Page 40 of No Saint

Her eyes don’t rise to meet mine as she saunters passed, giving me her back. The short jumper she wears shows off just a small slither of skin at the base of her spine. The rounded curves of her hips and the smooth skin of her back was enough to make my mouth water. There was no denying I was attracted to my wife.

My fingers itched to settle into that soft flesh at her waist, to let them follow the curves down, over the beautiful swell of her ass and across the shapely thighs. As if sensing my eyes, she finally looks back at where I follow. I steal her attention in that moment, capturing her. There’s no mistaking the pupil dilation when she looks at me, no missing the way she looks at my body and explores my face. Amelia likes what she sees even if she denies it until she’s blue in the face.

She continues to watch me rather than where she is going.

Her foot slips off the top step, I lunge, grabbing her hard and yanking. Her back thumps against my chest and my arms go around her.

“If you weren’t too busy staring,leonessa, you would’ve seen you were about to go bouncing down the stairs. I warn you now, they are not forgiving.”

Her warmth presses into me through my clothes, her scent invading my nose. She was soft and warm and so damn inviting, the complete opposite to everything and all that I am. Where I was violence, she was calm. The sunshine after a storm.

Her breath rattles from her chest and just for a second she melts against me, unguarded but that moment is short lived as she’s pulling away and taking the stairs as fast as she can to get away, her hand on the rail to keep her steady.

I follow at a much more leisurely pace. My feet tap on the marble as I casually stroll through to the dining room where our food has already been placed on the table. She sits at the end of the table once again rather than in her rightful place at my side.

I stop at her chair, pressing in close enough that she feels my body heat but not close enough to touch. A warning. A temptation.

With a loud, agitated sigh she gets up from her chair, the legs scratching loudly on the marble floor and stomps like a bratty child to the chair closest to mine.

Oh, what I would give to punish that attitude out of her. How she would scream for me. Her skin reddened by my palm and her moans loud in my ear.

She dumps her ass in the seat and crosses her arms.

I’m slow to take my own and then when I do, I pour a whiskey from the decanter into one of the crystal glasses and offer it to her. Her brows shoot up and only hesitating for a moment, she accepts the drink. I pour one for myself and settle back, staring at her beautiful face while my finger traces my bottom lip in thought. She takes a healthy sip of the whiskey, sighing with the taste.

“Can I serve myself?” She asks.

I nod.

I watch as she leans across and plates some mashed potatoes and beef onto her plate, the meat drowning in a deep red sauce that floods her food. She adds her vegetables and retakes her seat, plucking up her knife and fork.

“Please stop watching me,” she says to her food, “I joined you for dinner as you demanded, the least you can do is give me peace.”

“Peace?” I laugh but give her what she wants, serving myself, “where’s my peace?”

“You chose this life, Gabriel, you live with the consequences,” she tells me, matter of fact, her lips closing around her fork as her eyes dart to me.

“It isn’t my life I seem to be having trouble getting peace from,” I tell her, “It’s you.”

She smiles, “Good. I hope I cause you hell, Gabriel. That you never know a day of peace.”

“Ah, my wife, the kind of feelings you stir may be considered a sin but trust me, my thoughts on you are so far from hell I may as well be in heaven.”

Her mouth drops open.

I let the flavors of my food hit my tongue while she continues to stare. She opens her mouth, closes it and opens again but no words come out and eventually she turns back to the food, cheeks reddening with a beautiful, innocent blush.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch her quietly eat the food on her plate, taking tender sips of her drink every so often. She doesn’t look at me, doesn’t acknowledge me but that flush still glows beneath the surface of her creamy skin, like my words have left a permanent mark.

Good.

I hope they stay within that beautiful mind of hers, I hope they haunt her dreams wondering just what I might be thinking, how I may be envisioning her. She wouldn’t hate me forever, I was sure of it but then the woman was stubborn as all hell so I could be wrong.

Once her plate is cleared – something I note with approval – she throws back the rest of her drink and stands to leave.

“Would you wait for a moment, Amelia?” I ask.

She pauses, “why?”

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