Page 10 of Wonder

My eyes skitter over those marks again, my throat tightening. I focus on her, on Lyssa, watching her pupils dilate. “No you don’t, Lyss. He might have fucked you against that window, but I bet that if I slid my finger into your pussy right now, you’d be soaking wet forme.”

I push into her, enough that she can feel the hard ridge of my cock. Alyss tips her face up, enough that our lips nearly touch, her robe slipping open.

Every part of my body is hot with anger and want.

I want to wipe away every bit of whoever the bastard was that she chose over me last night. Want to remind her that whatever lie she tells herself to sleep at night, she’smine.

Lyssa cries out as my finger thrusts into her. I bet on her being wet for me and I was fuckingright, two fingers easily pushing into her as she climbs onto her tiptoes, trying to escape even as her hips buck.

She freezes when my hand wraps around her throat. I’m gentle, so fucking gentle, mindful of those marks on her neck, but I don’t let her move as I whisper into her ear. “See?Mine.”

Her breath stutters. “Maybe it’s for him and not you.”

Our eyes meet. There’s challenge there, a dare, even as her pussy soaks my fingers.

Alyss Lidell wants me. Once, she even loved me.

But she stopped admitting it six months ago.

This sharp-edged back and forth, this anger-filled space is the only way she’ll let me near her now. As if she can’t admit to herself that she might still want me.

Every single time is a fucking battle.

“Tell me to walk away,” I breathe, studying her face. It’s a plea. “Tell me to leave, Alyss. Tell me you don’t fucking want me, that you don’t love me anymore, and I’ll leave right now. I’ll go today and find a new club. You’ll never have to see me again.”

Maybe she can come home, if I’m no longer part of it.

Maybe I’m the problem.

But even as I say it, I know it’s cruel. Cruel to push her buttons when I know her as well as I do. Cruel to threaten her with my absence, to hold my presence over her head when her entire damn life is a void, left by those who didn’t – couldn’t - stay.

Iknow, and as her face pales, her lips parting, I feel like utter shit for it.

“Chess—,”

She cries out as I lean forward and toss her over my shoulder. Fists smack into my back as I carry her across the penthouse, giving her a second to slip back into her hatred, to push aside the panic and the grief I saw in her face.

I’m never going to leave her.

And having her hatred is better than having nothing of her at all.

Lyssa gasps when I put her down, spinning her until she’s facing the window. We’re both breathing heavily as I rip the robe away from her, baring her. My eyes run over her body, searching. I’m mapping each and every mark that doesn’t belong, her skin more familiar to me than my own.

There are a lot of marks.

She balks, her hands moving up to cover herself, but I wrap my hands around her wrists and push them onto the glass.

Right over the prints she left last night, with someone who wasn’tme.

“Don’t be shy now, baby. You’re very fucking familiar with this pose,apparently.”

4 – Alyss

My hands slam into the glass.

Chess’s voice is hard. “Don’t fucking move.”

My pulse is pounding as I stand there, frozen. I’m still wearing Hatter’s scent, still reeling from waking up this morning only to find myself alone. I reached for him, my lips curving and my eyes still closed, to find a cold space beside me.