Monster A Dark Arranged Marriage Romance - Vanessa Waltz Page 0,40
her husband after too many months apart. Her lips slammed into mine, the wave of passion knocking me backward. My mouth covered hers hungrily. She slipped her tongue inside, sending spirals of ecstasy through me. She was an OxyContin high, the pleasure swift and delirious.
Too much.
Not enough.
I wanted more. Needed more. My greed demanded all of her, everything from her chocolate-colored hair to her toes. I ached to fuck her ruthlessly, ravish her, kiss her, be inside her, hold her. My heart thrashed as I shoved her against the wall.
Evie pushed me, hard enough so that I stopped. We gripped each other, breathing like we finished a marathon. She looked at me, and the storm in my head quieted.
“Let’s go home.”
Fourteen
Evie
I’m grateful for my husband.
I hadn’t written it down yet.
Thanking the man responsible for the ache in my chest felt too strange. Once we got home, Tony pulled me into the bathroom to assess the damage. He’d hissed epithets as he pressed an ice pack into my cheek and dabbed antiseptic on my wounds. After a long, cold shower I put on pajamas and headed to bed. My head pounded as moonlight sliced across Tony.
My stomach dropped.
He was in my bed.
Technically, it was his, but I was possessive over this place. He sat under the covers, shirtless. His glowing skin forced me to imagine him naked. Few women could picture the perfectly sculpted body under his clothes. The idea of sleeping next to him throttled my heart rate.
I slipped under the sheets, and Tony scooped me in his embrace. His arms were like a warm tide, pulling me to safety. I collided with him as he splayed me over his lap, his heat burning through my clothing. I lifted a hand to his sorrowful face, tracing his cheekbone. I stroked his stubbled skin, marveling at his harsh beauty, his unrelenting stare, and the current that zipped into my arm. I wanted to wipe his sadness away.
“Are you okay?”
He didn’t smile, but his stony expression softened. “I should be asking you that. Evie, how the fuck did this happen?”
I sucked in my lip. “It’s my fault.”
“Don’t make excuses for him.”
“I’m not, but…I hit him first. I punched him,” I blurted in a rush of words. “Then he smacked me and I went after him.”
“You…went after him?” he echoed hollowly. “After he hit you?”
“He said something rude.”
His head knocked the headboard. “Evie.”
“You had to be there. Believe me, he deserved it.”
“Of course he deserved it. That’s not the fucking point. You could be in the hospital with a concussion. Or worse.”
“I-I know. It was reckless.” Beyond reckless. Stupid in the extreme. “I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“You are so lucky I showed up when I did.”
Luckily, Tony seemed to let it go. He scooped my hand in his and brushed his lips over my aching knuckles. “These hands are too valuable to waste.”
I smiled.
His hot gaze flickered to me. “How can you be in a good mood? Or is this from gratitude again? I’m grateful he didn’t split my skull open. I’m grateful my obscenely attractive husband saved my ass.”
“It’s nice to see you worried about me. For once.”
“For once.” He laughed bitterly. “I pass out to the light of my phone watching you. Or I did, until you took out the cameras. Now I don’t sleep until I’m sure you’re in the penthouse. The windows in your workshop give me a heart attack because they’re not bulletproof, and I worry whenever you’re at the clubhouse because I don’t trust the men there.”
“You mean that? Or are you afraid someone will scratch your Porsche?”
A muscle flicked in his jaw. “If you were a car, darling, I would’ve already traded you in. Expensive and I don’t get to ride you.”
“How can such a beautiful man have so much ugliness inside him?”
He raised a brow. “That’s quite the neg. Are you a pick-up artist?”
“I’d slap you but there’s been enough of that today.” I grinned, but Tony gave me a forbidding look. “Are you mad at me?”
“A little.” His arms circled my hip, and he kissed the top of my head. “It’s hard to stay pissed at you, though. Something about black eyes on my woman kills all my rage for her.”
“Lucky me.”
“You are.”
A hint of a growl throbbed from his lips. He turned, the force of his glare and the threat of his half-naked body filling me with steam. He wanted to punish me. I could feel the urge in the hand gripping my waist.