Page 62 of Perdition

Hanging his head, he waited, listening to the ticking of the grandmother clock on the wall.

Four hundred and nineteen ticks later, Em emerged from the bedroom, her movements unsure, her bravado from earlier missing.

She was still determined, if that look in her eyes told him anything, but the wariness, the fear of pain, that apprehension that tightened her beloved features told him that she was genuinely unsure if she’d come out of the conversation intact.

Fuck.

This was his doing.

His wife, the woman he loved, didn’t trust that he wouldn’t hurt her.

Because he already had.

Putty against the wall….

Remaining seated as to not crowd her, he waited for her to sit on the loveseat across and to the left of where he was sitting.

Frost couldn’t take his eyes off her; she’d changed out of the robe.

She was wearing a pair of his old gray sweats and a gray sweatshirt—sans bra. Her feet were bare, her hair was pulled back into a loose bun, and her cheeks were still rosy from her shower. His gaze caught and followed the path of a water droplet that had fallen from a curl of her hair and slid languidly down her neck.

God, he wanted to catch that with his tongue.

He knew it would taste of her, a taste he missed like his own soul.

She was tense, her hands clasped in her lap, her body held as tight as a bowstring.

Finally, she filled the heavy silence, the whole of him attuned to her voice, unwilling to miss a single word or emotion or movement.

“I need to know what happened, Frost,” she said, her voice trembling. “I need you to tell me because I can’t keep doing this.I can’t keep going with the worries, the what ifs, the whys, and the anger—so much anger….”

She raised a shaking hand to press against her chest, as if she was keeping her heart from escaping…or to protect it from what was coming.

Fuck, she was scared of his answer.

And he was scared, too.

Because, in that moment, he was more aware of what he had to lose than he’d ever been.

In the desert, downrange of enemies, his life and death flashing before his eyes in a firefight had nothing on the way his heart was pounding like it was racing for survival.

Right then, sitting across from his wife, knowing, dreading that their marriage, their future, his every good thing he ever had or wanted was slipping through his fingers?

Terrified.

EIGHTEEN

She really should have guessedthat he’d come right in and make himself at home, since it was his home, but she hadn’t been prepared to find her husband, in full MC prez regalia of leather kutte, faded jeans perfectly molded to massive thighs and that meaty bulge, and a body hugging, dark blue Henley that brought out the color of his eyes and the perfection of his hard pecs, his sculpted six-pack, and thick, veiny biceps.

His short cropped blonde hair was just long enough for her to grip when he gorged on her pussy, and that dark, golden scruff on his jaw and chin was just coarse enough to leave those delightful red rub marks all over her body.

Damn.

She was fully dressed and in dire need of being naked again, because even her short-term memory of her husband didn’t live up the man who’d strode back into their house and made her all sorts of hungry.

At the sight of him, she’d gone from irritated at stubbing her toe to turned on as hell. It had always been like that with him. He was a beautiful, beautiful man.

And he was an asshole.