Page 46 of Coerced Queen

I cut straight to the chase.“You didn’t tell me about Tersia.”

She meets my gaze in the reflection with a quirk of her luscious, pink lips.“I didn’t want you to kill her because she upset me.”

She’s only half joking.

“You should’ve told me.”

She turns.Her face is scrubbed clean of make-up and her hair is brushed out.She’s wearing her favorite oversized T-shirt.Standing there so unadorned and natural, she looks impossibly young.She’ll only be twenty-five in a month.That’s way too young to navigate the pitfalls of my world.I always knew she was too young for me.I’ve got six years on her, which may not seem like a big number, but it’s not my age that matters as much as the shitload of baggage I bring with me.

“It’s not important,” she says.

“Do you think I don’t know when you lie to me?”

Annoyance tightens her mouth.“You had enough to do, such as fighting for your life in a hospital room.”

I lean the crutches on the vanity and brush a curl behind her ear, cupping the side of her head and dwarfing her perfect face in my big palm.“You’re being dramatic.”

“Don’t play it down.”Sparks dance in her eyes.“The doctors thought you weren’t going to make it.”

I search those mesmerizing whisky-colored pools for the truth.“Is that why you’re not starting a new life in Switzerland?Because you feel guilty that I almost died?Are you staying out of some warped sense of gratitude, thinking you owe me?”

She strains in my grip, but I don’t let her off the hook.I hold fast.

“Answer me,tesoro.”

“You’re so full of shit,” she says, slamming her palms on my chest.“I’m here because I want to be.”

“Why?”I ask, pressing for something I don’t deserve, something I don’t believe.

“Because we’re a family now.Or at least, I’m trying for us to be one.”Her voice is pained.“I thought you wanted that too.”

I lean closer and inhale the smell of smoke in her hair.It mixes with the fragrance of summer and flowers that lingers on her skin, creating an intoxicating cocktail of something that reminds me of happy spring memories.Of camping out with my father and fishing by the lake before I was old enough to realize my mom wasn’t giving us space to bond over boy stuff as much as she was too sick to join us.But this isn’t aboutthatbaggage.This is about Anya and about all the important things she doesn’t tell me.

“Why, Anya?”Lowering my head, I brush my lips over the shell of her ear.“If not out of guilt, why did you choose to stay?”

“Because I love you,” she cries out with a broken sob.“I love you, Sav.”She pulls her back straight, standing there looking rigid and too open and vulnerable.“I love you, and damn you, you’ll never love me back.”

Her brave stance caves with the admission, her knees buckling as if the weight of the truth is too heavy to bear.

“No, treasure.”I fan my fingers over her cheeks and tilt her head back, forcing her to look at me when I give her the real version of the truth.“You don’t love me.You just think you do because in that pure, just, clever mind of yours, you reckon it’s the right thing to do.”

She gnashes her teeth.“Don’t you dare tell me how I feel.Don’t tell me my feelings aren’t real because it’s easier for you to live with a woman you can never love if she doesn’t love you too.That makes you a hypocrite.”She shoves me, not moving me an inch.“By telling yourself I don’t love you, you don’t have to feel guilty knowing you’ll never be able to love your wife.”

My jaw ticks.She’s wrong.She’s mistaken guilt for love.She’s got it all fucked up in her head because she’s kind, warm, and considerate, a good girl who won’t admit she hates the guy who saved her simply because that’s not what good women do.They stick by their husbands and suck it up.

However, she’s also right.I don’t want to feel guilty about wanting her for selfish reasons, and she makes it damn hard for me when she behaves so selflessly.There was a time I wanted everything—her body, heart, and mind—but that was before I became half the man I used to be.Now, I can’t expect her heart and soul on top of her body.I don’t want to harbor false hope only to be crushed the day when she realizes she was wrong, that what she feels now is a sad illusion of what she’s not yet brave enough to admit.

Yet there’s more.That’s only the tip of the iceberg.There are a thousand reasons why I can’t—shouldn’t—love her.One day, she’ll realize I’m doing this to protect her.

She pushes me again, harder this time.“What the hell do you want from me?”

I grab her wrists, pinning her against the vanity despite the pain that shoots up my knee.“This.”

I’m on her like a predator, kissing her lips and moving my weight to my good leg.The kiss is violent, our teeth clashing and our tongues sparring for dominance.I hold on to her wrists until she yanks free and wraps her arms around my neck, pulling me down for a deeper, softer kiss.I slip one hand around her slender waist and to her ass while gliding the other between her legs.

Fuck.

No panties.

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