Spending the night with him had been a bad idea and only opened myself up to being hurt. After years spent in a place where sex was talked as a chore to go through to satisfy the man we would marry, I shouldn’t have felt like maybe it would change me and Mathis’ dynamic. I didn’t want a relationship with the man, but I would lie if I hadn’t wanted something different now.
It was over anyway.
Maybe I would sleep with him again, maybe we would be able to be civil toward each other, but from now on I wouldn’t forget, even for the time that took my heart to beat twice, that I was no more than hired to be his wife. I wouldn’t forget that it wasn’t because he held a world of pain and grief inside him that I should try and do something for him that went beyond what was expected of me as a Carter Manor certified wife.
My phone buzzed between my fingers, drawing me out of my thoughts. I stopped on the sidewalk next to a cab parked playing music so loud it was a mystery as to imagine how someone could stand it inside. I fished out my phone and saw a text from Mathis.
Exhaustion slammed into me at seeing his name on the screen and the beginning of his text. I expected anger or shame at my reaction, but only exhaustion filled me.
You shouldn’t be wandering around the city on your own at night.
I turned off my phone without answering and turned back around from where I came from. It was useless to stay away. I couldn’t stay away all night long anyway and I didn’t need another fight with him regarding my whereabouts. I’d much prefer to get in bed and sleep, preferably in a bed I didn’t share with Mathis, but there again I didn’t hold any hope. He wouldn’t let me have that leeway. He needed his control, wanted to have some kind of power over me and what best than to keep me close even in sleep?
And the worst in all of that was that I had no idea if I would push him away if he tried to make a move to have sex with me again.
Before the end of that marriage I would hate myself from my lack of self-esteem and then I wouldn’t have anything, but a fat bank account.
I would have never thought my life would ever amount to this.
***
MATHIS
I ran a hand through my hair and tugged on a few strands with nerves and a bad case of uncertainty. In my everyday life I had everything in order. I was the one setting the pace in everything from my job to my private life and the only thing that didn’t fit that mold was my family, but with Lila it was something else.
She drove me fucking crazy.
I should have listened to Lucas when he told me I should put a tracking app on her damn phone, just to be sure if something happened to her. If I had listened instead of brushing him off, thinking that I didn’t care what she did every day unless it reflected badly on me. I would know now where she was and I could get her perfect round ass back here.
But no, it was better to let me stew here while I worried about her.
I worried about her.
God, that was such a foreign concept. The only women I worried about were my mother and sister, and even then I wouldn’t admit it aloud and nobody could see by just looking at me. With Lila? Anybody would know with one quick cursory look my way.
It’s been over an hour. Surely it was enough to calm down and come back.
“Fuck it,’’ I muttered to nobody and strode to the dining room table where I had left my cell phone, ready to dial Lucas so he would find Lila. The man knew people and I didn’t care who he contacted to find her.
I started swiping down in my contact list when the keys in the door stopped me. I twirled my head in the direction of the door and threw down the phone on the table when it started opening. Heart wild in my chest and electric shocks coursing through my muscles, I ran to the entry hall. A mix of anger and something else flared inside me as my eyes stared as the door opened inch by inch, revealing more of Lila’s body hidden under her long black coat.
“Where the fuck were you?’’ I blurted out as soon as she took a step inside the apartment. “And why didn’t you answer my damn text?’’
She stopped, stared at me, not with anger, but with a blank stare that made the hair on the back of my neck and forearms rise.
“If you want me to leave again, keep up the good work.’’
Then, she hung up her purse and coat in the closet near the front door and faced me again, her eyes still blank. I had never seen that look on her face and I didn’t like it. It was precisely the kind of look I had expected on seeing when I first walked in Carter Manor to find myself a wife. There was nothing but mild politeness or disinterest. The life I wanted to breathe in through me was nowhere in sight. Only a shell seemed to be standing in front of me in that hall.
The urge to shake her, to make her mad rose inside me. Anything to get a reaction out of her, to find the Lila I thought I knew, the Lila that fascinated me in spite of my better judgment.
“Adults don’t leave because they’re upset. Only children go to pout.’’
“Whatever you say,’’ she mumbled and sidestepped me, careful not to touch me and then she turned, without a doubt heading for the stairs to get to bed.
I was left to follow after her like some damn puppy and my anger became a tempest I craved to release, but the outcome couldn’t be any good. I could be destructive when feeling half like I was feeling right now.
“What is wrong with you?’’ I yelled after her, a question I knew she wouldn’t answer, but apparently when trying to keep the venom inside I craved to unleash inside of her veins, nothing smart came out in its stead.
“I’m tired and I would like to go to bed if you don’t mind.’’ Still with that bland voice, even and without any kind of emotion.
I lengthened my steps and grabbed her arm before she put a foot on the first step of the staircase. Under my fingers her bicep tightened for a second before it was gone. I held onto that tiny flex of a muscle to believe that she wasn’t as unaffected as she wanted to appear, but it was grasping at straws at best, so pathetic that I wanted to punch my own face for it.
Why did I go to that length for that woman?
Why was I so affected by her sudden distance?
Why? Why? Why?
All the whys in the world wouldn’t make me understand this marriage and that woman who held my gaze steadily, not once blinking away when my glare turned wilder.
“No bitch fest? No cursing thrown at my face? No nothing?’’ I prodded, my fingers tight around her arm as I got closer to her, so close that the cold from the outside clinging onto her clothes reached me. It only made her perfume sweeter to my nostrils, calling out to me thoughts of the things I wanted to do to her. And with her button nose all red and her lips all pink like her cheeks, it was hard to resist. If I crouched I would be able to kiss her, to fuck her mouth with my tongue and remind her of what she could have if she let herself go and be Lila, not this doll I didn’t recognize. Of course, she wouldn’t be swayed like that, not after what I had said in the kitchen earlier. I had shot myself in the foot with that one. For a man who wanted deeply to fuck his wife again, it was rather dumb to blame her for not wanting to fuck me. I should have praised her instead because when no other woman blipped on my radar but her, I had to make sure we were on good terms. That was so fucked up.
“What’s the point?’’ She tilted her head up and made sure to keep her eyes in mine. “Are you in my face because you want to have sex? Is that what this is about?’’
My frown deepened and my grip on her released until I let her arm go and it fell limply along her body.
“Mathis,’’ she went on, her voice still toneless and this time around my name on her mouth did nothing to me. “I’m bound to you. You said so yourself. It’s going to happen again so…’’ She gestured at the stairs as if saying we should go upstairs and have sex like someone would say let’s go brush our teeth.
“I had you begging for me once, Lila. You will again,’’ I growled lowly, my voice as stormy as I felt. My nose was close to hers, my lips brushed hers sur
reptitiously and I watched mesmerized and pissed off how her pupils dilated, the black eating more and more of the blue in her eyes.
“Maybe. Probably,’’ she replied and shrugged. “Sex is sex. You’re well versed in that department and we both know sex can be disconnected. I could beg you to do all the dirtiest things we had both ever thought of and still want nothing to do with you outside of bed. I guess that’s exactly what you want, so what, do you want more?’’
“Is that what you want?’’ I asked, breathless and oddly bereft. I didn’t understand her and I didn’t know how to react in return.
“I don’t want anything about this damn life,’’ she retorted, her voice harsher, her eyes narrowed.
“That’s right.’’ I glared back at her, my breathing shallower, my blood buzzing in my temples as my hands clenched into tight fists to prevent myself from grabbing her thin shoulders and shaking her.
“What is that supposed to mean?’’ Her shoulders stiffened and the distance she showed disappeared and I saw the same Lila I met that day at Carter Manor, the same Lila who had been going head to head with me since we married, the same Lila whose fire burning inside her drew me.
My cock hardened in my pants, my whole body coiled as if ready to grab her and fuck her with all the tension I felt, with all the anger and countless emotions she forced on me without knowing. Not long ago she said I was crazy, and she couldn’t have been more right. At that very moment, feeling my control slipping away I had never felt so crazy.
“You hate this life where you have food bursting in the fridge, an unlimited amount of money to spend on anything you damn well please and a man who can fuck you long and good.’’
“Because money and sex is all that’s important to you, right?’’ She poked my chest once and then pushed me away with more strength than I expected, forcing me to take a step back. But when her hands were flat on my chest she couldn’t hide the tremors in them and I couldn’t place if it came from anger or another emotion equally intense. “You’re an empty man who would rather use the past as an excuse to be an asshole and a shit brother and son!’’
“Don’t fucking go there, Lila,’’ I warned between gritted teeth, getting back in her face. “Just don’t.’’
“Or what?’’ She snorted without any humor or the delicate behavior she hid behind. “You hate it when someone tells you how it is. You only know how to control people, direct them, toy with them and manipulate them. You have not a damn clue as to how to be a real man. You’re the same kid who lost his brother two decades ago!’’
Her voice, her words rang in my ears. I was shaking, anger filling me like never before. I grabbed her chin between my fingers so tight I was sure it must hurt, but I didn’t care. It barely registered in my head.
“Do you believe you’re that much better?’’ I asked, my voice so cold I saw goosebumps breaking out on her pale skin, I felt the shiver going through her and the grimace on her face told me it didn’t come from a nice place. “Lila, do you really think I didn’t look up your background before I said ‘I do’? I know you were on the streets in this city. I know you had nothing and you were desperate enough to sell yourself to Carter Manor to get money, food, clothes. You’re here, wearing my last name, sharing my bed, fucking me, eating my food because you’re so damn scared to go back to the streets. You’re a scared little girl who would do anything, even fuck the very man she despises, to stay away from the streets. Who’s more pathetic here? You or me?’’
Loathing poured out of her, making my damn heart pump painfully in my too tight chest as my lungs burned. That’s why it didn’t surprise me when her right hand cracked against my cheek, sending my head to one side as pinpricks of pain spread over my abused cheek.
Instinct told me to bring a hand to cover my cheek, but I didn’t move. I kept my hands at my sides, clenched into fists so tight my knuckles ached and the veins in my arms bulged visibly under my fair skin as if I had an intense workout.
Our eyes were still locked, hard and unyielding. She didn’t need to open her mouth to tell me she hated me, I read it in her blue eyes, in the way her mouth pursed, in the colors rising in her elegant high cheekbones. All the traces of her anger and hatred shouldn’t make her beautiful, but she was. Every time she felt something deeply she was beautiful, mesmerizing.
Every time she fascinated me.
And every time it confounded me furthermore.
The sound of her loud breathing was harsh in the quiet apartment, reminding me of last night when I had my mouth on her pussy or when I had my cock in her. She breathed the same way, only moaning every few seconds. That too confused me, making my anger falter long enough to send a message to my body that made my arousal impossible for me to ignore.
Harshly, without finesse or care if I would hurt her or turn her off, I fisted the hair behind her head and brought her face closer to mine. Her eyes widened for a second before they narrowed on me again.
“Don’t come any closer to me.’’ The bite in her words made my cock twitch and my breath stutter. I was sick. This was sick.
“Going to hit me again?’’ I taunted and snaked my other hand behind her to grab her ass. I pulled her into me. Her hands laid flat on my chest, but she didn’t push me away. “Doesn’t look like it.’’
She closed her eyes then, so tightly the corner of her eyes wrinkled. “Stop.’’
“Why should I? You want me to fuck you and that’s what you hate me right now. I piss you off, you hate me, but you still want me so bad that you’re willing to overlook everything that happened tonight.’’
She whimpered, a small sound that I knew meant I hit the nail right on the head. She was a victim to that damn attraction, just like she ensnared me in her beauty and fire, that damn fire that was making me lose it more than I ever thought I would.
I was an asshole, she was right about that because not once did I think about stopping, about not touching her. And when her hands on my chest started wandering over my pecs and down to my abs, it only settled it.
My hand on her ass grabbed her again, squeezing the ripe expanse through her pants. I breathed out loud, trying to tame the beast inside that only wanted me to tear off the clothes from her body and take her like an animal, but I knew I would only be able to delay the outcome.
Her hands fisted the front of my button-down so hard the buttons would pop soon if she kept her hold on it like this. I didn’t stop her, didn’t care about the button-down or anything other than the need for this woman.
I wanted to get her under me.
I wanted to show her that she couldn’t resist me and what I did to her.
But it was when her hips pushed against my hard cock trapped inside my slacks that I lost it. The pleasure, the want, the lust exploded and I let it out.
On a growl I attacked her mouth and took advantage of her surprised gasp to slip my tongue inside her mouth and taste her. I could make out the wine we drank earlier and her own taste. She moaned in my mouth and tugged me closer to her, her movements hard, harsh almost violent like mine.
My hand in her hair behind her head tightened around her strands and I didn’t care if it hurt her. I needed her pain, needed her moans, her to beg me. I fucking needed her like I had never thought it was possible. That violence in the desire could have scared me if I wasn’t too far gone.
When her tongue caressed the roof of my mouth I moaned in her mouth and pushed her hard against the wall flanking the staircase. Her breath left her at once as I broke the kiss. Her eyes blinked open, glazed over and the pupils shot. Her hands fell to my belt, quickly working it open with shaky movements as I tore open her blouse. Her breasts, perfect, round and generous were presented to me in lavender lace. As soon as my belt fell to the ground in a loud sound to the floor, I forcefully trapped her hands against the wall and pushed down her blouse and cardigan, smirking when I saw the mound of fabric on the floor at our feet. But I didn’t waste any time. I couldn’t when Lila’s hand went back to me to w
ork open my slacks, touching my cock with a touch that had nothing innocent or tentative to it.
I groaned and pushed her hands away again, earning myself a plaintive whimper from her, but it soon turned into a moan when I opened her pants and pushed two fingers in her wet pussy, closing my eyes at the sensation. She was tight, so damn tight around my fingers, and pulsing in time to her increasing breathing. One of her hands closed tight around my wrist, but I knew it wasn’t because she wanted me to stop. With the way her body undulated against the wall, her hips chasing my fingers, she wanted to make sure I wouldn’t stop, not until she got off all over my hand, drenching me in her arousal and musky scent.
“Step out of your pants,’’ I ordered harshly in her ear, my body pressed against her, hindering the movements of my fingers thrusting inside her. She wriggled against me, but I didn’t let her go. In fact, I grabbed her hair again and took her mouth in a bruising kiss. “Now, Lila.’’
Her breasts pushed into my chest, heaving from her fast breathing. I needed to feel her skin against mine and she must have heard my thoughts because she started opening my shirt, letting it hang down my arms at my elbows as she placed an open-mouthed kiss on my chest, her tongue peeking once, teasing me.
My head fell back as I her legs moved, finally doing what I asked. I didn’t have the time to look her over in her scant underwear and the lavender lace contrasting to perfection against her light toned skin. She put her hands in my pants on my ass, right under my underwear and pushed everything down. As soon as my pants hit the ground, Lila’s small hand was around my aching cock, pulling, torturing me deliciously. Guttural sounds left my mouth and I couldn’t take it anymore. Lila’s core clenched rhythmically around my fingers. Her desire pooled on my hand and down my wrist. My cock leaked pre-cum that she used to slide easier along my shaft and I thrust my fingers in and out of her again, eyes locked onto her as if daring her to come before me.
Be A Doll Page 22
