Xander is in the room with me.
I stiffen, my shoulders relaxing the next second. The water is still pounding down over my bare body, but it barely disguises the way my heart is pounding in my chest, the way my stomach is suddenly queasy.
He’s back. I can almost feel it. It’s as though my body has an antenna, and right now, it’s lifting towards and searching for him. And I can’t find him because there’s a dark cloud of anger between us.
I decide I’ll ignore him; I don’t have much of a choice anyway. I don’t have anything to say to him that will make this anger between us vanish.
And I don’t even blame him for it, which somehow makes it worse. Or better. I don’t know which.
The shower door opens, and I do go rigid because the next second, his hips press into my bare ass, hard and insistent, and I shudder because though he’s fully clothed, the imprint of his hard-on is so strong that I’m almost totally needy right away.
I try to turn towards him, but he presses his hand into my shoulder and keeps my face away from his. ‘Xander?’
‘Stay just this way. Maybe I can pretend for a second longer that you didn’t hurt me. That you’re still the woman I thought you were,” he growls at the nape of my neck, the words chasing a shiver down my body.
I push back against him, his cock digging at me. ‘Can we at least talk?’ I’m not sure if I actually want to talk, though. The feel of him behind me is changing my body, and what I want is not words.
I want his thick cock inside me.
I can practically feel him vibrate with frustration. ‘I want you. I need to take you. If you don’t want this, here’s the time to say no.’
I feel his hands all over my body, which makes his words null and void, saying I have any right to say no.
Because how can I? I’m already shaky and quivering and wanting him, aching for him. My heart is beating for something else just as my body pulses for him.
‘I want you. But not like this, Xander, please.’
‘Too bad. This is the only way you get me,” he grits out. He cups my breasts into the large spread of his calloused palm, then coasts his head close to my neck and exhales his next words there. ‘For now, at least.’
Which sort of gives me hope and makes me feel as though there is a slim chance in hell that we will be able to work through this.
So I push my ass into his cock and ground back against him. ‘Then I want this. Badly.’
He groans, and his hand slips and slides down my body, running slowly across the wet flesh of my stomach, bringing pleasure pouring through me along with the water, which he immediately slaps shut as though he senses my thoughts.
‘Where’s Lucian?’ He asks, his tongue sweeping along my neck, licking at the flesh, which he then sucks into his mouth, biting down hard on it.
I shudder, and my knees buckle a little. I gasp when he repeats the action. ‘I asked you a question, Mel. Where’s my son.’
I close my eyes to center myself. ‘Daniel picked him up. Hailey went with him. As did Romero.’
He stops, and I moan in disappointment. ‘Why the fuck did you let him do that?’
‘I didn’t know you’d be home. I wasn’t expecting you. And Daniel picks him up regularly. It gives me a bit of time to myself, and I felt really teary today.’ I stop and exhale raggedly. ‘I’m so sorry.’
He’s right. Maybe I shouldn’t have let Lucian go with Daniel, but I had been teary and broken somehow, and I didn’t want my son to see me that way. So when Daniel had offered to drop by and pick him up, I’d let him.
Hailey had gone along with them, so it had given me the house to be in alone. Stewing in my fears, pain, and tears, which I hadn’t been able to hold back on.
His hand digs into my waist, almost painfully. ‘You’ve apologized a fucking lot today, Mel, yet you always go back to doing the wrong thing.’
I go rigid in his arms and pull away. ‘Don’t speak to me that way.’
His hand tightens, and he pulls me into him again, this time his hand between us, running over my ass.
‘I’ll damned well speak to you how I want. You’re my wife.’
‘Your wife-to-be Xander. And that still gives you no right to speak to me however you want!’ I snap at him, even as I enjoy yearning for the bite of his nails digging into me. I’m hungry for the very man whom I am angry at, who is angry at me, whom I have hurt—who is hurting me. It’s an insane cycle.
‘Do you want me to fuck you or not?’ He asks, pulling away slightly.
‘Do you want to fuck me or not?’ I challenge him right back. I know Xander. There has never been a time when he hasn’t wanted me. There will never be a time when I do not want him myself.
He doesn’t reply with words, but his hands slide between my ass cheeks which he spreads and then slips just the tip of his finger into me. I moan and cry out, my body needing more.
‘Please. More Xander.’
‘Impatient at all times, Sole. The sun doesn’t beg to shine, Amor.’
I try to still the rampant beat of my heart at his words, but there is no stopping it. I want this man. I’ve hurt him.
And he’s punishing me by withholding the very thing he is tempting me with. But if this is his entire punishment, then I can take it.
He presses the finger into me slowly, bending me so my breasts flatten against the wall of the shower stall. The cool tile feels like a shock after the grazing heat of his skin. Even wet and drenched, his skin against mine will always feel that way.
He groans and clicks his tongue. ‘Sole. You’re so damned wet and tight. How long has it been without me? How long before I took you again?’
I see no need to lie. ‘Six years. There was never anyone beside you. There never will be. I never once betrayed you that way.’
He growls again, his voice haunted. ‘And that feels good. So fucking good, I’m ready to forgive you for what you did but I can’t, not yet. You drive me mad, Mel. You’re not good for me.’
I push my ass back into him, and he slides the finger into me, adding another so that I can’t hold back the gathering cry. ‘Oh. That feels so good, Xander.’
‘There’s more where it came from.’ Then he starts fucking me in earnest, his fingers running in and out of me, slow and steady, then fast and hard, and all the time, he croons how angry he is at me.
How much he wishes he could wring my neck for what I’d done. And just how much it is that he wants me, that he wishes he could stay angry at me but just can’t.
I accept all of it as my due, squealing and squeezing around his fingers, crying out again and again as he rubs his thumb against my clit, curving his fingers inside me at that same moment so that my knees go rubbery and I relax against the wall.
His fingers pinch at my nipple, tight and almost painful, and all those things combined have me rocking back into his fingers, exhaling as my orgasm finally blows over me like a wave at sea, dragging me into its dark, starry depth.
Xander bends at once and sweeps his tongue over my folds, drawing out my orgasm as his tongue sucks at my clit, his fingers pumping in and out of me as his hand cups my breasts.
I’m shaking, crying, wet, teary-eyed, shuddering, and pulsing around his fingers, my stomach fluttering with sharp swirls of pleasure that leave me feeling wrung out and yet so oddly full.
Xander pulls away, but not before giving my sensitive body one final lick that has me feeling like a second orgasm might not be too far away. Then he turns and walks away from me. Just like that.
His footsteps thud dully as he strides out. I catch his tense shoulders only as the door closes almost gently behind him.
By the time I finish washing up and make it to the bedroom, he’s calmly on the bed, his phone in his hands as he makes a call to someone I can’t hear.
‘Tomorrow will be too late. Have it moved tonight. Right away if you can.’ He barks at the person on the other end of the phone.
I pull the robe tighter around my shivering body and pad on the bed beside him. The time says it’s nine at night on my phone, and I know sleeping with Xander beside me will be impossible.
He gets off the phone and gets out of bed on his way to the bathroom.
‘Why didn’t you?’ I ask softly, tears biting at my lids again. This time, because I feel sorry for us. This is no way to make a family, especially with my son hanging in the balance.
His jaw ticks, his hand, the one I can see flexing at his side. ‘Because you don’t deserve it, Mel. I’m allowed to hold onto this anger as long as I can. It’s the only thing I have left.’
Then he stalks out of the room, and I wonder how mad he’ll be if I tell him I’d like to sleep in a different room tonight. Just one day.
When he returns, my stomach does a free fall. He’s so decadently handsome he makes me hungry just by looking like chocolate on fat red strawberries. The V of his narrow hips tapering away to the junction of his thighs, which he doesn’t bother hiding.
He towels his hair calmly as he walks towards me, where he stops at the bedpost and smirks. ‘You look hurt. Like you’ve been denied your favorite dessert.’
‘I’m just glad you’re smiling at me. I had a feeling this afternoon you’d much rather have me dead.’
‘I still do. Don’t tempt me, Sole.’
But he does slip into bed beside me without bothering for anything between us. And his guns are in the bathroom too, which makes me wonder if he has another beneath the bed. He slides his hand around my shoulders and brings me to him.
‘Ryder said you were sad for months before you left.’ He murmurs softly into my hair, almost as though the words hurt on their way out of his lips.
I think about it, not knowing what to say. First, I’m surprised he’s asking; second, I’m even more surprised that Ryder noticed that about me.
‘Why are we talking about that? It’s the past.’
One I’d much rather leave behind me. One I didn’t want to think about. One that would forever be triggering for the two of us. My heart stutters a beat, and nervous butterflies flit through my stomach.
‘Because I’m wondering if it’s part of the reason I don’t know my son. Didn’t know he even existed until this morning. Had you been planning for months to leave me? Was it not just about Lucian?’
I press my eyes closed and exhale shakily. ‘I wasn’t. I was worried. I was angry with you for cutting me out of this thing that was obviously a huge part of who you were. And part of it was worrying about how you’d be with our child with the Famiglia demanding most of your attention, but never was I sad with you. You were my light as much as I was your sunshine.’
I flip my body around so I’m staring straight into his eyes.
‘I loved you. Fiercely. I never wanted to hurt you, but you hurt me. And I didn’t want that pain getting to my child in any way.’
By the time I’ve spilled all the words, I am breathless. And all Xander does is kiss me. Hard and strong. And I know without doubt he still hates me but that there’s also hope for us.
