“Reiss … stop,” I groaned, frustrated at his machinations. “Seducing me into marriage isn’t right.” Though I wouldn’t protest much if he did decide to follow through. I wanted him like no other. And at times like these, I was willing to settle this for the moment.
“But it’s working, isn’t it?” he taunted, roving his magnetic gaze over my body as if he was seeing me naked. “I look at you, and you immediately respond to me. Ten years is a very long time, Ava, yet it hasn’t changed. Not. One. Little. Bit.”
“You’re not being fair. You can’t use this against me.”
“Oh, can’t I? But I love watching you. You’re so responsive. It makes my cock hungry just thinking of it.” And to punctuate his point, he nudged his hardness against the slit of my thigh, warming my sensitive skin with his arousal.
My retort came out as a moan. I softly parted my lips, gravitating towards him as he started to rhythmically thrust into my thigh, inches away from my hot folds.
“Aren’t you hungry for this, Ava?” Thick though was his yearning, his amusing laughter immediately dampened my mood. It wasn’t a cruel laugh, but it somehow sounded halfway between mockery and arrogance that I couldn’t get enough of him.
I was convinced he was used to this—treating women like his playthings while he mastered being such a complete, callous bastard. Or maybe it was just me, and he treated his other women differently. Maybe he still made love the way he used to yet only shared his cruel side with me.
Images of him plunging into his girlfriend played before me, creating such poisonous jealousy it completely took hold of me.
“What if I tell you that I’ve been already fed, and I’m very much satisfied at the moment?”
His jovial manner rapidly died. Sharp breaths hit my neck as his breathing came in short pants. He hadn’t said a word, yet I could feel his anger rolling off him in waves. I wished I could’ve said something to dispel it, but I had run out of excuses. The longer the time stretched with his silence, the more it made me nervous. His body was tensed like he was holding back something.
I was starting to panic when I barely heard him ask me something. “Are you…?” he paused, breathing unevenly. “Are you lying to me?”
His question confused me because he sounded as if I had wounded him. He even almost sounded like he was in pain. Why? He absolutely didn’t want me; he had declared it minutes ago when he had stated he wasn’t ever going to consummate the marriage proposal he had thrown at me. This most likely stemmed from Ashton’s deep-seated hate toward him. He was getting territorial because he felt like I had betrayed him for Ashton, which was absurd since he and I weren’t anything apart from co-parents to the baby. Subsequently, for him to act this way was completely unfounded.
“My sex life isn’t your business. I can do as I please, so you don’t have the right to interrogate me about it.”
He didn’t take kindly to that. In fact, he sounded like he was about to lose it, hissing like a demented man against my ear. “Don’t fuck with me, Ava.”
The man simply had asked for it. “No,” I gritted out, emphasizing it distinctly. “I’m obviously not fucking you, Reiss. I don’t want to. Ever.”
“You’re pregnant with my fucking baby!” he roared, utterly livid as he threw me an accusing look. “My child, Ava! It’s my child that’s growing inside you, and you let that filthy man fuck you stupid?”
Good Heavens, he was looking at me as if I just told him I was a murderer.
“Jesus, Reiss. You can’t truly be serious about being angry with me? I mean, I bet you slept with someone last night. Hell, maybe even today before you came here. Breathe, for fuck’s sake!”
He growled like a bloody animal as he placed his palms on the sides of my head. “Tell me what he did to make you part your legs for him!” he demanded, hissing in my face.
Double standard bastard to the highest order! Did he take me for an idiot? He’d been going about town with a woman on his side, clearly enjoying his bachelor life. For him to demand such crude things from me was beyond untoward.
“Go. To. Hell!”
“I’m already there, love,” he stated in a tone that went straight to my heart. “Or did you forget that you sent me there years ago?”
When I had tried to make amends, he had played recklessly with my feelings, toying with my vulnerability. I understood his need for revenge, even the hate—he had the right for it. I expected it and all of his vindictiveness.
“I’m sorry for that. I truly am.” What was done was done, and there was nothing I could do to change it. We were not teenagers any longer; we were grown adults. Had he given me the chance to show him from the start how I truly felt, things would have turned out differently, but he hadn’t opted for that. Instead, he had decided to crush my heart, acting upon revenge to make himself feel better.
“Maybe, if you tell me what happened, it might slowly redeem you.”
He was relentless. I knew this side of him, and he wouldn’t ever stop until he had the answer he wanted.
Begrudgingly conceding to his request, I recalled a particular night about five days after Ashton had arrived from New York. “I was sleeping when he came in. He managed to acquire a keycard from the lobby since he told them I’m his wife.” Reiss listened, his eyes never tearing away from my face. “I can’t remember much, but I woke up naked with him between my legs, teasing me with his tongue…”
“Go on,” he immediately insisted.
Biting my lip, I reddened as I prepared to speak again. “I was still half asleep, so it didn’t register yet. He carried on for quite some time … until I came.”
“And you let him fuck you,” he smoothly concluded before his fingers snapped before me. “Just like that!”
No, it hadn’t been like that at all, but I was beyond infuriated with him for simply demanding I tell him everything when it hadn’t been so long ago that he had told me he didn’t want anything from me. From the second he had learned about the baby, he had been acting as if he hadn’t said such harsh words to me. How could he treat me like that and then carry on with his life, shagging his mistress as if he hadn’t cheated on her with me?
“Are you not even going to respond?”
“I wasn’t aware that it was actually a question.” Bravo. I truly despised him with a passion in this instant.