The Marriage Debt (Underworld Kings)

I even forgot that.

“Must’ve opened up again when I took that shower,” I say. “It’s nothing. Just a scrape.”

“Of a bullet,” she says, sliding her finger across the wound until I hiss in pain.

I didn’t expect it to hurt this much now that I’m no longer running on pure adrenaline.

“Where do you keep your supplies?” she asks.

“My office,” I say.

She grabs my hand and tugs me along. “Come. Let’s go fix you up.”

I’m too obsessed with the fact that her hand is locked in mine to even notice the fact that I’m letting her drag me to my own damn office. She grabs my chair and scoots it in front of my desk, the same desk I fucked her on only hours ago, and points at it as if to tell me to sit down.

She knows better than anyone else not to give me commands.

Still, I sit, wondering what she’s planning to do.

“Where is it?” she asks.

I point at a cabinet in the back. “Third drawer.”

She opens it and takes out a box filled with medicine and gauze. Emergency supplies in case I’d be locked up in here fending for my life.

She sits down in front of me on the other chair and opens the box to take out some gauze, tape, alcohol, and a cotton pad. It’s deathly quiet between us, the rain falling against the windows the only sound filling the room.

Jill dips the pad into the alcohol and rubs it over my wound, which hurts like a motherfucker, but I keep the hisses to myself by digging my nails into my knees instead.

“It’s quite a gash,” she says, rubbing the gauze on it. “Does it hurt?”

“I can take it,” I reply.

“I’m not asking if you can take it,” she responds, looking me in the eyes. “I know you can. I’m asking if it hurts.”

“Only if I think about it.” I lick my lips. “Why are you doing this?”

She shrugs and proceeds to cut some tape. “You help me. I help you.”

I grasp her wrist and force her to stop. “Tell me the real reason.”

She pauses, her lips parted. “To thank you.” She swallows, unable to look me in the eyes. “For not killing Nick.”

The mere mention of his name makes me want to grab an axe and chase after him. But I don’t. Because she’s with me. Not with him.

She chose to be here.

She chose me over him.

“I could have,” I say.

I definitely would have if he’d kept talking to her.

“But you didn’t,” she says. “Why?”

“Because you begged me not to,” I reply.

She pauses to look at me. The compassionate look on her face is something I haven’t seen before. At least not directed at me. And it silences the beast inside me that wants to chase after that fucker just for attempting to snatch her away.

“Thank you,” she says, blushing. “That means a lot.”

My brows furrow. “Is that why you’re helping me now? Out of guilt?”

I don’t want to sour the mood, but I know damn well what kind of relationship we have. What I forced her to be. “I thought you hated me.”

“So? I can’t help the people I hate?”

Laughter spills out of my mouth. “That’s a really strange way to show you hate someone, Jill.”

“Yeah, well, it’s just as strange as kissing and fucking someone you hate.”

Fucking. Just that one word triggers all the delicious memories of her tight ass wrapped around my length. The first time I took her and made her my own. I even made her come from my cock. And I can’t fucking wait to be the one to claim her virginity too. To be the first to enter that tight, wet pussy and come inside.

I would’ve done it right there on that fucking desk if it wasn’t for that fucker ruining our fun with those loose shots.

But now that he’s out of the picture, all I can focus on are those pretty pink lips and the collar around her neck, signifying my ownership over this beautiful fucking girl.

Our eyes connect, and the moment feels like it lasts an eternity. Neither of us moves away from the other.

“I don’t hate you,” I say, my voice as heavy as my heart, as I release her from my grip. “God knows I fucking tried.”

“You said that before,” she mutters. “But I thought you were messing with me. Just like you were when we were kids.”

My eyes narrow. “When?”

She sticks the gauze with a little tape to my wound and then sighs. “Stop pretending you don’t know. You were such a bully to me. From day one, even when we were little kids. You stole my crown and kept taunting me again and again every time we met. You even invited that girl over just to shove it in my face that you were hooking up. Not to mention that poor bunny I tried to save that you just—”