Page 48 of Bound By Flames

“Ares…” she mutters, her eyes closed as I press a rough kiss on her forehead before shutting off her bedside light.

“Yeah, princess?”

“You forgot something.” She yawns like a kitten. “You hate mess—” she murmurs.

I frown.

What is she saying?

“Hate…mess,” she whispers, then her hands fist the sheets, and she fidgets before her breathing lowers and becomes regular. I take a step back, observing her in our bed, the golden ring on her right hand glowing in the dark of the night. Whatever she was trying to say before falling asleep won’t stop me from keeping her.

I fell for my wife tonight.

And there’s no going back.

Chapter 13

Mia

“Hey,” a raspy familiar voice expresses while I stretch myself in the sheets, my legs weighing a ton after last night.God, why did I choose to run away in the woods?I could have picked a more elegant and swift way out. Always acting before thinking.

So stupid.

It doesn’t matter anyway, because Ares saw me and, well, kind of made me let my guard down, which I didn’t expect. The way he grabbed me and asked me to fight, as if he knew I had it in me, broke my heart.

That was the first time someone had tried to keep me.

So much so, this man had run after me into the woods, asking me to keep on fighting.

To stay true to myself.

I knew in my heart I couldn’t leave. That I needed to stay to see if maybe, just maybe we could become more. That this whole shitshow of a marriage could become more than what we both ever expected from it. The way his hold had tightened when I told him about Kiara made my heart pound so hard in my chest, I was afraid of it bursting out of my skin.

He was hurt. Yes, my larger-than-life husband, president of the biggest MC club in the country, was hurt. The look in his green, leafy eyes was unmistakable. He thought I had left because of him, and I didn’t expect his words to break my heart that much.

Perhaps this marriage could become something more.

Perhaps there was hope.

He carried me against his warm body, making me feel safe and loved in a way that made butterflies storm in my belly. But then, as he tucked me in our bed, his leather scent covering me like a balm, I remembered something. The look in his eyes each time he saw my clothes on the floor, the way he clenched his fist when I was late, his jaw ticking each time I answered him with a sharp answer rather than what a good, tamed wife should have replied with.

Ares had forgotten something crucial last night, that perhaps got lost in this dramatic end-of-romantic-movies escape.

He forgot he hates mess, chaos and anything that doesn’t go as planned.

And I’m, well, I’m exactly like those things. No, actually, Iamthose things.

So I drifted into sleep, trying to hide the tears of the hard truth he didn’t seem to grasp yet. He would get tired of me eventually. I knew it.

Am I crazy to stay and see if we can figure this out?

Maybe.

But perhaps I am a little bit crazy because after spending months with my grumpy husband, I began liking him more than I thought. He has this way of being all broody and cocky, and then, there’s another side of him: protective, caring, almost…loving. I guess escaping didn't seem like such a good decision after seeing the way he chased me into the woods and looked at me like I was one of the seven wonders.

If there’s hope, wouldn’t I be stupid to not give it a shot?

“Hey,” I mumble in my sleepy morning voice as I watch my hot-as-hell husband button his black shirt, tattoos escaping up his forearms.