Page 120 of Carnal Wagers

“I don’t have a wife.” He kissed my fingertips.

“You’re married.”

“Yes.” He kissed my jaw.

“Then you have a wife.”

“No. That word implies ownership. Possession. Obsession. Care. Trust. None of which I have for that woman.”

I barely felt his kiss on the other side of my jaw.

“That woman?” I whispered, disbelief coating the word. My ears rang with the crack rippling through my chest. He spoke of her—me—like I was nothing more than an afterthought.

“Alizé De Villier.”

For the first time in front of me, he said my name. Not with adoration. Not with respect. He uttered it with barely restrained disdain and contempt. It burned, and I wished he’d never said it at all.

Icy shards slithered between my ribs and twisted. I rubbed over the gut-wrenching ache hunching me forward, too focused on keeping the pain from contorting my face. I knew this wasn’t about us as we were now, but it was still me, and I couldn’t help wondering what would happen between us when he finally realized Alice and Alizé were one and the same.

“Do you know what she looks like?” I whispered.

“No. Never cared to.” He cupped my face. “But you, Jaysus, you’re beautiful.”

I turned my head to avoid another touch of his lips.

“So, if you passed her on the street, you wouldn’t know?”

His brows furrowed, eyes bouncing over mine.

“Aye, that’s right.”

“She could be somebody close to you, in your entourage, and you would never know.”

He snorted.

“Why is that funny?” I asked.

“You’ve seen the company I keep.” Pretty much only men, granted. “She’d have to work for me, and that elitist French doll would never stoop that low, not when she can lounge about, spending her millions in inheritance.”

Wow, was that how he saw me?

“But what if she was? What if she’d gotten close to you? What if she was someone you knew?”

He swept a strand of hair out from over my eyes. “Impossible.”

I barely restrained my growl. I was going to strangle him if he kept this up.

“Why?”

“You’re asking a lot of questions about another woman.”

“Just answer it, Cillian.”

His fingers tightened around my jaw, and he rolled his hips against my stomach. “Your fight is getting me hard.”

I ignored the digging pressure of his dick against my belly-button ring. “Tell me why it’s impossible.”

He groaned and crowded me against every hard edge of his chest, his thighs casing mine in. “You want to know how I’d know?”