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“Would you like it better if I were rude? You want me to be pushy and controlling?”
“I don’t want you to be anything at all.”
I step closer to her. We’re alone in the darkness at the edge of the lawn. There’s only moonlight here spilling weakly through her hair. “I can be a bastard if that’s what you want. You think I don’t know how?”
“Go ahead then.” She tilts her chin up, meeting my eye. “Do it.”
Fuck, I want to.
I need to slam my mouth against hers. Kiss her hard, bite her tongue, make it hurt but make it feel good. I want to drag her close and feast on her, fuck her until she remembers how much she loves having me inside of her, but that would only prove her point.
She needs to want it too.
“That money is yours,” I repeat firmly. “It’s every dollar from the spreadsheet. Every dollar you spent on your plan. I know it fell through, but you can have that back at least.”
She opens her mouth to bark something, but stops herself and looks down at the money again. “That’s… actually nice.”
“I tried.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.” Her face hardens again. “I don’t want to marry you.”
“I don’t want to marry you either.”
“And yet here you are. You can call this off.”
“No, Mari, I can’t, that’s what you don’t seem to understand. We’re both trapped in this, only in different ways.”
If not me, then someone else in my family, and I’ll be damned before I let any of them suffer for my choices.
She continues glaring at me and I love it, but she shakes her head and shoves the money down the front of her dress.
I catch sight of a black lacy bra.
“You wore that for me, didn’t you?”
She glances down at herself. Color grows in her cheeks. “It fit right, that’s all.”
“Liar.”
“Okay, I wore it for you. So what? That doesn’t mean anything.”
I move closer. I touch her cheek and she could pull away, but she doesn’t. “You’re going to fight me for every inch, aren’t you?”
“I really hope not.”
I brush my thumb along her jaw. She bites her lip, the anger softening. Want hammers my heart, desire burns in my veins. Mari’s so fucking pretty, curvy in the right places, but still small and delicate. Smooth skin, an upturned nose, mouth like heaven—
“What are you two doing out there?” Barbara calls from the patio. “You stargazing or what?”
Mari’s face shuts down and she moves away from me. “I was showing him your plants,” she says, hurrying back to the light of the house.
“Well, get back here, I got some dessert.”
I linger a moment. There was a brief second where Mari didn’t look like she hated me.
And deep in my chest, in the blackest recesses of my ruined heart, I feel myself wanting her to always look at me like I’m more than a monster taking her by force.
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