Page 31 of Scream (Duchess & Devils #1)

And that's how we spend the next three days - shopping, eating, visiting museums, taking the train to different cities, just the two of us, like it was meant to be.

When we're back in New York, it's like we never left.

We go back to our morning routine, running in Central Park instead of the neighborhood she's used to.

I trail behind her, loving the way all the pasta she ate in Italy filled her out.

Her ass bounces with just the perfect amount of ripple in her baby pink sweats, and I have to keep finding different things to look at while we run.

Otherwise, I have to pinch my dick to keep from growing too hard in my athletic shorts that don't hide a goddamn thing.

Which is why when she runs in a different direction we're not used to, and she stops, I'm not prepared.

I knock us both down, and we stumble, rolling and twisting together until I stop us from going into a little brook.

I land on top of her, her legs on either side of my hips, and I have my hands on her back, her hands and chest flat on mine.

But my body is responding to her. I look up with a wince when I see the scrape on her forehead and the twigs in her hair. "Are you okay?"

Her warm breath fans out on my cheek. "Ye- erm, yeah."

"Fuck," I breathe, unwilling to move, but my hand goes up to the blood on her head where she must have hit it during the tumble.

"Savage..." her plush pink lips part and-

“Fuck it.”

I attack her mouth, taking the kiss I should have on her wedding day, and plunge my tongue as deep as I can, tasting every centimeter of her mouth, taking every breath as my own.

She gives back, her hips roll, and she moans, it's fucking perfect .

Her teeth nip my lip, and my hand finds its way to her breast, cupping, palming, in search of what I know are fantastic nipples, thick and ready to be gorged on and suckled.

The kiss turns frantic, too fucking frantic, and soon I'm groaning with her, finding ecstasy together like two horny teenagers in the backseat of a cramped, beat-up Honda Civic on prom night. I only pull away to encourage.

"There you go baby, fuck, you’re perfect, Sabrina. Don’t you dare stop. Don’t… oh, fuck. Find it baby. That’s it. That’s my good fucking girl, Bri. Oh, fuck. I'm coming with you, don't-"

"Ugh, Parker!"

Every demon that I carry on my back burns alive at the sound of my name on her lips.

It should be illegal for her to rasp my name like that.

I'm unashamed when I let go with her, feeling high as fuck, a shiver rolls down my spine, but I don't stop moving until she does.

I pepper kisses on her chin, her cheeks, on the tear rolling sideways to her temple.

I collect myself and then help her up, my heart plummeting at the tears still streaming down her face. "Are you okay?"

She shakes her head. "That shouldn't have happened."

But I have to ask, "Do you regret it?"

“In my entire life, that will be a moment that I will never regret. Ever.” She shakes her head almost violently.

"I don't regret it, but now I feel so incredibly guilty.

God, Parker!" She puts her hands in her hair, her eyes crazed.

"I'm married . To a fucking mafia boss. He could have people watching us.

This can't happen again. I need you. I-I-I-"

Say it baby, tell me you love me.

"I would die if he did anything to you. I can't lose you.

" She sobs, and when I lift my hand to wipe away her tears, she lets me.

Big green eyes look up at me beneath her brown lashes and fuck, my heart both breaks and swells at her beauty.

Even crying, pink and a little blotchy, she is the most beautiful thing to have roamed this earth.

"You could never lose me. "

"You can't know that. So this can't happen again." She turns away from me, and my heart cracks right down the middle as she starts jogging away.

When we work out, it's no longer just us - we go to Raven's and work out with her and her guys.

Sabrina avoids being in close proximity or alone with me, and I feel like I'm dying. She hasn't baked. Hasn't read. I doubt she's sleeping with how baggy and purple her eyes are getting.

It takes me another week to get a moment alone with her at her home in Brooklyn before we're on our way to see Raven and the guys, after a long, grueling meeting she had at the firm.

Her shoulders are high and tense, a sign that tells me she's overstimulated, and needs quiet.

I let her breathe before I capture her elbow and pull her into the home gym, where I know Maksim didn't have any cameras installed.

The idiots he sent didn't think to check if maybe I had cameras installed first.

"Savage!" She gasps when I have her against the wall.

"Look at me, Sabrina."

She obeys me too easily, too sweetly, too perfectly.

"You're avoiding me," I say, putting my forearm over her head, the other hand by her arm, caging her in.

Her eyes flicker but it's not fear, it's lust, and goddamn, if I weren't trying to be a good man, I'd press my fucking luck and take advantage of this situation, have her wild and untamed, riding me with abandon, fucking up into her until we fall off the closest cliff together.

She licks her lips and I follow the tip of her tongue. "I'm not avoiding you, Parker..." her lips close when she swallows and part again.

"What we did wasn't dirty. It wasn't wrong. In my heart, my mind, it was right. It felt too fucking good for you to just avoid me, to make it like it never happened."

Her lip hitches on the side and her brows shoot up. "Is that what you think I feel, Savage?"

"Isn't it?"

She shoves me off, and I step aside, letting her believe she has the strength to do so.

It's cute. She rakes one hand through her hair, and I love the way it falls forward as she holds most of it back behind her head.

Her other hand fists and sits on her hip.

"I have so much shit in my head all the time, and none of it is about you.

That's fucking rude. I know it. I feel it.

Just saying it out loud makes me sound god awful and maybe I am.

But it's so fucked up in here." She points to her head.

"It is so fucked up and you deserve someone that can.

.. you deserve better. More . More than what I could ever give you.

More than someone else's wife. You don’t deserve to be a dirty secret. "

"Sabrina-"

Her eyes snap shut, and the distress is evident on her face. I can't change her mind, and I feel like I’m going to die trying. "I can't. There is so much more to it. Please, try to understand me."

"Let me take that burden, baby. Give me what fucked you up, so I can take it for myself. You think one more scar will hurt me?"

She laughs, but it's bitter and hollow. "Your scars are beautiful and rightly earned.

Mine is nothing more than functioning madness.

My scars are beneath the surface. Behind my eyes and under my skin like invisible tattoos.

I didn't even earn them. They were given to me by-" she shuts her lips and rolls them inward.

I quirk a brow. "By...?"

"It doesn't matter anymore. Just please stop. Or I'll let Mama know I no longer need your services. That I've relented on Maksim's account and have chosen to have his security detail trail behind me."

I huff out a laugh. "You threatening me, sugar?"

She blinks and then looks down, avoiding my gaze.

"I'm telling you to give me your scars, to share your madness, and you threaten me?

" I take a step towards her, and she gives me the satisfaction of not stepping back, so I continue to stalk like she's a wounded animal.

But when my fingers are tangled in her hair, and my other arm goes around her waist, clutching her so tight against me, my dick throbs and comes to life.

She lets out a little gasp and fuck do I love that sound.

My lips are so close to hers, and I know she feels how hard I am just being in her presence, against her soft stomach, and that shit drives me wild, too.

"Threaten me again, kitten, I fuckin’ dare you.

Tell me to my face you don't want me around.

Say you can't stand the sight of me. Tell me you fucking hate me, and I'll let you go.

I'll leave. You don't even gotta tell your mama a goddamn thing.

I'll disappear. But if you think for even one fucking second, I won't just be hiding in the shadows watching, you're dead wrong.

You aren't getting rid of me. So do it. Threaten me again. "

She lets out a sob but there ain't tears in her eyes. She shivers in my arms, but she's not disgusted, she's responding to me. My body. My scent. Me. "I can't ."

"That's what I fucking thought," I let her go.

"Get your shit and get ready so we can go see Raven and her trio. Threaten me one more time, Sabrina, and I'll put you over my knee and spank you raw. Them I’ll tie you up and fuck you till all you can do is gasp my motherfuckin’ name again. " I promise.

She goes quickly, and once I'm in my room, I pull my dick out and tug, images of the way her eyes dilated when I promised to spank her raw flit around in my mind. I spill so hard and fast; I can't help the grunt that flies out of my mouth.

Fucking hell.