Page 29 of Shades of Red

And in a hot burst of impulse, I do, bending low and sucking her lip into my mouth. I bite down hard, my sharp teeth irritating the cut she already has, courtesy of her asshole husband. Her skin breaks easily, the taste of her bursting against my tongue. I drink from her, devour her as she wraps her arms around me and silently begs me to take more.

“Leave with me,” I demand between nips. “Right now.” Her warm tongue slides into my mouth, and I suck on it hard. Her answering moan has my hard cock pressing painfully against my jeans. “Forget the restaurant.” My hand wraps around her throat, holding her against me, pressing hard enough to steal her breath. “Forget being sous.”

My other hand slips beneath the material of her white dress, clawing at her breasts. I’m not gentle—she doesn’t like it gentle. The thought reminds me of the other man who likes to give it to her rough, and my hand slips down between her thighs and grabs her pussy viciously. “Forget your stupidcuntof a husband,” I growl against her ear. “It can just be you and me.”

I feel her soften against me, just for a moment, and my body electrifies with the hope that I might actually convince her to be mine. “We could go to America, somewhere he’d never find you. We could open our own restaurant. Gold and Grey’s. We could make our lives whatever we want them to be. And you’d never have to leave. You could fall asleep and wake up in my arms where you belong.”

She shudders beneath me before pulling away. Her cheeks are wetwith tears she didn’t let me see her cry. She takes a shaky breath before tugging herself from my hold. “I can’t,” she says, the two worded rejection simple and final.

“Yes, you can,” I reply, my tone so forceful it sounds like a command.

The sadness in her eyes turns to frustration. “Fine, I won’t.”

Anger reignites in my blood, rippling through my body and filling me with fire. “What do you mean, youwon’t?”

She heaves a sigh. “It’s complicated.”

“You care about me, don’t you?”

“Yes—”

“And your husband is an abusive fucking cunt that likes to hit you when he doesn’t get his way?”

“Sometimes, bu?—”

“Then it sounds pretty fucking simple to me.”

“Nothing about this is simple,” Aurélie huffs in exasperation, sounding as though she’s trying to explain how the world works to a child. “Blaise isn’t an easily discarded man. If I leave, he’ll come after me.”

She thinks I don’t understand her situation, that I’ve never known the sick cruelty of men who feed off the weaknesses of others. But there was a time when I was greeted every day with fists. Until one day, I decided to stop letting my father use everyone else as punching bags. When you remove the haze of fear, the monsters in your life seem so much smaller. And abusive pricks are actually dealt with quite simply if you have the motivation to do it. Turns out, they bleed as easily as you do. Just make sure to keep your knives sharp.

“Let him try,” I growl, already considering ways to make her husband disappear from her life for good. To give her a taste of freedom I imagine she hasn’t had in a long time.

“You won’t be able to stop him.”

“And why not?” I ask, challenging her to give me one reason whyher fucking husband is more of a threat than I am.

Aurélie glares at me like I’m an idiot. “He is on every food board in France. Half of the EU boards. If he wants a restaurant to fail, it does. If he wants a restaurant to succeed, it’s practically golden because he knows the right people. He could buy Michelin stars if he wanted to—he has before. He’s stainless steel, and nothing can touch him.”

I step closer, pressing myself against her until her back hits the edge of the marble counter. “And what am I then?”

The smile that twists at her red lips is wistful. “You’re just a small chef with big dreams, no money, few prospects, and the most beautiful cock I’ve ever seen.”

“Frankly, it already sounds like I have the upper hand,” I retort, pressing my knee between her thighs so she can feel how hard the most beautiful cock she has ever seen is for her.

She isn’t able to resist rubbing against me, inching her white dress up her thighs so I can thrust closer to her cunt. I can see the lace of her red panties peeking out from between her legs. The panties her husband had around her ankles less than an hour ago. The thought of him touching her makes me livid, driving off the edge of sanity. I grab the edge of her little white dress and tear it all the way to the hip. She gasps in shock, knowing that I’ve done something reckless that can’t be undone.

“Grey, we can’t,” she whimpers even as she spreads her legs wider. “He’ll ruin us both.”

“Leave him.” I push her harder into the counter as I lean over her and grab a knife from the counter. I slip the knife along her hip and underneath her panties, and with one flick of my wrist, the material is shredded. “Choose me.” I slide the knife over her stomach to her other thigh and cut through her panties, letting them fall to the floor. “I can give you everything you fucking need.” I slide two of my fingers into her pussy, groaning when I feel how soaked she is for me already. “Your cunt knows who fucking owns you, and it’s not your goddamn husband.”

“It’s not worth risking everything, Grey,” she pants, even as she wraps her leg around my hip so I can finger her deeper. I grab her other leg and throw her onto the counter, keeping her splayed open so I can see every detail of her perfect, dripping pussy in the kitchen’s overhead lights. “This thing between us isn’t worth losing everything I have.”

I seethe at how her mouth fights me even as her body is willing to give me everything. “Stopfuckingtalking,” I grit out of clenched teeth while my hand finds her throat and squeezes hard enough to choke the excuses out of her.

“Grey, stop,” she gasps with what little breath she has left. “You need to hear this.”

“What, Aurélie?” I thunder, loosening my grasp slightly. “What could you possibly say that I don’t know already?”

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