Page 35 of The Forbidden Husband

I didn’t know what to say. I found myself stepping back, but he moved forward with each word until my back pressed into the jarringly cool wall behind me, and his warm body pressed into my front.

Hisnakedbody.

Suddenly, the blood didn’t matter. Nothing did.

“You’re not yourself right now.”

“Why are you so fucking perfect. You’re too perfect to be married to someone like me.”

He lifted his left hand and ran a single knuckle down my jawbone. Shudders ran through my entire body at his touch, and I closed my eyes involuntarily.

“I’m not,” I whispered.

He leaned into me, his forehead resting on mine. “I should hate you for who your family was, but you’re intoxicating, Aria. Fuck.” He groaned, almost as if trying to find the control that he clearly lacked.

My hand moved on its own accord, reaching up and wiping a smear of blood from his cheek. I bit my lip, unable to think objectively about the situation. Not when I stood so close to him. Not when I craved more of his touch.

I needed to bring him out of this. I needed to remind him of who I was and that I wasn’t the “perfect” woman he was envisioning in his blood haze. He needed something, and I only had one solution.

“Kiss me.”

He didn’t hesitate before slamming his lips down on mine.

I realized immediately what my mistake was, but once the warmth of his lips captured mine, I no longercared. I wanted him in a way that I shouldn’t. A way that was both forbidden and… not. He was my husband, after all.

His hands grabbed my hips and pressed them into the shower’s slick wall, almost as if he was trying and failing to keep me at an arm’s length. To be both close and as far away as possible.

Still, his lipsdevoured. His tongue claimed me in a way that had my legs trembling from the effort of holding myself upright.

He pulled back, resting his forehead on mine. “Aria, you need to go.”

“What?” I asked breathlessly.

“You don’t want to fuck, but if you stay here right now…” He shook his head, the damp tendrils of his hair dripping water into his face. “You need to go.”

I realized at that moment that it didn’t matter. None of it did. My body yearned for him in a way I couldn’t fully put into words. And he was myhusband. I didn’t have to turn him down. I was allowed to do something thatIwanted. My life had always been about my sisters and my father’s wishes.

This would be for me.

Fuck the consequences.

“What if I do want that?” I asked quietly.

His head whipped up as if he couldn’t possibly be hearing me right. He waited one second. Then another.

Then he pulled me forward and back into the water. He grabbed the hem of my shirt and pulled it over my head effortlessly. Then he dropped to his knees before me and slid my pants down my body. All hesitations or uncertainties faded as the warmth of his trailing fingers lingered and soothed me.

I should be concerned about his erratic, blood-drenched behavior. What he had done today had worn on him and made him unpredictable and catastrophic by nature.

But when his head nestled between my thighs and his darting tongue swept upward, hitting the exact spot that most craved him, my protests fell away. Allthoughtsof protests fell away. I tipped my head back and wound my fingers in his hair. The water beat down over the peaks of my breasts and then his head.

He was my husband, andGod, he knew what he was doing. Every sweep of his tongue became a scorching flame that ignited me in a way I had never experienced, not like this.

His fingers dug into my hips as he pulled me so close to him that his hair tickled the inside of my thighs. I tightened my grip, and he groaned in an almost animalistic way. I didn’t care. I could focus on nothing but the growing tension within me. The trembling of my legs and difficulty I had standing upright.

Somehow, he steadied me.

It could have been seconds or hours. No time existed here as my breathy moans turned loud and uncontrollable. I shouted Enzo’s name as I tipped my head back and cried out. The pleasure oozed through my core, leaving shuttering pulses in its wake.

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