Page 54 of Poisoned Vows

She’s letting out small, helpless gasps as I pull out, and the sight of my cum dripping from her small, wet entrance nearly makes me hard all over again. She stays like that for a long moment, bent over, and I don’t think it’s for my pleasure.

“Lilliana?” I can hear the hint of concern in my voice. It’s not like her to stay like that for so long.

“Fuck you,” she breathes, swallowing hard. “Fuck you for making me do that.”

“Lilliana.” I try to hold back my frustration, but I can’t restrain all of it. “There’s no shame in enjoying it. You’re my wife.”

“I don’t want to be.” She’s still frozen there, and I reach for her. Something about her stiff anger makes all of it much less erotic. “None of this is my choice.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this.”

She turns away from me, her legs pressed close together, her arms over her chest. “I want to go to bed.” She’s looking at the four-poster across from us, and I can feel that she’s as far away from me as she can get while still having to be physically in the room.

What I don’t understand is why I give a shit.

When I don’t say anything to stop her, she strides to the bathroom, shutting the door hard behind her. I hear the shower turn on, and the part of me that wants to master her, to make her submit, wants to tell her to get the fuck out of the shower, to go to bed with my cum still in her.

The part of me that wants her towantthis leaves her alone.

I lay in bed as she showers, thinking back over what’s happened since I brought her here. I can tell there’s something off about her every time we’re together, and it goes beyond just the fact that she doesn’t want to be married to me. It feels as if she shuts off some part of herself whenever I’m intimate with her, a part that’s covered up with the anger that she flings at me.

She seems to know more about sex than she should, too.I have no doubt that she was a virgin—she was telling the truth about that—but I can’t help but wonder if she’s done other things. The thought makes me murderous, and I’m still rolling it over in my head, getting more and more pissed off by it with every passing minute when Lilliana comes out of the bathroom, wrapped up in a thick terry-cloth robe.

“You know how you’re meant to come to bed,krolik.”

She narrows her eyes at me and yanks open the robe. For a brief moment, I think she’s actually doing as she’s told, but then I see she has cotton shorts and a tank top underneath it.

I should be pissed at her for her attitude, and for refusing to get naked for me—but somehow, she looks as delicious in that little sleep outfit as she does when she’s entirely bare, just in an entirely different way. But then I think of someone else touching her the way I have, someone who didn’t take her virginity, but might have come close, and the rage floods my veins again.

“Tell me,krolik,” I murmur, my voice low and dark as I reach for her wrist and pull her into bed. “Who else touched you before me?”

She flinches, trying to pull her wrist away from me, but my fingers tighten around her. “No one,” she snaps. “I told you. I’d never even touched myself.”

“I’m not sure I believe you.” My thumb rubs over the base of her wrist. “I think you might know more about what you’re doing than you’re letting on,krolik.”

“I don’t know anything.” She tugs at my grip on her wrist again. “Not anything that you haven’t shown me, anyway.”

Her lips press together, and I still feel certain that there’s something she’s hiding.

“I was a virgin.” Her words are clipped, angry. “No one has ever touched me besides you. No one would have been able to.”

Her arms are wrapped around her waist, and she looks away from me. For the first time, I feel uncertain about what I should do.

I could try to drag it out of her. I could try to force her to tell me what she’s hiding—and I know there’s something. But if I do, I know it will close off any possibility of there being anything between us other than the tense, antagonistic relationship that there is now.

Why the fuck do I care?I can’t tell why I do. But I feel as if I want to be careful with her, when it comes to this.

“We’re going hunting tomorrow,” I tell her, changing the subject. “Have you ever been?”

“Hunting?” Her eyebrows shoot up into her hairline. “No, of course not.”

“I’ll teach you. Just be careful. It’s one of the few things there is to do around here, besides—” I raise an eyebrow, and she flushes. “But of course, if you’d rather stay in and enjoy more…indoor activities.”

“No, it’s fine. We’ll go hunting.” Her voice trembles a little as she says it. “I’m sure it will be…fun.” She licks her lips nervously, glancing over at me. “I’m surprised you’d trust me with a gun.”

I smirk at her. “I sleep beside you,krolik.If you wanted me dead, you’d find a way.”

She stares at me, as if she can’t believe how cavalierly I said it. “You don’t think I could?” she says finally, and I laugh.

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