Page 145 of Marrying the Savage

I should feel victorious, because this began as anger.

I don’t. I feel shaken.

Too full. Too aware.

Damir lifts his head first. His eyes are dark and satisfied, but there’s something else there too, something watchful and possessive that makes my pulse stumble all over again. He lowers me slowly to my feet, keeping one hand at my waist until my legs remember how to work.

They barely do.

His cock slips out of me, and I bite back a small sound.

His hand moves to my chin, tilting my face up.

I shouldn’t say it now. I planned to say it coldly. Strategically. With all my clothes intact and my dignity somewhere nearby. Instead, I’m half-naked against the wall, flushed and sore, with his come sliding down my inner thigh and my heart doing stupid, dangerous things in my chest.

Maybe that’s why I say it.

Maybe I want to ruin the look in his eyes before it ruins me.

“I know whose dresses I’ve been wearing.”

20

DAMIR

“I know whose dresses I’ve been wearing.”

The name isn’t spoken yet. It doesn’t need to be.

Sofia stands against the study wall with her dress torn open, her breathing still uneven, her mouth swollen from mine, and my come sliding down the inside of her thigh. Her hair is loose, her breasts bare, her eyes bright with fury and something more dangerous beneath it.

She looks like a woman who has just been thoroughly taken.

She also looks like a woman sharpening a knife behind her teeth.

“Elena’s,” she says.

Hearing Sofia say it while she is still warm from my hands does something ugly in me.

Not guilt. Not exactly. Something older. Something with ash in its mouth.

I step back from her because if I remain close, I may kiss that look off her face instead of answering, and that would not be an answer.

She notices. Sofia notices everything that can be turned into a weapon later.

“Who told you?” I ask.

Her mouth tightens. “That’s your question?”

“Yes.”

“Not ‘I’m sorry you found out like that’? Not ‘I should have told you’? Not even a dramatic confession by the fire?”

“You have been reading too many books.”

“I have been wearing a dead woman’s clothes.”

My jaw tightens.