Page 38 of Sinful Bride

"What—"

"You want relief?" He looks down at me, and his expression has turned hard and unforgiving, all the lust gone, despite the fact that when my gaze flicks down, I can see the thick ridge of his cock straining against his jeans. "You want to come? Then stop turning my house into a battleground. Stop undermining me. Stop trying to make me feel like I'm not good enough for you."

"I don't⁠—"

"Yes, you do." He moves toward the door. "And until you stop, you don't get to come. Not by your own hand. Not by mine. Not at all."

"You can't⁠—"

"I can." He opens the door. "You want to play games, Elena? Fine. But I'm better at this game than you are."

He leaves, closing the door behind him, and I'm left alone in my bed, aroused and frustrated, and so angry I could scream.

9

DECLAN

Igo straight to my office, my body on fucking fire. I close the door behind me and lean against it, my breath coming in harsh gasps like I've been running. Fuck… like I've been fighting. My cock is so hard it hurts, straining against my jeans, and my skin feels too tight, too hot. Like I'm burning from the inside out.

Jesus Christ.

I press the heels of my hands against my eyes and try to breathe, and think about anything other than the image burned into my brain—Elena on her bed, her hand between her legs, that small vibrator humming against her through silk pajamas. The flush on her cheeks. The way her breath caught when I walked in.

The way she looked at me when I left, so furious, and so fucking beautiful. She’s so gorgeous when she’s angry, even when she’s trying to make me feel small, and I don’t know what fucked-up part of my psyche is responding to it. She’s a fucking ice queen most of the time, and the desire to watch her—to make her—melt is almost painful.

I should feel like I won something. I told her she doesn't get to come until she stops undermining me, and I meant it. I'm not going to let her tear me down in my own house while she gets off thinking about me in private. If she wants relief, she can admit what's between us. She can stop pretending I'm beneath her. She can stop treating me like I'm not good enough.

But I don't feel victorious. I feel like I'm losing my fucking mind.

My cock throbs, demanding attention, and I have to bite back a groan. I'm thirty years old. I've been with plenty of women. I've had good sex. But I've never felt like this—like I'm going to crawl out of my own skin if I don't get relief. Like I'm going to break something, or do something I'll regret.

Like I'm going to go back to that bedroom and finish what I started regardless of the consequences.

No.

Every instinct is screaming at me to go back to her, to pin her to that bed and make her beg the way I described. To show her exactly what I can do and prove I'm not the upstart she thinks I am.

To make her mine.

She is yours. She's your wife.

But only on paper. Not in any way that really matters. She married me because her father told her to. She wears my ring because she has no choice. She lives in my house and sleeps in my bed while looking at me like I'm something she scraped off her shoe.

And I want her anyway. I want her so badly I can't think straight. I can't focus on work. I feel like I can't do anything except replay every moment we've had together—the dance at the party, the wedding night when I made her desperate and then walked away, the arguments and the cutting remarks and the way she looks at me when she thinks I'm not watching. Like she's trying to figure me out. Like she's trying to decide if I'm worth her time.

Like she wants me too but hates herself for it.

I brace my hands on the desk. My reflection stares back at me from the dark window—copper hair disheveled, green eyes wild, and jaw tight with tension. I look like a man on the edge. A man who's about to do something stupid.

A man who's about to break his own rules.

Because that's what this is about, isn't it? Rules. The code I've lived by all my life. I'm not going to be the kind of man who takes what he wants without asking. I'm not going to have sex with someone who doesn't want it—who doesn't enthusiastically want it.

Even if that someone is my wife. Even if she's clearly as desperate as I am.

Fuck.

I unbuckle my belt and unzip my jeans, my hand shaking with how badly I need this. My cock springs free, hard and aching, and the relief of not being confined is almost enough to make me groan. I bite it back, my jaw clenched so tight my teeth hurt. I wrap my hand around myself, and my hips jerk forward involuntarily, seeking more friction. I'm so hard it hurts. So desperate I can barely breathe. And the image of Elena on that bed won't leave my mind.