Page 389 of Now and Forever

His question confused me because he sounded as if I had wounded him. He even almost sounded like he was in pain. Why? He absolutely didn’t want me; he had declared it minutes ago when he had stated he wasn’t ever going to consummate the marriage proposal he had thrown at me. This most likely stemmed from Ashton’s deep-seated hate toward him. He was getting territorial because he felt like I had betrayed him for Ashton, which was absurd since he and I weren’t anything apart from co-parents to the baby. Subsequently, for him to act this way was completely unfounded.

“My sex life isn’t your business. I can do as I please, so you don’t have the right to interrogate me about it.”

He didn’t take kindly to that. In fact, he sounded like he was about to lose it, hissing like a demented man against my ear. “Don’t fuck with me, Ava.”

The man simply had asked for it. “No,” I gritted out, emphasizing it distinctly. “I’m obviously not fucking you, Reiss. I don’t want to. Ever.”

“You’re pregnant with my fucking baby!” he roared, utterly livid as he threw me an accusing look. “My child, Ava! It’s my child that’s growing inside you, and you let that filthy man fuck you stupid?”

Good Heavens, he was looking at me as if I just told him I was a murderer.

“Jesus, Reiss. You can’t truly be serious about being angry with me? I mean, I bet you slept with someone last night. Hell, maybe even today before you came here. Breathe, for fuck’s sake!”

He growled like a bloody animal as he placed his palms on the sides of my head. “Tell me what he did to make you part your legs for him!” he demanded, hissing in my face.

Double standard bastard to the highest order! Did he take me for an idiot? He’d been going about town with a woman on his side, clearly enjoying his bachelor life. For him to demand such crude things from me was beyond untoward.

“Go. To. Hell!”

“I’m already there, love,” he stated in a tone that went straight to my heart. “Or did you forget that you sent me there years ago?”

When I had tried to make amends, he had played recklessly with my feelings, toying with my vulnerability. I understood his need for revenge, even the hate—he had the right for it. I expected it and all of his vindictiveness.

“I’m sorry for that. I truly am.” What was done was done, and there was nothing I could do to change it. We were not teenagers any longer; we were grown adults. Had he given me the chance to show him from the start how I truly felt, things would have turned out differently, but he hadn’t opted for that. Instead, he had decided to crush my heart, acting upon revenge to make himself feel better.

“Maybe, if you tell me what happened, it might slowly redeem you.”

He was relentless. I knew this side of him, and he wouldn’t ever stop until he had the answer he wanted.

Begrudgingly conceding to his request, I recalled a particular night about five days after Ashton had arrived from New York. “I was sleeping when he came in. He managed to acquire a keycard from the lobby since he told them I’m his wife.” Reiss listened, his eyes never tearing away from my face. “I can’t remember much, but I woke up naked with him between my legs, teasing me with his tongue…”

“Go on,” he immediately insisted.

Biting my lip, I reddened as I prepared to speak again. “I was still half asleep, so it didn’t register yet. He carried on for quite some time … until I came.”

“And you let him fuck you,” he smoothly concluded before his fingers snapped before me. “Just like that!”

No, it hadn’t been like that at all, but I was beyond infuriated with him for simply demanding I tell him everything when it hadn’t been so long ago that he had told me he didn’t want anything from me. From the second he had learned about the baby, he had been acting as if he hadn’t said such harsh words to me. How could he treat me like that and then carry on with his life, shagging his mistress as if he hadn’t cheated on her with me?

“Are you not even going to respond?”

“I wasn’t aware that it was actually a question.” Bravo. I truly despised him with a passion in this instant.

His eyes darkened with almost no green showing in them, fury leading his logic. “You—”

My temper colorfully matched his. I began to shake in my rage, so much so that a few strands of my hair fell out of my loose bun. “Don’t you dare say it!” I spat at him, ready to take him on. If acting like a complete brute was his way of achieving things, then I should do the same. “Insultme one more time, Reiss—I fucking dare you— and I’ll never divorce Ashton. You’ll be fighting me for parental rights from across the Atlantic Ocean.” I felt incensed and unjustifiably irrational, and I couldn’t seem to stop it from happening.

“Have you not learned anything? You know better than to throw such provocation.” His eyes danced, anger mixed with something more potent. “I don’t abide by the rules. I dare because I can,” he said just as he tugged the tie off my robe in one swift movement, instantly parting the silk that had been barely covering my nipples, my nether region blatantly exposed to him. “I dare because this”—he cupped both of my breasts, squeezing them with a tinge of roughness—“this … is mine.”

Shit. How could he simply manipulate my body into working against me? It was purely cruel, and even though it was, my moans didn’t go unnoticed.

One hand remained while the other explored farther below, drifting down past my navel as it sought towards the crevice between my legs that were slightly parted in anticipation of his touch. Then, parting the lips of my pussy coarsely before he slid his middle finger into my entrance, he grunted my name just as it gripped his finger, greedy for more.

“This is all mine,” he vowed with such raw emotion it became my undoing. “It’s always going to be mine.”

I sobbed from losing control of my body and how much truth there was in his words. “You’ve made your point. Please, stop.”

“I can’t,” he muttered in vain. “I fucking wish I could … you don’t know how much I wish I could.” His thumb found the sweet nub, rubbing it in circular motions while his finger started to fuck me. “I dream of you just like this, surrendering yourself to me like you did the first time.”

---