Page 126 of Gloves Off

“I always thought you were beautiful, though.” His eyes tease me. “It made me mad.”

He guides his fingers back inside me. Moments later, I shatter again into a thousand pieces.

With a word, I could end this. There isn’t a single part of me that believes he’d push this further than I want. He’d stop the second I say stop.

I don’t say stop, though. For some reason, I hang on.

And I’m not quite sure I hate him anymore, not after tonight. Not after he apologized the other week. Not after he coached soccer for me, and they liked him.

“Done yet?” he asks.

“Done what?” I manage, panting. “I’m bored.”

Alexei makes me come so many times, I lose count. One turns into three, which turns into five. I think we’re around seven or eight by now, but they’re starting to string into one another, so does that count as separate or just one? Who cares. I’m a disintegrating mess, coming on my husband’s hand while he looks, doling out pleasure.

“There,” he says with satisfaction when a moan finally slips past my clenched teeth as I come again. “There we go.”

“I hate you,” I gasp.

“Uh-huh. I know. I hate you, too.”

It doesn’t sound like he does, though. It sounds like he’s enjoying this more than I am. Deep down, his smug satisfaction thrills me. I’m disgusting. I hate myself for that. Where’s my fantasy of the faceless hot guy who doesn’t talk and follows orders?

That guy could never make me come like this.

I sob another involuntary moan into the pillow.

“You could end this, you know, if you just admit it.”

Never. Not while I’m still conscious. I’d pass out before I admitted defeat. He’d be so smug. He’d lord it over me for the rest of our deal. Every time he looked at me, every time he spoke to me, we’d both be thinking about this.

I don’t even want to think about what this means, that he can make me come so easily.

“Fine!” I shout. “Fuck. Fine. Okay. You made me come. Once.”

“Once?” His hand presses at my entrance like a threat.

“I lost count.” I don’t care if he knows. I don’t care about anything.

I steel my spine and haul in a deep breath. My pride is about to get the bruising of a lifetime.

A kiss on my lower back. Soft, sweet, barely more pressure than a butterfly. His breath fans over my skin. “Good girl.”

I shiver.

“Such a good wife for me,” he says in a low voice, and threads of warmth trickle through me at his praise. A kiss on my left wrist.

“Stop that.” He’s just messing with me. He just loves winning.

“You did so well,” he adds, pressing his lips to my right wrist, and I like that, too.

“What the actual fuck is happening here?” I whisper at the wall as he trails a soft line of kisses across my back. His hand is on my ass, smoothing over my skin. He chuckles.

That fucker actuallychuckles.

He delivers a sharp slap to my ass, and my pussy tightens around nothing, the traitor. He lifts off the bed, and I feel the cold loss of his hands on my body.

That’s my cue. I rise to my elbows, dragging my lifeless corpse up. I weigh approximately twelve million pounds.

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