He raises his voice. “Then you should’ve heard me tell him that I was being an idiot when I said that.”
“I’d already left by then.”
“Also,” he says, talking over me, “I didn’t even fucking know you when Declan and I had that conversation. I was talking about Lili, not you.”
“Stop talking, Quinn. You’re only digging your grave deeper.”
He stares at me for a beat in tense silence. “You’re always going to think the worst of me, aren’t you?”
“Don’t get dramatic. You’re telling me I heard something out of context, and I’m accepting that.”
His brows shoot up. “But you don’t believe it?”
I can tell he’s on the verge of another outburst. I don’t want a repeat of the episode we had in the car where I get another angry tirade shouted into my face, so I pull away from him and walk slowly over to the windows.
As I stare down at the city lights, an overwhelming sense of exhaustion settles over me.
I’m thirty-three, childless, with no career or work experience. I was raised in an environment of shame and fear by people who didn’t love each other. All I’ve ever known from every man who was supposed to care for me is violence. I’m jaded, cynical, and broken in so many places, there’s not enough glue in the world to put me back together.
And I’m starting to have real feelings for a man who might be even more broken than I am.
I say, “I believe both of us have problems that we’re not going to fix tonight. I have trauma over my past. You have trauma over yours. Both of us are haunted by bad memories. I believe you wanted an arranged marriage to try to escape all that and find some peace, but you got me instead. A woman who has as many scars as she does demons. I believe we have an intense physical connection, but neither of us knows how to live with ourselves, let alone another person.”
I turn from the window and look at him. “I also believe you would’ve let Lili out of the contract if you’d known about Juan Pablo sooner.”
“Aye,” he says crossly. “What of it?”
“It just occurred to me that we never signed a wedding license.”
Frozen, he stares at me from across the room. I see his mind in action, the mad dash as he connects the dots. Then he passes a hand over his face.
“Fucking hell.”
“Yes. We’re not legally married.”
He turns around and pours himself another scotch. He shoots it, then sets the glass down carefully. Without looking at me, he says gruffly, “So you want out of the contract.”
It’s not a question. He says it as if it’s a foregone conclusion that I wouldn’t be in this room if I wasn’t legally obligated to be.
But life is never that simple, is it?
“I don’t know what I want. The past few days have ruined my ability to think rationally.”
He waits, unmoving, staring down at the empty glass on the bar.
My voice low, I continue. “But I meant what I said when I told you I wanted to know you.”
He lifts his head. Our eyes lock. A swell of emotion tightens my chest.
“I like you, Quinn. You’re smart. You’re funny. You’re kind. You’re protective. You’re also completely unhinged. What happened with you and Riley is still fresh. You’re still processing.”
He growls, “I wasn’t lying when I said I’m not in love with her.”
“And I believe that. But you can still be fucked up over someone even if you weren’t in love.” After a moment, I add softly, “Like I would be if this pretend marriage of ours doesn’t work out.”
His eyes shine. His jaw works. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows.
Then he crosses the room in a few long strides, takes me into his arms, and kisses me.
It’s passionate, bordering on desperate. He holds my head between his shaking hands and drinks deep from my mouth until we’re both breathing hard.
He breaks away and growls, “Permission to get rough. I won’t hurt you, but—”
“Granted. I trust you. Fuck me, fake husband. We can work out all the other bullshit tomorrow.”
His eyelids flutter closed as he exhales on a soft groan.
When he opens his eyes again, Quinn is gone. In his place is my black-eyed monster who comes out to play with me in the dark.
He flips me up and over his shoulder, strides over to the bed, and tosses me down to the mattress. I haven’t even caught my breath before he drags me by my ankles to the edge, thrusts my legs apart, flattens his hand on the middle of my chest, and forces me to lie back.
He tears my panties off and shoves his face between my thighs.
I cry out, arching.
He grabs my bottom in both hands and digs his fingers into my flesh as he lashes his tongue back and forth over my clit. Then he shoves it inside me, making me gasp.
I gasp even louder when he slides his finger into my ass.
“Okay, wife,” he says in a guttural voice, his mouth inches away from my exposed pussy and his finger wedged deep inside me as he kneels on the floor between my spread legs. “If this is the last time I get to fuck you, I’m gonna make sure you remember it for the rest of your life.”
He sinks his thumb inside my pussy, lowers his head, and starts to suckle my clit, filling me with his fingers and fondling me with his tongue.
The sensation is mind-blowing. As he licks, he squeezes his fingers together, then rotates his hand, then squeezes again. He’s manipulating me like a hand puppet. It’s hot and dirty and fucking incredible.
I dig my hands into his hair and start pulling as I writhe against his mouth with my legs spread as wide open as I can get them.
When I shudder and moan, he laughs darkly.
“My good girl likes to get finger fucked in all her sweet holes while she has her pussy licked, doesn’t she?”
I can’t form an answer. My eyes roll back into my head. I make an animal whimper of pleasure as I rock my hips frantically in a wordless plea.
“Aye, she does. She fucking loves it. Now come on my face so I can fuck all these tight holes with my hard cock.”
I’m going to die. He’s going to kill me. This is the way I go out, flat on my back with my legs spread in the honeymoon suite at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel as a crazy Irish gangster showers me in filthy words like a smut baptism.
At least I’ll die happy.
Making circles with both fingers, he flattens his tongue and drags it up and down my engorged clit, faster and faster, until I’m groaning and bucking and out of my goddamn mind.
I climax with a primal scream.
He finger fucks me through my orgasm, reaching up to yank aside the neck of my dress and pinch my throbbing nipple. I thrash against his mouth, sobbing incoherently because it feels so intensely, insanely good.
He surges up from his knees and falls on top of me, kissing me ravenously on my mouth, neck, and chest, dragging his beard over my sensitive skin. I taste myself on his lips and can’t decide if I should cry or laugh maniacally.
Rearing back onto his heels, he grabs the neckline of my dress and rips it apart with one savage pull. The sound of tearing fabric and the sight of my breasts spilling out seem to flick on his caveman switch.
His eyes flare wide. He snarls, baring his teeth.