it had cooled. To the point that she had been convinced that it had died out. Whatever potential there was had been doused entirely by years of indifference and distance. She had been wrong.
“I was not aware that you had become a dictator.”
“Is it not my home? Are you not my wife?”
“Am I? In any meaningful way?” She reached up, grabbing hold of his shirt collar, her thumb resting against the red smudge that marred the white fabric. “This says differently.” She pulled hard, the action popping the top button on the shirt, loosening the knot on his gray tie.
His lip curled, his hold on her tightening. “Is that what you think of me? You think that I was with another woman?”
“The evidence suggests her lips touched your shirt. I would assume they touched other places on your body.”
“You think I am a man who would break his vows?” he asked, his voice a growl.
“How would I know? I don’t even know you.”
“You don’t know me?” His voice was soft, and all the deadlier for it. “I am your husband.”
“Are you? Forgive me. I thought you were simply my stud horse.”
He released his hold on her hair, wrapping his arm around her waist and drawing her tightly against his body. He was hot. Hard. Everywhere. The realization caused her heart rate to go into overdrive, her eyes flying wide as she searched his gaze. He was aroused by this. By her. Her circumspect husband who barely made a ripple in the bedspread when he made love to her was aroused by this.
“And how can that be, agape? When you have not let me near you in almost three months?”
“Was it I who didn’t let you near me, or was it you who didn’t bother to come to me?”
“A man gets tired of bedding a martyr.”
“A woman begins to feel the same,” she said, clinging to her anger, trying to ensure that it outstripped the desire that was wrapping itself around her throat, choking her, taking control of her.
He rolled his hips forward, pressing his hardened length against her hip. “Do I feel like a martyr to you?”
“I’ve always imagined it’s the bright future of Petras glowing in your mind’s eye that allows you to get it up when you’re with me.”
He curled the hand pressed onto her back into a fist, taking a handful of material into his grasp and tugging hard. She heard the fabric tear as cool air blew across her now bare back. “Yes,” he said, the word dripping with poison. “I am so put upon. Clearly, the sight of your naked body does nothing for me.” He pulled her dress down, baring her breasts, covered only by the thin, transparent lace of her bra. “Such a hardship.”
He leaned in, tilting his head, pressing a hot, openmouthed kiss to her neck, the contact so shocking, so unlike anything that had ever passed between them before, she couldn’t hold back the sharp cry of shock and pleasure.
She planted her hands on his shoulders, pushing him away. “Who else have you done this with tonight? The woman with the red lipstick? Did you have her like this too? Am I benefiting from the education that she gave you?” He said nothing, he only looked at her, his dark eyes glittering. Her stomach twisted, pain, anger overtaking her. She grabbed hold of the knot on his tie, pulling hard until it came free. She tossed the scrap of silk onto the ground before grabbing hold of his shirt, wrenching it open, buttons scattering over the marble floor.
She stopped, looking at him, her breath coming in short, hard bursts. He was beautiful. He always had been. She’d been struck by his sheer masculine perfection from the moment she’d first seen him. So young, so foolish. Nineteen years old, away from home for the first time, and utterly taken with her new boss.
Of course, she had never imagined that a young American girl who had come to Petras on a study-abroad program would have a chance with the king of the nation.
Oddly, he was almost more compelling now, in this moment, than he’d been at the first. She had slept with this man for five years. Had seen him naked countless times. The mystery should have been gone. She knew they didn’t light the sheets on fire, they never had. It was her, at least she imagined it was. He was her only lover, so she had no one else to compare it with.
Apparently, he went out and found women with red lipstick, and things were different. He was different.
Rage mingled with the sexual heat rioting through her.
She ran her hands over his chest, the heat of his muscle and skin burning her palms. She should be disgusted by him. She shouldn’t want to touch him. Instead, she was insatiable for him. If he had been with another woman, then she would wipe her from his mind. Would erase her touch from his body with her own. She would do what she had not managed to do over the course of five years of marriage. She would make him crave her. Make him desire her.
And then she would leave him.
She leaned forward, parting her lips, scraping her teeth over his chin. He growled, pressing her up against the desk again, pushing her dress the rest of the way down her hips, allowing it to pool on the floor. She didn’t recognize him in this moment, didn’t recognize herself.
“Did you have someone else?” She asked the question through clenched teeth, as she worked the buckle on his belt, then set about to opening the closure on his dress pants.
He leaned in, claiming her mouth with his, the kiss violent, hard. Bruising. He forced her lips apart, his tongue sliding against hers as he claimed her, deep and uncompromising. She let the rage of the unanswered question simmer between them, stoking the flame of her desire.
He took hold of the front of her bra, pulling it down, revealing her breasts. He bent his head, taking one tightened bud into his mouth and sucking hard. She gasped, threading her fingers through his hair, holding him tightly against her. She wanted to punish him, for tonight, for the past five years. She didn’t know what else to do but to punish him with her desire. Desire she had kept long hidden. Until tonight, they had never so much as yelled at one another. This was more passion than either of them had ever shown.
Perhaps it was the same for him. An outlet for his anger. A punishment. But it was one she would gladly allow herself to be subjected to. Because for all that she knew she would walk away from this damaged, destroyed, she knew that he would not walk away from it unscathed either.
He shifted, blazing a path between her breasts with the flat of his tongue, his teeth grazing her neck, her jaw, before he finally claimed her mouth again. He reached between them, freeing his erection, so hot and hard against her skin.
She planted her hands on his shoulders, pushing them beneath the fabric of his shirt, scraping her fingernails along his flesh, relishing the harsh sound that he made in response. He tightened his hold on her, setting her up on the surface of his desk, moving to stand between her spread thighs. He pressed his arousal against her slick, sensitive skin, still covered by her flimsy panties, rolling his hips, sending a shock wave of pleasure through her body.
“Answer me,” she said, digging her fingernails more deeply into his shoulders.
He shifted, sliding his hands down beneath the fabric of her underwear, his fingertips grazing the sensitized bundle of nerves there. “You want to know if I did this to another woman?” His words were rough, jagged. He hooked his finger around the edge of her panties, drawing them to the side, pressing the head of his shaft to the entrance of her body. “You want to know if I did this with another woman?”
“Just answer the question,” she hissed.
“I think you would have me either way.”
Her face heated, humiliation pouring through her. He was right. In this moment, she would be hard-pressed to deny him or her body anything. “Is that why you won’t tell me? For fear I’ll turn you away?”
“I’m used to you turning me away, Tabitha. Why should I waste a moment