Page 31 of Cruel Pawn
“Why are you as stiff as a sailor’s cock, my opera?”
“That’s not a phrase,” she replied, slanting one of those dark, cutting glares my way. My stomach fluttered, a giddy thrill that she was giving me all her attention quickening my heart.
“Language is completely made up,” I countered. “Anything can be a phrase if enough people say it.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Surprising amount of logic coming from the unhinged psychopath.”
“Hey,” I protested. “I have logic. I havea lotof logic.”
“No pushback on the unhinged psychopath then,” she said under her breath, making my smile even wider. I hauled her closer, until her side was flush to mine, and pressed my lips to her temple in a lingering kiss. “You can’t just—”
Her whole body jolted when Aegi came awake on the chair across from us, my baby lazily opening one sapphire-blue eye before she locked on Priya and hissed. I sighed. Well. I’d been really hoping they’d get along famously, but I should have known better. Both my girls were stubborn and independent and resistant to change.
“Aegi, be nice,” I chided, then to Priya, “See,Ididn’t lie about having a cat.”
“That really pissed you off, huh,” she remarked, giving me a long, searching look. Trying to figure me out. More butterflies took off in my stomach at her scrutiny. She was interested in me far quicker than I’d even dared to hope. Then again, we began our whirlwind romance three months ago. The last few months were just a little blip, and now we were back together forever.
Aegi hissed again, getting to her feet on the chair and giving Priya murder-eyes. Priya gave them right back. “She’s probably just hungry,” I said to my future wife, stroking her arm to soften the blow of rejection.
“I could not give any less fucks,” she drawled, which hurt.
I pinched her shoulder. “You’re the two best girls in my life, so I need you to get along. Tolerate each other at the very least. Best of friends is the best-case scenario.”
“Hard to be best friends with a beast that wants to claw your face off,” she muttered, eyeing the door when I pulled away from her to get Aegi’s dinner ready. I didn’t stop her assessment of thedoor. Nor did I try to stop her when she made a dash towards it, the sofa cuddles lulling her into a false sense of security.
I expected her to get so far then return sulkily, but she lunged at the door so fast that the chain yanked her back, and she lost her balance, toppling to the floor.
“Shit,” I gasped, the idea that she was hurt twisting my stomach until nausea hit. I abandoned the tray of fancy cat food that cost more than my own meals and rushed across the cottage to Priya’s side, cradling her face as I assessed her naked body. I hadn’t allowed her to keep the towel. Not when she doubted my devotion to her and hurt my feelings. “Are you okay, my opera?”
“I’m not Carmen anymore, you don’t have to call me that,” she snapped, which meant she was absolutely not okay. I skimmed my hands down her body, not sexually this time—even though my cock leapt to attention and stood ready for orders—but checking for breaks and swelling and soreness. She hissed when I reached her chained ankle, but it wasn’t broken, merely sprained. I cradled her leg carefully, bringing her ankle to my lips in apology.
“If you unchained me, this wouldn’t happen,” she said in a voice unlike any I’d heard before. Neither snarling nor pleading, threatening nor gasping. Not even the sweet, high voice she’d used as Carmen. This was quiet and plain and true. Real.
“If I unchained you, you’d leave me,” I replied in the same voice, catching her gaze, “and I don’t want you to leave.”
She shook her head, thick dark hair splaying over her shoulders, but I couldn’t be sure what she was denying—my feelings or her own desire to stay. I’d spent my whole childhood knowing I was unwanted and unloved. I knew that feeling so intimately, it was impossible to miss it in the eyes of another person. Priya had those same eyes—sad, longing, but devoid of hope.
I couldn’t make her see that she was worthy of love and absolute, unadulterated infatuation if she left me. So, I kissed her ankle again and gently lowered her leg to the floor, opening my mouth to speak—when Aegi flew across the rug with a war cry and attacked Priya.
“Aegi!” I shouted in a hard voice she rarely heard from me. She jumped back, sheathing her claws with an affronted scowl, but still hissed at Priya as she backed up.
“She scratched my fucking tit,” Priya spat, her teeth bared, chest rising hard and fast. I inspected the scratch—it was long but shallow—and sighed.
“She’ll grow to love you,” I promised, bowing my head so I could lave my tongue over the cut. Tart, coppery blood burst across my tongue and I groaned because it washerI tasted. I wanted to taste every last part of her, until there was no single bit I didn’t know inside out.
“Stop drinking my blood, you fucking vampire,” she huffed, pushing my face away with the flat of her palm, which made me smile. “And stop smiling. Jesus.”
“I’ll be your saviour if that’s what you want, my pretty poison.”
She liked that name; I saw it in the flare of her eyes, that reminder of how deadly she was, how she’d not only matched me but almost beat me. My girl liked to win.
“I brought a chess set,” I said, and watched that vicious light in her eyes grow. A tiny smile tried to form before she snuffed it out.
“So?”
“So, I know you play a chess app every day, sometimes three times a day. And I know, my darling wife—”
“Future wife,” she corrected. “We’re not married.”
