Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 96513 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96513 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
“Is this a game, too?” he finally asked.
I sighed. “It’s not a game.”
“I know you, Katherine. Everything is a game. And I thought that I’d made myself clear that I didn’t want to be involved in your games any longer.”
“If you think that’s what this is, then why are you in this hot tub with me?”
His gaze turned lethal and heated. I could see through the water that my nearly naked presence had the desired effect on him. I knew why he was here.
“My wife is walking around in nothing but lingerie, and I’m expected to stay inside?” he asked.
I finished off my glass of champagne and then slid through the water to stand before him. I moved to straddle him, but his hands reached out and gripped my hip—hard.
“Uh-uh,” he said, holding me in place. He ran circles along my hip bone.
“You don’t want me?”
I knew that wasn’t the problem. Camden had to be in charge. At all times. For all things.
He guided me forward, setting me down on top of him. His cock jutted up against my thin underwear. I fought to keep my face neutral, but I didn’t think that I’d succeeded. Half of me wanted to tear our last bits of clothing off and let him fuck me bare against the side of this hot tub. And the other half of me wanted to slap him across the face for his need for dominance.
“Would you like to know a secret?” He held me firm and moved his lips to my ear. “You, my darling wife, want me.”
It was a secret. One I never let anyone know. Not even my closest friends. Because Camden Percy was a means to an end. He was the man I’d married for money. He didn’t love me. I didn’t love him. Nothing in this world or any other could change that. But… I did want him.
“And you can’t have me,” he said, pushing me backward in the water.
3
Katherine
I stumbled to my feet, caught off guard by the abrupt change in direction. My pulse pounded in my ears and my cunt. Every place he’d touched me was super-heated.
I couldn’t have him.
Yes.
That was true.
Another fact that I knew.
Even if my treacherous body didn’t give a shit that I should stay the fuck away from him. That he only brought me misery. And bruises and welts and… all those delicious things I had somehow learned to crave. Not broken. No. Not like he wanted. I had too much fire in my veins to ever break before him. He liked me more as a wild mustang than a broken stallion.
“You’re an ass,” I spat.
He laughed once without mirth. “And you’re trying to distract me.”
“It was working.”
“No, it wasn’t.” He leaned his arms back against the edge of the hot tub and stared hard into my eyes. “We have to talk about this.”
I poured myself another glass of champagne and guzzled it. “No.”
“You can’t escape it forever.”
I knew that. But I could escape it as long as possible.
“You agreed,” he reminded me.
“And things change,” I snarled back.
He arched an eyebrow. “The contract hasn’t.”
“No, but we have.”
“Have we?”
I bared my teeth at him before whirling away to look out across the Manhattan skyline. So much had changed. Before we’d gotten married, we’d been fucking. It was great. Even though I hated him. But after the wedding, everything had changed. We weren’t the couple we’d been before saying I do.
I heard him shift behind me. His powerful legs moving through the water. Then his hands were on my waist under the water, running down my wet body.
“Katherine,” he purred.
I forced my body still, refused to react.
His nose brushed against the space between my neck and shoulder. My body shuddered involuntarily.
“You have my money. That’s what you wanted,” he said, trailing his nose up my neck to my ear. He whirled me around in the water, dragging our gazes together. “Now, give me what I require.”
I stared into his hungry eyes, saw the monster I’d married, and met him toe to toe.
“What if I don’t?”
He released me, letting the mere inches between us feel like a mile. Then his hand went up to the diamond earring in my ear. “Then these will be the last payment you receive.”
I reared back. “Payment?”
The word was horrific.
“What would you call it?”
“Yes, I sold myself for your money, but that doesn’t make me a prostitute. I’m not subject to your whims. I’m your wife.”
“Sure, Ren,” he teased.
I clenched my fists at my sides. I seethed. “Don’t you dare call me that.”
“What? Only Penn can? Still pining after your long-lost love? Even after he married someone else? Your mortal enemy?” he asked with a sardonic laugh.
“I remember you making me attend their wedding reception,” I said brusquely.
And how it had killed me to watch it and to see them happy together.