I had forgotten what it felt like to truly be scolded like a child. My mother does it often, but considering that’s all she’s ever done, it felt less like being scolded and more just like a normal conversation with her.
But now? I feel nothing but small and bent out of shape, like a piece of paper wadded up in Zade’s fist. Pride bucks against that feeling, and I want nothing more than to snap something clever back and hold on to my dignity.
I’d only be proving him right, though. He’d look at me with superiority, and I’d only shrink further beneath him.
“Okay,” I relent. “Fine. I’ll just be mad at you for being a creep then.” I pause, hating the words but knowing they need to be said. “I’m sorry for misplacing blame, but I’m not sorry for the ass beating you’re about to get.”
He suppresses a smile, but he can’t contain the emotion in his yin-yang eyes. Pride. Amusement. Something deeper and far scarier than Zade’s hand wrapping around my throat.
I don’t give myself time to panic, nor do I hand myself over to the heat he invokes, I just let my body take over. I jerk to the left, bringing my elbow down on his outstretched arm before he can blink.
His grip loosens. And I seize the moment, pouring all my frustration into my limbs. I may not be able to hate him for Max’s misplaced blame for Arch’s death or Mark’s wandering eyes, but I can use that against him in a different way. In a way that matters.
I curl my fist and swing it back into his face and then crush my elbow directly into his nose.
His head jerks back just in time, my elbow striking true but hardly enough to be gifted with a bloody nose.
He lets go and it feels like I can finally breathe. Not because he was squeezing hard enough to genuinely choke me, but because I finally succeeded.
He chuckles, deep and low, as he steps away from me. The bastard doesn’t look the least bit ruffled, but I choose not to dwell on that. If I focus on everything I didn’t do, then I’ll only be stripping myself of power.
“There you go. That was really good, baby.”
“Don’t call me that,” I mutter, but really, I feel a tinge of pride swelling deep in my chest cavity.
“Or what?” he challenges. I sigh, not having the mental capacity to spar with Zade right now. I need a hot shower and then a long soak in the bath. I refuse to bathe without washing the dirt and grime off first. I don’t like to spend hours pruning in my own dirty bath water.
He goes through the motions with me for another hour, forcing me to perform the move over and over until I’m panting, and he has a bruise forming under his eye.
Somehow, it just makes him look sexier, and I want to punch him in the face for the tenth time all over again for it.
“That’s enough for today,” he announces, smiling despite the fact that I just nailed him in the face again with my elbow.
“Good, because I need to take a shower, and you need to leave because you’re definitely not coming within six feet of that bathroom,” I grouse, planting my hands on my hips.
A smile curls his lips, slowly and salaciously, until flames lick at my cheeks again.
Bastard of a man.
“Who said I even need to be in the same house in order to watch you bathe?”
My eyes narrow into thin slits. “There are no cameras in the bathroom.”
He chuckles with the same sinful undertones. He seizes my neck in his hand once more, but my body refuses to go through the motions again. His intention is dangerous, but not directed towards my life.
But rather my vagina.
Traitorous, useless thing, you are.
“That you know of,” he taunts in a low, husky whisper before placing a soft kiss on my lips and effectively silencing me. It’s short and anything but sweet. His hand flexes, and my pussy pulses in tandem. “Just don’t forget to scream my name when you’re holding that showerhead to your pussy. You can come knowing that I’ll be shouting yours, too.”
He releases me, slips a rose in my hand, and strides out of the bedroom, shooting me one last heated glance before clicking the door shut behind him.
I look down at the rose, twirling it in my hand as the world around me blurs. I’m not even capable of considering where he was hiding it this entire time. My heart is firmly lodged in my throat while I try to process his words. They’re currently wading through the animalistic arousal convoluting my body and struggling to make their way to my brain.
Was he just fucking with me? Or am I really about to tear apart my entire bathroom instead of taking a well-deserved bath? Because I did have plans with that showerhead, and Zade’s name tends to break free of my tongue when I make myself come.