Page 64 of Dare To Free Us

My wife, my heart, had tried to leave me in secret, taking my child with her. When I saw her small form come out of the shop in that pitiful disguise, I saw red. The makeup and change of clothes made sense why the men didn’t catch her, but the walk was her downfall. I’d been watching those sexy hips sway for years. I knew her walk better than my own reflection. My heart felt like a giant took ahold of it and crushed it in his hand. No words could describe the feeling of that moment.

I wanted to scream at her. Shake her until her teeth rattled and ask why. She betrayed me. My emotions had never been so overwhelmed. Enough so that I momentarily shut down as she looked up at me in shock.

My soul ripped in two. The misery of what she was trying to do felt like my insides were turning to acid, burning me with fire from the inside.

I stared at her across the seat and she stared right back, like a cornered animal about to meet its end at the hands of a deadly predator. The dark eye makeup she wore and foundation that hid her beautiful skin scrapped at my raw nerves.

“Wipe that shit off your face,” I growled, unable to do anything but want to hit something, preferably spill blood.

With shaking hands Arianna began to wipe the makeup off with the sleeves of her sweatshirt. Then the tears were falling.

“How did you know?” Her voice shook more than her hands.

For a moment I contemplated not answering. She didn’t deserve the truth, the reason I’d been there. “I missed you,” I ground out. Her head popped up to meet my eyes. “Chris told me where you were going so I decided to follow you. Just so I could see your face and make sure you were ok.” Anger twisted my guts at the notion that I was there because I missed her and she was there to abandon me.

“Matteo, I can explain. I…”

“There’s nothing you can fucking say Arianna,” I said, turning away from her, watching the night darken the world outside the window. “You tried to run away. Tried to take my unborn child from me. You betrayed me.” I let every bit of my fury seep deep into my voice. My hands clenched and unclenched with the desire to destroy something.

A soft sob carried across the space where I stared out the window. “Wh… What are you going to do, Matteo?”

I turned back to her. “Whatever the fuck I want.”

Arianna was silent after that. The only sound in the car was her heavy breathing and body shifting on the seat. As we pulled up to the house her state became visibly worse, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t care.

I didn’t care that she was in need of comfort. Didn’t give two shits that she was scared of me.

The only problem was, now that we were home I had no clue what the fuck I was going to do. The only time I had ever displayed aggression around Arianna was when she gave her body over to me so I could fuck her until the stress left my body.

Never before had she been the reason for the amount of aggression I vibrated with. We’d had angry sex plenty of times after a fight, but that was different, we’d both wanted it to be rough.

Rough was exactly what I was craving, but it was dangerous. Without wanting to, in the state I was, I could hurt her. That was if she even allowed me to touch her, because apparently she’d decided she could go the rest of her life without me doing so. Why wouldn’t she refuse me now? Besides the fact I was seething like an enraged animal.

I may have been furious but I would never take her by force. I wasn’t that kind of monster.

The car pulled to a stop in front of our home. Instead of getting out and rounding the car I reached across and took ahold of her arm with zero gentleness. Arianna whimpered and shied away, but I dragged her out all the same.

Her terrified whimpers continued into the house where my mother was coming to greet us. Her wide eyed shock had zero effect.

“Matteo, what is going on?” she asked, looking concerned.

I walked passed without so much as looking at her. Arianna started crying harder as we made it to the bottom of the stairs, dragging her feet on every step. Yanking her up beside me a growl of annoyance vibrated my chest.

Upon reaching the bedroom I pulled her inside, slammed the double doors and flicked the lock.

For a moment I stared at the doors trying to remember what my plan was. Except I didn’t have a plan beyond getting her alone and demanding to know what the fuck she’d been thinking. Not just about abandoning me, but the danger she had put herself in. The risk she took of our enemy getting to her so unprotected, my brain told me to yell, scream and make her crumble until she begged for mercy.

But my body, that had gone too long without her legs wrapped around me craved the tight heat between her thighs.

Turing to face her, I found her standing at the end of the bed, shaking like we were standing in the middle of an arctic storm.

Slowly I stalked forward, unsure which option I would take.

Arianna put her hands out in a calming, defensive gesture. “Matteo.”

The sound of her whispering my name was too close to when we made love. My dick started to get hard.

“You were going to leave me.”