“I-I didn’t know.” My voice cracked, but not nearly as bad as my heart did.
“I think you did, you just wouldn’t let yourself believe that someone could love you. I’ve known I’ve loved you since our first kiss, Ly. And it hasn’t changed, no matter how much you claim to hate me.”
“You shouldn’t have agreed to it. It was fucked up.” I tried to stay calm, but it was hard. So damn hard.
“You’re right, but—” His thumb swept over my jawline. “I don’t regret it.”
My teeth ground together. “Because you met me, is that what shit you’re tryin’ to pull?”
He was silent for a beat, then said, “No. I would have found you and made you mine, one way or another. You were always meant to be mine.” Tears flooded my eyes. I fixated on the boots on my feet until he squeezed my neck. “Ly, look at me.”
I pushed down the swell of emotions battling in my chest and met his gaze. His eyes had softened, all storms cleared. For a fleeting moment, I saw the Carver I once knew again. The Carverthat pulled me down in the rain to kiss me for the first time. The Carver who let me evade my home life by opening his doors to me any chance he got without having a single expectation. “Are you tellin’ me I haven’t had you with me all this time because of a bet that meant nothing to me?”
I glanced away. “Ithurt, Car. You hurt me. You made me think what we had was nothin’ to you.”
“What we had was everything to me,” he growled. “You were and still are everything to me.”
“Please…don’t do this.”
His brows lowered. “Do what? Tell you I love you? Well, guess what, I fucking love you. I can’t keep this shit at bay any longer. I want you here with me now, like reallyhere,and I want it to be real. I want to call you mine every goddamn day for the rest of my life. I want you in my arms every night until the day I die, and, most of all, I don’t want you to leave. Not today, not tomorrow, not in thirty days. Not ever.”
“Please,” I begged, blinking away tears.
“If you leave me again, I won’t survive it.” A calloused thumb smoothed over my thudding pulse, his blue eyes tracking the movements of the beads rolling down my cheeks. I’d never seen him look this vulnerable before, and it was scaring me more than his monstrous side ever had.
And then that emotion flipped right in front of me, like something just dawned on him.
“You’re begging me to stop because you’re not telling the whole truth,” he finally said. I froze in place, my body tensing as my eyes refused to meet his again. “And there it is to confirm it. You’re still hiding something. And I intend to find out what it is.”
“Wait—”
He dropped to his knees and hooked his corded arm behind my legs, forcefully lifting them to remove each boot. I wobbledunsteadily with the quickness of his movements, and then my legs were simultaneously tossed over his shoulders.
“You made a mistake in callin’ your friend that day, because now that I know this body has only ever been mine, I won’t ever believe that you don’t love me too.” He thrust my panties to the side and slid his tongue into my center.
I gasped and tried to reach for his hair, needing his mouth to move higher. “Please,” I begged, grinding my hips in his hold.
He teasingly swept his tongue to just beneath my clit. “Keep beggin’.”
“Fuck. Please, Carver.”
He groaned, but stayed away from where I needed him most, choosing to slide his tongue in and out of me, only making me more desperate for all of him.
“Please,” I begged again, writhing in the firm grip he had on my ass.
“Good girls get fucked. Bad girls get edged. And you’ve been bad.” He smacked my ass, thrusting his tongue deeper, then moved up to my clit. I only got a moment of relief before he shifted back down. An uncomfortable heat started to build and seized my lungs.
“This isn’t right,” I murmured through quick breaths.
“Really? I’ve never felt more fuckin’ right in my life.”
His fingers swept up, then slid down the line of my spine while his tongue licked along my center. But he didn’t stop there. He kept going down until his fingers met my ass. I froze instantly, and he chuckled.
“You’re gonna take whatever I give since I’m the only one in this marriage willing to give you everything. Even the things you don’t wanna hear.”
If it weren’t for the way his finger was still going down, and the movements of his tongue, that sentiment may have melted my frozen heart just a fraction.
“W-what are you doing?”
