Page 245 of Hateful Games

So is the impenetrable expression clouding his eyes.

Have I pushed him too far?

“We’re not leaving until I get what I came here for.”

I don’t understand. Does he know? I suppress a shudder. “What?”

“I’m not here for my wife.” Caging my throat underneath his fingers, he holds me still so I’m hanging on to his every predatory confession. “I’m here for my little prey I plan to ravage tonight.”

A foreboding feeling cold as ice sinks in.

The question I was holding back boils to the surface, spilling out like hot lava. “How are you here, Nova?”

“The same way you are.”

No. No. No.

“But how?”

He squeezes, cutting off my air and tsks, “I don’t recall you being so talkative in the past, Rose. I like you a scared and turned-on mess, hungry for cock like a twisted slut.”

“No!” I’m shaking my head before he even finishes, and chant, “It can’t be. You’re lying.”

Sliding me down his body, he steps back while I try not to fall under the crumbling weight of slowly unveiling reality. My mind is incapable of believing that all this time I have been sleeping with my bully and my enemy. My fiancé and tormentor.

Was this his way of getting payback for Malcolm and for all the other life-threatening stunts I pulled on him?

Unzipping his jacket, he shrugs it off his broad shoulders and reveals the tight black T-shirt stretched across his abs and flexing muscles. Tilting my chin upward, he says in a tone belonging to the devil, “I never lie, Rose. You know that.”

The earth shakes as everything I was feeling for him a moment ago twists into ugly betrayal and sizzling anger.

I’ve been a fool.

A naïve and pathetic fool.

Why did I ever think I could outsmart him? He’s not even ashamed or regretful. In fact, he looks just as mad, like I did him wrong.

“You tricked me!” I shout accusingly.

His lips curve in a deviant smirk. “It hasn’t been easy keeping this secret, pretending I didn’t know the feel of your cunt strangling my cock. Your sweet cries begging for more, pleading to fuck you harder and deeper.”

“The Provocative Playground…”

“Doesn’t exist.”

I lose it as blinding rage pierces through my system. With a scream, I charge toward him and raise my hand to slap the arrogance off his face. Before my palm can connect with his cheek, he twists my wrist and pushes it against my back. I turn my face to the side as he smashes my front against the wall, covering my back with his chest.

His aggression turning me on despite the sting of betrayal.

“I missed your fight, little hellion,” he chuckles in my ear. “Our night in the haunted house, you left me with a bleeding back from all your scratching. I wore your marks for days.”

“I hate you so fucking much, you liar.”

“I bloody hate you too,” he growls back just as passionately. Fiercely. “Every time you accepted the invitation, I was left furious and itching to draw blood. To you, I was just another guy to sate your desires. While I was forced to pretend my woman was choosing every man out there over me. So, I took it all out on your tempting little body. Bruising and claiming your pussy for one night of the year while hating your vengeful guts for the rest.”

“You’ve always been vengeful and a manipulator, Nova.” My voice is sharp. “You fucked me anonymously because it bruised your fragile ego that I fucked your best friend, Malcolm. Of course you wouldn’t just let it go. You’ve been lying to me, feeding me bullshit lines about how you don’t care because I didn’t have feelings for him. You obviously fucking do.”

Sudden coldness hits my back when he shifts, my wrist still in his hand. He captures the other, holding them both in one hand while using the other to slip it underneath my skirt. In a savage move, he rips apart my stockings.

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