Page 10 of Liar's Heart
Inky hair falls in loose, styled waves, and her makeup is dark and dramatic, enhancing her midnight eyes. She’swearing my mother’s earrings, the ones I gave her as a wedding present, but no necklace to obscure the regal column of her neck or the mark I put there, still red and raised against her moon-pale skin. The scar that marks her as mine.
Finally, undeniably mine.
Merrick stops when she reaches me, an impish smirk on her face. Two fingers slide under my jaw, and she pushes it closed. Which is when I realize I’ve been standing here with my mouth hanging open, gawking at my wife.
Real smooth, End.
She looks down at my hands, seeing the cuff link I was working on before the sight of her scrambled my brain, and says, “Oh, let me.”
Depositing the cuff links into her cupped palm, I watch her deft fingers navigate them with ease, her wedding ring sparkling as she moves. A wistful smile takes over her face. “My dad never could get these things on his own. I always had to do them for him.”
“They always give me trouble too.” And then, because she looks like she wants to reminisce and I’m desperate to know everything I can about her, I ask, “Were you and your parents close?”
She moves to the other wrist, talking while she works. “For the most part. Compared to most Society families, we were really close, but I didn't get to see them as much the last few years they were alive. Teenage nonsense and college, you know?”
“They died when you were in college, right?”
She nods. “Yeah. Spring semester, my senior year, about ten years ago now. Car crash. They both died instantly.”
Guilt rolls through me, though it shouldn’t. “My mom died when I was a junior in college,” I tell her.
She looks up at me, those midnight eyes filled with sympathy. “You’ve mentioned her a few times. You were close, right?”
Emotion clogs my throat, as it so often does when I think of her. “Yeah, we were.” Merrick finishes the last cuff, and I add, “Thank you.”
Shaking her head, she insists, “It’s no trouble at all.”
She moves to step away, but I stop her with a hand on her wrist and turn her back to face me. Her eyes are wide in question. “You look absolutely stunning, by the way,” I tell her.
Mischief teases her features as she smooths her other hand down over the dress. “It’s not too scandalous?”
The little vixen’s testing me. I hum, tugging her a little bit closer. Pinching her chin between my thumb and pointer finger, I make sure I have her full attention. “You’ll never hear me complain about the view. Wear whatever you like, baby. I can make anyone who has a problem with it disappear.”
Merrick catches her bottom lip between her teeth, and my dick throbs at the sight. I want to replace her teeth with my own to find out exactly how much pressure it takes to break the skin. I want to watch her eyes flare with pain and want before I take her mouth in deep, languid kisses tinted with the salt of her blood. But more than that, I want her heart. I want this fire we’ve kindled between us to blaze until it’s unquenchable.
My thumb slips up to the center of that bottom lip, tugging until I’ve set it free. Her breasts heave with each inhale, drawing attention to the flush beginning to crawl across her chest. A self-satisfied hum rumbles out of me. Looks like I’m not the only one in this house suffering. “Do you like that?” I ask, hungry and low. “Does my wife like knowing I’d kill anyone who’d dare to cross her, even over something as simple as enjoying the way she looks in a dress a little too much?”
I watch her focus soften, inky black overtaking the night-dark ocean as her pupils blow wide. Then she blinks, and it all falls away like it was never there. Merrick takes one step back, then another, until she's what she deems a safe distanceaway from me. Clearing her throat, she says, “I can handle myself just fine, thank you.”
My fingers flex, wanting to chase after her. “I never said you couldn't, only that you didn't have to.”
She opens her mouth to argue, then shuts it just as quickly and shakes her head. “We have to get going, or we'll be late.”
Conceding, I gather what I need before heading to the garage and starting the car so it's warm for her. The cooler air out here helps bank the heat still pumping through me from our little moment but doesn’t smother it completely. Because I know what I saw. I know I didn’t imagine the look that passed over her face before she forced it away. My wife wants me. All I have to do is push her to the point of buckling, something I have no doubt I can accomplish sooner or later.
I bet she’s beautiful when she breaks.
Only one way to find out.
Two hours later, I'm standing in the ballroom at Sinclair Manor, watching my wife from across the room. She’s smiling and laughing with some fuckface who won’t stop looking down the front of her dress. He knows who she is, too, considering we greeted him in the reception line when he arrived. This isn’t some innocent misunderstanding. No, this motherfucker wants to see what he can get away with, as evidenced by his increasingly aggressive behavior. Bold choice considering whose wife he’s eye-fucking. Even bolder that he’s wearing a bull mask while he does it.
I think. The fuck. Not.
The only reason the fucker’s hands are still attached to his body is because he hasn’t actually put them on Merrick. Yet. She’s also not showing any signs of discomfort, which buyshim and his hands a little more time together. If she acted like he was upsetting her in any way, I’d yank his ass down to the basement in a heartbeat, but the longer this goes on between them, the more I’m convinced she’s toying with him.
There’s nothing inappropriate about her behavior, nothing flirtatious or untoward. Every time he inches closer to her, she finds a way to smoothly keep him from touching her, either by calling a server over and putting a drink in his hand or quietly moving back a step when he’s distracted. If anything, I think she’s amused by this game he doesn’t know they’re playing.
Someone comes to stand next to me, and I peel my eyes away from Merrick long enough to confirm it’s Roman in his hound mask. He follows my line of sight, chuckling when he pieces together what I’m watching. “Damn. No wonder you’re about to crack that glass in your hand.”
