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My hands are wrapped around his arm. Feeling a sense of spiteful pride when I see the divots my nails dug out of his arm, I tug and I yank, and Adrian slides his sticky fingers out of my pants.

Once he has, I shimmy to the edge of the bed, climbing right out of it.

Adrian props himself on his elbow, completely ignoring the straining erection lying against his hip. He has a lazy look of satisfaction in his face, almost as though making me come was all he needed.

It fades a little as he realizes that I’m adjusting my pajama pants as I head for the door.

“Where are you going, Loni? You’re supposed to be sleeping in this bed tonight.”

I know. Damn it, Iknow. But after the way I just let him fingerfuck me to an orgasm without once trying to resist him… and the way that, after all these years, he still has so much power over me…

Damn it!

Where am I going?

Where I always go.

“I’m taking a shower.”

THIRTEEN

THE SHOWER

ADRIAN

Oh, fuck no.

I usually pride myself on self control, but when it comes to Loni, I don’t have any at all.

I don’t know where I went wrong. The whole time I was touching her, she seemed into it. She was as receptive as she used to be, and for a moment there, I felt like I was eighteen again, touching my first pussy and hoping like hell not to embarrass myself by coming all over my lower belly.

I wasn’t full of shit when I told her I sleep naked. Now, could I have made an exception like I did her first night here? Of course. But with Jack’s words from last Wednesday still ringing in my ears, there was no time to ease her into wanting to be my wife. The Claiming ceremony is in six weeks. I need Loni to be so addicted to me by then, the idea that she could choose another Owed won’t even cross her mind.

Manipulating her body’s response to me worked before. I know how to make her feel good, and even if her heart takes a little longer to get in line, if I have her pussy, I can have Loni.

So I seduced her. It made it even better that the more experienced Loni knew exactly what I was doing because that meant she made a conscious decision toletme. In the moment, I wanted to touch her so deeply, fuck her any way I could, just to get her to forget anyone else she ever had while we were apart.

But I screwed up somehow. I thought that by giving her an orgasm and forsaking any pleasure of my own would soften Loni toward me, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. With the evidence of her arousal still on my fingers, she slipped out of my bed.

Shower.

She’s going to take a shower.

Like she needs to rinse me off of her. As if she wants to forget the feel of my touch on her skin.

As if pleasure between a husband and his wife is somehowdirty.

Yeah.

Fuck, no.

I scoot my ass across the bed, ignoring the ache in my balls as my erection bobs, bumping into my hip. I know exactly which of the four bathrooms in the house is Loni’s preferred one and I all but jog right to it.

If she’d locked the door, I would’ve kicked the damn thing down. That she didn’t bother tells me that she either expected as much from me, or she didn’t care that I might follow after her.

Hoping it’s the second, I throw open the door.

The shower spray is already on. I see her outline on the frosted glass door, furiously scrubbing her body.