaky clean. And he’s right about one thing, I wouldn’t feel safe with one who was.

“But if I could tie you to the bed…”

That feral light flares again and my voice trails off while im­ages of hav­ing him at my mercy flash through my brain. I could taste him then. We haven’t done it that way.

I don’t know why.

He puts his mouth on me al­most ev­ery night.

“You wouldn’t an­swer the phone be­cause you aren’t on call,” he fin­ishes for me.

That re­minder does not make me feel bet­ter. I wouldn’t have an­swered the phone even if it had been my sis­ter’s ring­tone. And I never ig­nore Fi.

She’s too frag­ile.

Know­ing I would ig­nore even my lit­tle sis­ter’s call for him makes me an­gry enough to be hon­est. “I felt dirty. You kept look­ing at me like I was noth­ing but in­spi­ra­tion for the spank bank while you talked on the phone to who­ever called you.”

“Spank bank?” he asks, amused.

And that only frus­trates me more. This isn’t funny to me. “You know what I mean.”