Page 71 of When Sinners Hate
She looks at me from the stairs and sighs. “I’m tired.”
“I don’t give a damn. We’re not done.”
She steps forward, slowly. She walks until she’s in front of me on the couch and then just waits for my instruction. I don’t know what that instruction should be. I want to argue and trash the room and prove how pissed I am, but looking at her now – at the bruises on her face and neck and the frail nature of her – means I’m not allowing another second of time together wasted without showing her that I feel, too. Never felt so much damn anger rise through me as it did when I saw his hands on her. Call it possessiveness, or protective instinct, or whatever the fuck you want, but I felt it.
I reach forward, scooping her ass to me until she’s climbing on and sitting astride me. My hands travel to her hips, to her back, over her shoulders and down across her breasts. She barely moves other than to get in a little closer. I push her away again with one palm, pressing it over the length of her stomach and chest until it’s behind her neck and angling her forward. We kiss quietly. No hurry about it. No anger in my hold either, irrespective of my being furious still.
Eventually, I tug at the robe she's drowning in to get it off her, and then start mouthing at her nipples to cool myself all the way down. She rests her hands in my hair, smoothing them through it cautiously. It helps. It sends me to places I haven’t been for a long-ass time, if ever, considering this band of gold around my finger.
Sighing, I bite gently, letting her hands wind me down bit by bit.
“You’re really that angry, aren’t you?” she asks. I pull at a nipple with my teeth, sharply, testing both her and me. “I'm sorry. Let me take your anger away. Get lost in me – get lost in us.” My mouth stops, and I hover my lips on her skin. That's the kind of thing a Cortez wife would say, regardless of what she's been through. She'd think of her husband before her. “That’s what I’m here for, isn’t it?” I grunt, as she slowly rubs herself on my dick. “That’s what this marriage is.” My teeth sink in, dick aching immediately. “Just let me be part of it with you. Maybe we both need it.”
Her hands slide around to my jaw, lifting it up until we’re mouth to mouth again. “Use me, Abel.”
My head shakes, as I look up at her. “I don’t want to use you.” She frowns and starts dropping her hands away to lean back again. My hands tighten on her ass. “Leave them there and look at your husband. Touch him. Understand him. I want you to.”
She swallows and keeps looking me straight on. “You believe me?”
“Yes.”
And that’s enough. For now. There's just two inches of space between us and true, honest thoughts, until I stand up with her still in my hold and head back up the stairs. It’s time to mean it and start understanding what these growing feelings really are. I’ve already proved I’ll kill for her, now I need to recognise whether or not I’ll die for her.
~
The sweet smell of syrup and waffles wakes me. I look sideways to find an empty bed, so swing my legs to the floor and stare at dark walls flecked in sunlight. Visions of yesterday come fast and thick, and I'm unsure if I’m any calmer thismorning than I was last night. Good fucking doesn't change what happened. Thoughts of vengeance and death don’t go away overnight. They don’t settle because of one night soothing fury and hatred into a low-lying slumber. Blood still fills my visions, and my murderous hands still look the same as they always do.
Still, something did change between us here. We took it slow and easy for a while, and then I let it turn as passionate as we needed to be. Maybe we did use each other a little in the end, and maybe it was just the aftermath and me reclaiming my territory. Doesn't change the fact that I felt every minute of it, though.
I take a shower, clean up, and grab some track pants to make my way down the stairs. The floor's been cleared of my temper last night, and music drifts softly around the space. Some old singer croons out soulful sounds, and I follow it until I find her in the kitchen at the stove.
“You cook?”
She doesn’t turn round from whatever she’s doing. “Barely. But a girl's gotta eat.” I watch her ass moving around, maybe wishing the robe wasn’t as long as it is. “You must do, though”
“What?”
“Cook. These cupboards are full to heaving.”
“Well, I’m a big boy. And I don't like being denied anything I want.”
She does turn around at that, smiling at something. Whatever nicety was happening disappears in a heartbeat the second I notice the marks on her neck still there. My frown drops, and she goes from seeming relaxed to on edge. “Abel?” I sneer and look away, choosing the coffee machine as a refuge from the sight. “What have I done?”
“Nothing. You want some coffee?”
She’s in front of me before I get a chance to deal with the offer. “Hey? What’s going on?”
“Your neck is what’s going on.”
Her own fingers travel to it, and then she reaches for mine to drag them up there with them. She draws them over the marks, eventually putting her hands on my face like she did last night. “But you dealt with that for me. They’re nothing now, are they? They’re gone. Like he is.” My frown stays fixed. “Don’t spoil this. Please. Let me enjoy this.” I’m still not smiling about anything. “Do you need bacon?”
“What?”
“Bacon, with your waffles? You know, with you being a big boy and all. We’re going to need to keep you fed up if last night was anything to go by. I’m quite sore.” She kisses me briefly, lets go of my face, and sashays her way back to the stove. “Sweet coffee, please. Lexi likes a bit of sugar lately.”
I get on with making coffee, and she gets on with cooking food.
We eat in amicable silence, and perhaps that’s because neither of us are used to each other past the normal order of events in our life. Music keeps drifting around, though, and she keeps trying to smile her way through the fact that she was as good as raped last night. Maybe that dick wasn't inside her, but he held her down. He tried. Tie in her watching me kill him, and then Dante’s carving him up like a butcher at a slaughterhouse, and she’s far from fine.