Page 43 of The Irish Arrangement

“You know what I want,” he growled. His sinister, smoldering gaze lowered over me in a slow, lusty drag. “And you will give me what I need.”

A baby? I licked my lips, uneasy. Actually… I won’t. I can’t.

“You kept me inside like a prisoner all this time. Now you’re pulling a one-eighty on me, letting me outside and showing me the stables. Why?”

He narrowed his eyes, staring at my lips. “Are you trying to suggest that you’d rather stay inside?”

“No.” I frowned. “You made it clear that what I want doesn’t matter.”

“Perhaps I’m trying to understand who you are.”

I huffed, rolling my eyes and glancing away. “Why bother?”

So you can know how to manipulate me even better?

“Are you always this prickly?” he taunted.

“Only for you,” I retorted, lifting my chin. “I don’t trust you.”

He gripped my face, keeping my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “That’s the first smart thing I’ve heard out of your fucking mouth.” He moved his thumb higher, cupping my jaw as he dragged his rough thumbpad over my lower lip, tugging it down slightly in a light massage.

I couldn’t look away. He’d snared me again, body and mind. I ached already, my blood rushing through me with a trace of desire infused in it. My thoughts scattered. Lusting for my husband, I tried to refrain from letting him see how badly I wanted him to push me. To claim me.

To kiss me.

“Are you saying I shouldn’t trust you?”

He smirked. It was such a devilish almost-grin that made him even sexier, more untouchable somehow. “Not when you look at me like that.”

“I’m not looking at you like anything,” I argued, hearing how lame and stupid I sounded. It was the weakest lie I’d ever tried to stand behind, and he lost his hold on his lips. Smiling freely, I knew he’d won this round.

“No?” He stepped back, depriving me of the proximity of his body heat. “Then what are we waiting around out here for?” As though he were a gallant gentleman, he gestured for me to come with him into the stables.

He was right, though. I had no business even considering trusting him. Not with the rabid desire he caused me to feel. Not when my body could betray me with this urgent lust for him.

Because he’s just playing games, you idiot.

It stung when he rejected me. I’d stood there, taking off my damn clothes, and he’d passed on my offer. It wasn’t an offer. I was living in that house for him to fuck me, and I’d beaten him to the punch, taking the initiative to remove my clothes. I’d offered, and he didn’t want to take me.

As I walked with him through the well-maintained and kept-up stables, I revisited the pang of hurt and bitterness. The moment he told me no, I realized how badly I wanted him to take me and fuck me hard, like he had before. While I was dismayed over my thoughts of desiring him, I faced the reality that something was seriously wrong with me.

To lust for my controlling husband. To ache for the roughest man’s touch.

I’d lost my mind, convinced that I wanted this monster I married.

If it wasn’t sorcery, it sure as hell felt like stupidity. And if I could remember that, I would do well to forget about this physical need to scratch an itch with him.

“Does your mother have horses at your home?” he asked.

We’d fallen into that strange companionship of walking and not talking. By now, we’d covered every avenue and length of stalls, but I liked it better when he wasn’t speaking. Broody, maybe, but it gave me a chance to really look around and let all the details sink in.

“What?” I asked, flinching at the surprise in my tone.

“Does your mother have horses at home?” he repeated.

Why would he ask that? “Yes.”

“And she is still single?” he asked.

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