Page 11

11

SEAN

Ellie nearly slams the front door shut in my face, glowering at me when I push it open wider and follow her inside. Her eyes flash with anger as she whirls around, crossing her arms, though it looks more like she’s trying to hold herself together.

I lock the door and lean against it, waiting for her to say something.

The way she presses her lips tighter, a dimple popping out in her left cheek, makes it clear that she’s not going to be the one to speak first.

What a welcome relief from the way she normally runs her damn mouth.

Just when I’m about to tell her that Dad doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about, her hands drop to her sides. Her nails dig into her palms, and even from the distance I’m at, I can see the tiny crescent moons she’s leaving there.

“What the fuck, Sean.”

It’s not a question, it’s a statement, but it sums up everything that I’m sure is going through her head right now.

I know I should have pulled her away when I saw my father coming toward us. We were having a good night until he came over and ruined it for us.

Sighing, I shrug. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you.”

Her eyes are red-rimmed, though there’s no glassy sheen to them. She’s not sad or hurt.

She’s livid.

“I told you that cheating on me was the one thing I wasn’t willing to tolerate.” She seethes as she strides closer to me. She glares up at me. “You’re a dead man once I tell Aiden.”

She spins on her heel, flying up the stairs two at a time to her bedroom.

I follow her, temper flaring. “You think that you can just threaten to have me killed? Our families forced us to get married for an alliance, Ellie. The last thing Aiden’s going to do is kill me.”

A white overnight bag flies onto her bed, and she steps out of the closet, carrying several different pairs of jeans draped over her arm. “Fine. If he won’t kill you, I’ll kill you myself. Cut off your cock and choke you with it, maybe.”

I rip the bag from her hands as she tries to stuff the clothing into it. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Ellie scowls, lunging for the bag and nearly tripping over the hem of her dress. She slams the bag back onto the bed and grabs the pile of jeans she abandoned, stuffing them into the bag.

“There’s something seriously wrong with you if you think that I’m going to be staying here after everything you’ve done. There’s no way in hell that’s happening. You want to go screw other women, I’m going to go find some man to fuck tonight, then in the post-sex clarity, I’ll kill you.”

Scoffing, I step into her way as she tries to head back to the closet. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“I’m sure as hell not going to stay here while you’re sleeping around with strippers behind my back!”

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I take a deep breath.

Right now, I don’t know what to say to get through to her. I could tell her that I didn’t cheat, but she’s not going to listen to me.

“Ellie, just stop and think about this for a moment.”

Drawers slam as she pulls out underwear sets, tossing them onto the bed beside the bag. “Why? You want to tell me that you tripped, and your dick accidentally fell into the stripper?”

“What if I didn’t fuck the stripper?” I start unpacking her bag, tossing the clothing back onto the bed. “Do you really think that I would go behind your back?”

“I think that Malcolm might have been telling the truth for the first time in his life,” she says, her voice cracking slightly.

Ellie turns her back on me again, grabbing a black quilted makeup bag from her vanity. She places it on the bed before snatching the clothes I took out and stuffing them back in the bag.

She gives me a sharp look that says she’s going to cut off my hands if I so much as think about pulling her clothing back out.

So I don’t.

I grab the entire bag and turn it upside down. “You’re not going to leave. Where the hell do you even plan to go?”

“I told you. I’ll find a man to fuck, and then I’m going straight to my brother and insisting he kills you.”

“Because you don’t give a shit about the alliance between our families.”

“Fuck the goddamn alliance!” She throws her hands up in the air as she spins to face me again. “I don’t care about it. I never did. I married you because it was what Aiden asked of me. Because I always have to be a good fucking member of the Lynde family. Do what Aiden says. Protect the family at all costs.”

“So what’s changed now?”

When she looks at me, the anger seems to deflate from her body. Her shoulders slump inward. “Because who the hell is protecting me?”

I stand there in stunned silence, not knowing what to say to her.

She has a large family, and from what Aiden’s said, Ellie has always been the one he doesn’t have to worry about. She’s the one who takes care of herself.

And now it seems like she’s wishing that someone would have stepped in and cared for her.

Which is what I’m trying to do right now, but she won’t let me.

Ellie seizes the opportunity and snatches her bag from the bed before disappearing into the hall, her skirt sweeping through the door.

“For fuck’s sake.” I look up at the ceiling for a moment, taking a deep breath and wondering who the hell I pissed off in a past life to get saddled with her in this one.

I head out of the room, jogging down the stairs in time to see her opening her purse and grabbing out her wallet and phone. She dumps them both into her overnight bag.

“Wait.” I reach for her, but she flinches away from me. “Aren’t you going to ask if I actually cheated on you?”

I don’t know why I bring it up.

She might know some of the women at the clubs and I can’t risk telling her what I’m doing. Ellie could let something slip to one of them, and then my chances at getting information out of any of the women would be all over.

Ellie can’t be trusted. At least not yet.

“No.” She zips up her bag, swapping her heels for a pair of running shoes. “Because either you’re going to lie to me and say you didn’t do it, even though I’ve spent years listening to you and Aiden brag about your conquests, or you’ll say you did.”

“And what if there’s a world where I didn’t cheat on you?”

“You’re spending time with strippers, then coming home to try and fuck me because they won’t?” she asks, her voice rising an octave and her tone making it clear she thinks I’m an idiot. “I deserve more than that, even from a fake husband.”

Ellie brushes by me, opening the front door to the pouring rain. She doesn’t hesitate for a second as she charges out there, not sparing me a glance.

Thunder rolls and lightning flashes, bright-white light highlighting the swells of the deep-purple clouds.

Her hair clings to her back, the dress soaked through and clinging to every inch of her body. She keeps heading down the driveway, not caring about the storm raging on around her.

There’s a part of me that wants to let her keep walking.

If she wants to be a child and throw a tantrum about this, then that’s her problem. Not mine. I didn’t sign up to deal with this shit.

Except I did when I agreed to marry her. When she told me that she could handle everything but cheating.

And since I can’t tell her that I’m not cheating on her, this is what I do have to deal with because she’s right. I may not like her, but even I know that she deserves more than this.

She shouldn’t have to be miserable for however long this marriage has to last.

“Ellie!” I take another look at the sky as lightning cracks before I chase after her, water sloshing up the side of my suit pants as I run through a puddle.

Her back stiffens, but she keeps walking.

There’s a small pain in my chest at the sight of her willing to walk through a thunderstorm to get away from me.

I hurry to catch up to her, stepping in front of her and blocking her path. “I don’t care how pissed you are at me. You’re not walking wherever the hell you’re going in the middle of a thunderstorm.”

“Fuck off.” She shoulders past me, her voice breaking.

“Get back in the damn house before you get a cold!”

“No!”

I don’t have time for this.

Arguing with her is going to be pointless.

Without another thought, I catch up to her again and toss her over my shoulder, my leg banding above the back of her thighs just above her knees so she can’t kick me.

“Put me down.”

I take large steps toward the house, the torrential downpour blurring my vision. “Not a chance in hell. You don’t get to run away when you have a problem with me.”

She pushes against my back, trying to raise herself up. My grip tightens on her as I carry her up the stairs. Her overnight bag drops as soon as we’re in the house and I shut the door, but I keep her over my shoulder until we get to the living room.

The way her body slides down mine, soaking wet dress clinging to all the right places, has the blood in my body rushing straight to my cock.

I’ve always liked Ellie best when she was pissed off, claws out and spitting like a kitten incapable of doing any real damage.

Her breath hitches, nipples pebbling and straining against the thin material of her dress. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing.”

“Enough. It’s time that you listen to me.”

She looks away from me, taking a step back.

In a flash, I grab her hips and haul her back against me. “No. I said that you were going to listen to me.”

My cock swells, pressing against her lower stomach. Her eyes light up with heat as she glares at me, her full bottom lip rolling between her teeth.

I keep my grip on her, knowing that the moment I let her go, she’s going to run again.

Hell, even if I wanted to let her go right now, I’m not sure that my body would let me. It seems to have a mind of its own when it comes to her.

“Ellie, I don’t know why the hell you care about whether I cheated on you or not.”

The look in her eyes would have another man backing away from her. She’s a caged animal right now and I’m not entirely certain she isn’t going to lunge and rip my throat out.

“I told you that I wouldn’t put up with you cheating on me. You did. I’m not going to keep living this bullshit life where the men fuck their way around the city and their wives are expected to just sit at home and allow it.”

I grind my teeth. For a moment, the truth is on the tip of my tongue.

Right now, I don’t think she would believe me even if I did tell her why I’ve been at the strip clubs. She seems to have a set idea of who I am in her mind, and she’s unrelenting in that belief.

Ellie juts out her chin, defiance shining in her eyes. “I may not want anything to do with you, but we’re trapped together. So, if you want someone to fuck, take control and tell me you want to fuck me.”

My hand sinks into her hair and I pull her head back, loving the way her hands fly to my chest to steady herself.

With an aching cock, I drag her bottom lip between my teeth. “So, that’s what this is really about. You’re jealous. You’re dying for my cock, and you can’t just swallow your pride and admit that.”

She scoffs. “In your dreams. I just want sex. I’m not spending the next however many years only screwing my vibrator.”

I pull tighter on her hair, throbbing as she gasps. “You’ll have to put on a show for me later.”

Her hands slide down to the buttons of my shirt, popping them open quickly. Ellie smirks as she shoves the material down my shoulders. “In your dreams.”

Growling, I slam my mouth down onto hers, demanding her kiss. She moans, nails raking down my chest as her tongue tangles with mine. Teeth knock together, but neither of us seem to care as she pushes me back toward the couch.

She reaches for the button on my pants, flicking it open before dragging the zipper down. I toe off my shoes and socks, mouth still slanting against hers.

Ellie breaks away with a gasping breath, shoving my pants and underwear down my thighs. I push them the rest of the way, my cock springing free.

I run my hand up and down my length, groaning as she turns around and scrapes her wet hair from her back, showing me the zipper on the dress.

As I pull the zipper down her back, I kiss her neck, sucking on her thrumming pulse until there’s a dark mark on her skin.

If she wants to run away, she’s going to have a fucking brand on her skin, so everyone knows she’s mine.

The fabric pools around her feet as I step back and sit on the couch. My hand slides up and down my cock, squeezing and rotating as I reach the tip before moving back down.

My gaze roams over the curves of her naked body, cock growing hotter in my hand. “Looks like you forgot the rest of your clothing.”

Ellie turns, straddling my lap. Her nails dig into my shoulders as her slick pussy brushes against the tip of my cock. “Did I?”

My hand skims along the sides of her breasts and the dip of her waist, resting on her hips as she rolls them. “You want to be fucked, you better sink down onto my cock now.”

I slide one hand between us, swirling my fingers over her clit. Her arousal coats my hand, her core already dripping.

She bites her bottom lip, slowly lowering her pussy onto my cock.

Groaning, I sink my hands into her hair and pull her down to kiss me, doing everything I can to not sink deep into her with a single thrust.

Ellie’s soft moans make me throb as she takes me deeper. Her inner walls pulse around me, clenching tight.

Her fingers dig into my shoulders for a moment before her hands start to explore, roaming over my body.

When she takes me fully and starts to rock, I grab a handful of her hair and pull her head back. Her breasts push forward, taut nipples begging for my attention.

Smirking, I flick my tongue over one nipple and then the other, her pace becoming uneven at the touch. “Look at how much you want me. I bet you’ve been thinking about riding my cock all night, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” she says, her voice a breathless moan.

“One night of my cock wasn’t enough for you, was it?” I thrust into her from below, taking control of her body. “I want you to pinch your nipples and you’re not going to let go until you’re coming all over my cock. Understood?”

Her moan is answer enough as she pinches her nipples after a moment of hesitation.

I let go of her hair, fingers sinking into the flesh of her hips, keeping her steady as I slam into her, needing to feel her deeper.

Her pussy clamps around me, squeezing harder with each deep thrust. I shift on the couch, changing the angle to hit the spot I know she needs me the most.

Ellie rolls her hips as she pinches her nipples hard, whimpering at the pressure.

Her body starts to shake as I stiffen. I drill into her as she comes, her pussy milking my cock as I fill her, strokes slowing as we ride out the waves of our orgasms.

When she finally stops shaking, she slumps against me for only a minute before getting up, her face completely blank.

It’s like someone has taken the passionate Ellie that was writhing in my lap and turned her to stone.

“I’m not going to go to Aiden.” She takes a blanket from where it’s draped over one of the armchairs, wrapping it tight around her body. “But this was a mistake. It’s never happening again. Go out and sleep with whatever strippers you want.”

I get up and snatch my clothing from the floor, seeing red when I look at her. “Fine. If that’s the way you want it, then that’s the way it’s going to be.”

“Good.”

“Do whatever you want, Ellie.” I pull on my wet clothing, hating the feeling of it against my skin, and grab my keys. “You always do anyway.”