Julianna cracked a smile. “Very well, then. Would you mind helping me with that?”
“What?”
“Shutting me up. You offered to help me. Go ahead. Shut me up, husband.”
Her teeth grazed her lower pouty lip, biting down. For the briefest moment, I wondered how she’d look without the mask. Red lips. Fierce grey eyes. Silky black hair pinned up. A face with scars that told a sad fucking story.
“That’s very bold of you. Don’t challenge me; you don’t want to see what I can do.”
“I’m very curious, Killian. What can you do?”
Oh, she was feeling brave tonight. My wife wanted to play and so, I would grant her this one wish. One little game to be played.
I slightly bent my head so I could whisper in her ear, letting my lips brush against her earlobe. “I almost brought you to orgasm at our dining table, in front of my father – we both know very well what I can do.”
I didn’t miss the way her body tensed or the shaky breath she released. Her hand squeezed mine, almost involuntarily. “That was a rare circumstance. I was just–”
“Needy? So deprived of a man’s touch that you almost came from me barely even touching your cunt? I am the man you despise and yet, you were greedy for more.”
“– caught off guard, I was going to say,” she growled.
Such a pretty liar.
My wife could despise me as much as she wanted – but she burned for my touch. Her body responded to me like we had known each other for a lifetime, like she was born to be mine. Greedy. Wet. Needy. I could almost taste her yearning on my tongue – sweet and bitter.
“Do you touch yourself at night, when you’re alone in bed… at the memories of my fingers between your thighs, caressing your pussy?”
Julianna let out a choked sound and she stumbled, before quickly finding her footing again. “Excuse me?”
My lips curled at the way she stuttered, blinking up at me in what I assumed was embarrassment. I could almost imagine her cheeks flushing with heat.
“Now, now. Don’t be so shy. I haven’t come to your bed yet, so you must have touched yourself at least once since our marriage. If not before, then definitely after what happened in the dining hall. I did leave you wet and needy, after all. On the precipice of an orgasm. You must have ached, so badly. Or is it that you have taken another man to your bed since we married?”
My taunts made her eyes gleam darker. Her red lips thinned into a straight line and I felt myself grinning.
I knew very well Julianna hasn’t been with a man since our marriage – I was only taunting her, pushing her buttons because I quite enjoyed the look in her eyes whenever she snapped.
And even if she did take another man to her bed – I would have found out and the poor man would have been dead by now. His body, with all its shattered bones, dumped into the ocean, dragged away by the waves into the depth of the sea. Where no one would have found him. His existence very easily erased from history.
“Just because you seek pleasure elsewhere, other than your own wife’s bed, doesn’t mean I do the same,” she hissed.
I chuckled, appreciating the way she was spitting fire. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say Julianna Spencer sounds jealous.”
Her grey eyes darkened until they were almost black. “I could care less who you take to your bed.”
“Liar,” I rasped in her ear. “Tell me, do your nipples ache at the reminder of my touch? Does your clit throb when you close your eyes and think of how good my fingers felt between your thighs?”
I pulled back and Julianna sucked in a shuddering breath. Her lips parted as if to speak before she closed her mouth again, eyes blinking up at me in a daze.
I arched an eyebrow. “There we go. I shut you up, wife. Without even having to touch you.”
Her eyes turned into slits and I pressed my lips together, holding back a laugh. “Need I remind you, our thirty-nights were over last night.”
“So, is tonight foreplay?” she questioned, her nails digging into my shoulders, and I almost winced.
“Does foreplay include me strangling you because I’m very tempted.”
“I might be into choking, who knows.”
I stumbled, almost stepping on her foot and let out a curse under my breath. Julianna released a soft giggle. “Did you just stutter?”
“You’re maddening,” I grunted.
She gasped, the sound fake and overexaggerated. “Are you flirting with me, Killian Spencer?”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. I was this close to throwing her out of the window. When I married Julianna, I thought I ended up with a docile, compliant and dutiful wife. A sacrificial lamb. A meek woman repenting for her sins. Somewhat tamed and obedient. What I didn’t expect was a sharp-tongued woman who would get on my goddamn nerves every second of the day.