Page 78 of Unleashed

“Rafail?”

“What?” I turn to her, barely paying attention, as my phone is buzzing with messages from Popov, and I don’t want to miss anything important.

“Put your phone down, please.” There’s steel in her voice, and her hands are anchored on her hips. I frown at her.

“I know, I know,” she says with a shake of her head. “You’re not used to being told what to do.”

I quirk a brow at her. Now? She chooses now to challenge my authority? With my family in the same vicinity?

“Don’t test me, Anissa.”

“Stop calling me that,” she whispers. “You know as well as I do that isn’t my name.”

I turn away from her so she doesn’t see the fury in my gaze. It isn’t directed at her. It isn’t her fault we’re in this situation. I grit my teeth.

I turn to face her again. “We don’t know what the hell is going on.”

She shakes her head. “Oh, no, we won’t play that game either.”

I shut the door behind me with a bang as a call comes into my phone from Popov. “I have to take this.”

She brushes past me to get to the door, but I grab her arm before she escapes. “You stay right here until I?—”

“Or what?” she snaps, spinning around to glare at me, defiance blazing in her eyes. “You’ll tie me up then demand answers for things and refuse to give any yourself? You think you can keep me chained up and make me bend to your will?”

I take her by both arms and barely avoid giving her the teeth-rattling shaking I want to. I fucking hate this situation. If she tries to fucking leave, the last thread of humanity I’m holding onto will fucking snap.

“Yes,” I growl. “Go ahead. I dare you to defy me now.” I shake my head.

With a sharp cry, she swings her hand back and slaps me across the face. The second her palm connects with my cheek, my vision blurs with rage. Fury surges through my veins, begging to be unleashed, but I can’t hurt her. I fuckingwon’t.It would be so easy, so damn easy, to hurt her.

My chest heaves with pent-up frustration as we glare at each other. I pace back and forth, needing the anger to leech out of me before I do something I regret. I’m not new to this. I don’t give in to my anger. Instead, I clamp it down like I’ve learned to. Years of raising these damn hellions have given me plenty of experience.

I pull her into my arms, my grip firm and unyielding, wrapping around her like iron. “Don’t you ever fucking raise your hand to me again.” My voice is thick with anger.

“Let mego,” she hisses, pushing against my arms, but she might as well try to move a mountain. It brings me no small amountof pleasure to keep her restrained as I put my mouth to her ear. “No.”

I feel her shiver against me as my words hang in the air between us.

Every struggle, every push, only stokes the need growing in me.

My anger morphs into something darker. Dangerous. Primal. My dick throbs against her, my hand itches to spank her ass and tame the fire in her wild, defiant eyes.

“You like this, don’t you?” I whisper in her ear, my voice low and dangerous.

Her breath catches, but she doesn’t answer at first. Her lack of protest is all the confirmation I need. I press her harder against me, grinding against her ass as I lower my hand and squeeze it roughly. She barely stifles a moan.

I have to take the call from Popov. I have to make sure everyone here’s safe and on the same page. I have to—I have to fuck my wife into submission and make her remember who she belongs to before everything goes to hell.

“Tell me the truth,” I whisper as my hand roams down the length of her hot, sultry body, sliding under her clothes, desperately seeking her warm, pliant skin. Her body arches into mine, tension snapping between us like live wires. When she gasps, I spin her to me and cup her face roughly in my palm.

“I hate you,” she whispers, but the shimmer in her eyes and waver in her voice betray her.

“You little liar. You hate me?” My fingers delve between her thighs. I chuckle low and dark when I easily glide through her slick folds. “You hate me, do you?Prove it.”

She whimpers even as she glares at me, her eyes dancing with challenge but riddled with need and hunger. Her lips part, her breathing heavy as she grabs the back of my head and yanks my mouth to hers. I plunder her mouth, claiming her with my tongue as her nails scrape my back. This is no surrender but a fuckingdare.

I crush my mouth to hers, tasting her fear, her need, the desire she wishes she could hate. A flare of shock hits my chest when she bites back without warning. My hand trails down to her ass. I grab her leg, wrap it around me, and spank her ass hard.