Victor - Her Ruthless Husband (Ruthless Triad 3)

More tears are shining in Dawn's eyes by the time he’s finished. And he worries that his apology still wasn’t enough. To absolve her guilt. To reconcile the past. To clear a path forward.

But then she whispers, “I believe you. I believe you!”

Then she pushes her face into his to give him a kiss as passionate as her words.

27

“I believe you!” she says again, anointing him with kisses. “I believe you!”

She says this over and over again until the terrible past, everything Victor did, the anger and the mistrust….they all begin to fade.

And just like that, the time for talking is over.

Their kisses catch fire.

But it’s not like in the garage. This time Victor stays in control of himself. He tenderly turns her around and nestles her back into his chest before carefully guiding himself inside of her. He gives her ample time to adjust, then begins to gently make love to her.

She receives his gift, her hand coming up to nestle in his hair as he moves inside of her.

But after a minute or two of this, she asks, “What if I want to keep the part of our relationship where you ruthlessly dominate me? At least in bed?”

What if…

This woman.

The monster comes back with a roar.

A primal desire to reclaim her rushes through him on a dark tide of lust. All softness disappears and Victor begins to fuck her with that brutal hunger foremost in his mind.

He takes her on her side while biting into her shoulder.

Then he pulls her on to her hands and knees and punishes her with three swats across her beautiful ass.

That’s for each time you left me, he thinks darkly, his dick pulsing with rock-hard desire each time she cries out.

Then he fists one hand in her messy curls and takes her hard from behind, riding to the rhythm of her aching cries until she clamps hard around his cock and comes again.

And that’s for coming back. Thank you.

He kisses her, then lets her ride him for a bit while he caresses her belly and her breasts, re-memorizing this even more beautiful version of her body.

But then, he can’t take it anymore. Back on her side she goes as he drives into her ruthlessly from behind.

He takes her to incredible heights, wringing orgasm after orgasm out of her. Refusing to come. Not until she begs for him to stop and let her sleep.

To think, he spent a decade coming up with ways to make her life miserable.

Now he can deny her nothing. As soon as she asks him to be done, the orgasm he'd been holding back rips through him. Depleting him of everything. All of his love, all of his regrets, his entire soul…he empties it all inside of her.

And then…he pulls her into his arms for a cuddle.

It is so strange, he thinks afterward. He always assumed that talking about what happened to him when he was a child would drain him of his strength. But a new power courses through him as he falls asleep with Dawn finally back in his arms.

He doesn't feel weak. In fact, he's never felt so strong.

28

DAWN

It's funny. While I was debriefing my ten-year “marriage” at the Ferraro estate, I criticized myself so often for not figuring out what Victor was up to sooner.

And I particularly hated how hopeful I had been on the way to my thesis presentation. Had I truly thought a talk would heal the enormous rift between Victor and me? Why had I believed one conversation would change anything? I asked myself that question so many times.

But after that breakthrough night, I have to apologize to the hopeful version of myself who had gotten into the car with my guard, Wayne, believing that a direct conversation would clean up ten years of mess. Because the thing was, Hopeful Dawn never got to have the date night conversation she planned, but in the end, she was exactly right, and Bitter Dawn was wrong.

One talk changed everything. The following day I texted Amber.

ME: Hold off on bringing up the papers for now, I think. Working on a mosaic.

AMBER: Woo-hoo! That’s what I’m talking about! (But I will cut off his dick in and out of court if he hurts you again. Don’t play.) YASSSSS!!!

So yes, Victor shattered us on our last anniversary. But over the next few weeks, we stop rehashing the past and began to build something new, the both of us adding pieces to this upcycle of our relationship.

We talk. Like, every chance we get, we talk. Over breakfast, lunch, and dinner. As we dress for work in the mornings. Late into the night in front of Victor's fire, until both of us are too tired to do anything but go to bed.

We talk about our past, about how we were raised, about the kind of parents we want to be. We tell each other our fears, both the ones we’ve been hiding from each other and the ones we don’t realize we were carrying until we spoke or signed them out loud.