Page 34 of Forbidden Empire (Sinful Gods #1)

Nineteen

E SME

My fingertips gripped the edge of the marble counter so hard my knuckles turned white.

The chill from the stone bit into my skin. I stared at my reflection, hoping for some miracle.

No such luck.

The bruises were the first thing you saw, spreading over my face in disgusting splotches. The reds and purples had started to fade, but the new colors weren’t any better, a gross, sickly green melting into yellow.

The cuts on my cheek had gone crusty, the scabs making everything look even more dramatic. Basically, I looked like something out of a horror movie, no makeup department required.

“Lovely,” I muttered, yanking my black hair back and twisting it up into a pathetic French knot.

I’d thought about trying to cover the bruises, but that would only make it worse. As for my go-to red lipstick?

Not a chance. I’d look like a fucking corpse.

Everything hurt. Not the sharp, sudden pain that makes you gasp, but something heavier. Duller.

It was a slow, pounding ache that throbbed through every nerve, every second, like it was trying to remind me I was still alive.

I should be used to it by now. I wasn’t. I could’ve complained, but I didn’t. What was the point?

I had to remember: I’d fought back. I was still breathing. That had to count for something.

Rhea was going to pay for this. No question. Honestly, I wanted front row seats for when it happened.

The shower was running. Steaming, loud, practically vibrating with Aidon inside. Like I needed any extra reminders of him.

I mean, the man had been glued to me for days. Couldn’t even cross a room without him practically shadowing my every step.

And the crazy thing?

I didn’t even mind. Not really. Yeah, I was supposed to be staying in the guest room, technically, but somehow I woke up in his bed every morning.

Every single time.

Half the time, I wanted to sneak into the shower with him.

But I knew better. The hot water would torch my skin.

Every time we had sex, I tried to ignore the pain. I focused on how good he made me feel.

Because Aidon naked was the best painkiller I’d ever had.

I spun away from the mirror, unable to stomach another second of my reflection. The bruises mocked me in shades of decay.

However, whenever I caught Aidon staring, his eyes never lingered on the damage. Instead, they burned into mine with that intensity that made my stomach flip.

"Beautiful," he'd whisper, sometimes when I was naked beneath him, sometimes when I was passing him in the hallway.

Each time, something inside me unclenched just a little, a momentary reprieve. Like morphine hitting the bloodstream, not healing anything, but making existence bearable until my face matched my driver's license photo again.

My skin was knitting itself back together. My mind was another story.

Aidon's moods whiplashed between extremes, volcanic one moment, arctic the next, with no warning between eruptions and freezes.

Even when his hands burned against my skin, I could feel the underlying current, that electric charge waiting to shock us both.

I'd catch myself staring at him while he slept, wondering if we'd ever escape this power struggle or if we were destined to keep circling each other like predators, neither willing to yield first.

Could we ever exist together without keeping score?

I knew why he'd turned into a human ice sculpture; the whole Zeno's box situation and my vanishing act afterward.

The betrayal lived rent-free in his mind, filed away with all his other grievances, preserved like precious artifacts in a museum of resentments.

Yet for all his emotional frigidity, his body had different ideas.

The second we were alone, those hands would find me, contradicting every icy glare from earlier in the day.

Then, as soon as the moaning and panting died down and the night got bulldozed by the sunrise, he slid right back into his usual cold, distant routine. It was clockwork, every single time.

Daylight was starting to piss me off.

Every morning, it woke me up, all smug and bright, to rub it in: body satisfied, bed empty.

Like clockwork, when I saw Aidon after, he’d pretend nothing had happened between us. No glances. No words. No mention of how the night had ended.

It was like bodily fluids and feelings, especially feelings, never existed.

Last night? Same story.

We fought, fell into bed, and by the time daylight crept back in, he was gone like a ghost.

I spent the entire day dodging him because every time his eyes landed on me, I wanted to scream in his face.

Now here we were, tucked away in his ensuite bathroom, getting ready for bed all over again.

The air was thick enough to choke on, tension crackling between us.

I knew how this would play out: the second he stepped out of the shower, we’d fight, then we’d fuck, then we’d sleep, and then tomorrow morning we’d both pretend none of it ever happened.

Classic.

I also knew I wouldn't say a word tonight, even as the silence between us grew thick enough to cut.

We'd dance around it like always. Aidon would sooner walk naked through the Vegas Strip than volunteer his feelings first. The man kept his emotions under triple-encrypted lockdown.

I'd need a team of professional hackers to access a smile.

The only message that came through loud and clear was his iron-clad conviction that my safety belonged to him, like he'd signed some cosmic contract with my name on it that I never got to read.

I couldn't keep lying to myself about this. Every day felt like another round in a boxing match where neither of us would tap out.

My muscles ached from the constant tension, my mind exhausted from calculating my next move. I leaned against the counter, listening to the shower run, trying to summon whatever energy I had left.

This thing between us had an expiration date. Once Rhea was handled and the dust settled, I'd slip away.

Right now, we were useful to each other.

I wasn't stupid enough to deny that, but his constant hovering, the way his eyes tracked me across rooms?

That would have to end. His protection came with too high of a price tag. Only a fool would mistake this intensity for something sustainable, something real.

Whatever this was between us. This collision of bodies, this addiction, it had an expiration date stamped on it.

The tangle of feelings in my chest was nothing but chemical aftershocks, my body's way of making sense of pleasure that intense. I'd felt it before. I'd forget it again.

The shower squeaked off.

I tensed, listening to water droplets hitting tile, wishing I could fast-forward through whatever came next, the inevitable crash after the high.

Aidon stepped out from behind the shower door, steam curling around him. Water traced down his body, following every line, every dip, like it knew where it wanted to go.

His dark hair hung in thick, wet strands over his neck and shoulders. My mouth went dry. I couldn’t help but imagine my tongue replacing the water, following the same route, inch by inch.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" he asked, one dark brow arching as our gazes locked in the mirror's steamy reflection.

"I could say the same to you," I murmured, unable to tear my eyes away from the water droplets racing down his skin.

My throat tightened as he snatched a towel from the rack and dried himself with military efficiency, each movement deliberate and unhurried.

The air between us thickened, making it impossible to draw a full breath.

I ran my tongue over my bottom lip, making no attempt to disguise my hunger. His eyes locked with mine in the mirror, dark and unblinking, holding me captive as he closed the distance between us.

A droplet escaped from his wet hair, landing on my bare shoulder with the lingering warmth of his shower. His thumb brushed it away, the corner of his mouth lifting in that knowing way that made my pulse quicken.

His heat radiated against my back, too near, overwhelming. His nakedness crowded the space between us.

The way he just stood there, bold as hell, left me shaking.

He was naked, his cock hard and bobbing between us, a fraction from my ass.

All I could think about was turning around, dropping to my knees, and taking him in my mouth. The urge was immediate, impossible to ignore.

And he knew it. God, he knew it.

He crowded me against the sink, caging me between his arms, his naked skin radiating heat like desert asphalt at midnight.

That knowing smirk played across his lips as his exhale brushed my cheek like a whisper of flame, igniting something primal that raced down my spine and pooled between my thighs.

My body had already surrendered before my mind caught up.

Game over.

The man was a human inferno. Standing this close felt like dancing too near a bonfire.

I tried creating distance, but the air itself seemed to scorch my lungs. And still, I found myself leaning back into his space anyway, surrendering to that dangerous warmth, addicted to the exquisite burn of him against me.

I craved it.

The white-hot pleasure this man unleashed in me, stoking a fire that roared through my veins, threatening to burn me alive.

I edged closer. More. More. I wanted everything.

The blissful heat. The pleasure he delivered was tangled up with the sharp pain of surrendering to him.

It was addictive, like watching a disaster unfold and being powerless to look away.

My thighs quivered as his mouth grazed my shoulder, just that, nothing more.

My breath caught in my throat like I'd been running.

Heat lightning flashed beneath my skin, crackling down my spine. I let out a breath that sounded more like surrender than I wanted to admit.

His cock pressed against me, a reminder of what was coming, what always came. I leaned back into him, my body betraying every resolution I'd made in daylight.

The air between us still crackled with all our unspoken battles. The constant struggle for control, the games we played, the wall of distrust I'd built brick by brick, none of it had vanished.