He traded me away like I was his to buy and sell. I might have had his ring on my finger, but he couldn’t do that to me.
One night pretending that I wasn’t married. One night pretending to be his best friends girl. One night away from home where I would have to make believe that the man I hated was actually the man that I loved, but I didn’t know if I had it in me.
Now my ring isn’t on my finger and every moment I’m around him is showing me what a mistake I’ve made. Every moment we’re living this lie is another moment where it gets easier to play make believe.
My husband’s best friend is the worst kind of man, he’s a man with cravings. He’s wanted me from the first moment we met and I knew this whole night has been planned by him to get me alone.
The worst part? I think it’s working.
Because I can’t deny that when I’m pretending I belong to him it feels right. I can’t lie to myself anymore, pretending that his hands don’t feel good on my body. I don’t even feel the space where my ring used to be anymore. I don’t even notice that it’s gone.
A a ring is more than just a symbol, it’s a promise.
My husband asked me to take mine off and now he’s going to find out just what a mistake he’s made.
Excerpt
It was with that in mind that I felt it, that I felt his eyes burning into my skin. My teeth closed on my bottom lip a little, my legs pressing together as my hands continued to worry and wring over themselves and I tried to pretend that he wasn’t looking at me, that his stare wasn’t burning on my body.
If I’d pretended that I never noticed maybe everything would have been different. Maybe I would have been able to withstand and stay honest and true. But it wasn’t enough just to feel it, I needed to know.
My head turned slightly, a chatter in my teeth as I shuddered when I saw his eyes on me. There was such naked hunger in his gaze as it rolled up my body, undressing every inch of the dress he’d put on me as surely as if his strong and nimble fingers were rending this flimsy cloth to shreds. He wasn’t subtle. He was sudden and deliberate and he showed no sign of stopping even after he knew that I’d noticed.
In fact quite the opposite. As soon as he knew that I knew his lips curled into a grin that was nigh malicious in intent and he leaned in even closer. I pulled back, but that hand of his that had stayed teasing at my shoulder suddenly moved up quick, grasping my neck from the other side and holding me, for just an instant, so that he could close in and whisper his words into my ear.
“That dress is a travesty. It needs to go.”
His breath tickled behind my ear, sending a shiver of desire up and down my spine and a heat burning deep in my belly as my body and my mind fought against themselves. His hand released my neck, but I was frozen so still that I couldn’t even pull away from him. I needed to stay close to him, even if I wanted to run.
“You picked it,” I countered, “If you don’t like it then I hardly see how that’s my fault.”
I tried for haughty and superior, whispering my words but stating them with as much strength as I could muster. And I said them hoping that if I took his words at literal face value that we could dispense with the innuendo and proceed as normal.
I should have known better.
“Oh I like it,” he said instead, each word of his dripping heat in my body and making my heart beat harder and louder, “But I hate it too. It covers just enough to keep your dignity intact and that’s a damn shame because I’d love to take your dignity away.”
I closed my eyes, clenching them shut and trying to pretend that my body wasn’t screaming out in just the same way that it had the first night I’d met this man. I tried to pretend that I had the strength to resist him, knowing that the only thing that had kept me out of his arms last time wasn’t going to happen this time.
Frank had been there last time, but he didn’t have an invitation today.
“Bryce,” I said, “We’re in a church.”
“Eternal damnation is a price I’ll gladly pay.”
Damnation, something about that stuck with me. With my eyes closed my husband came back to me, him as he was when he was on me claiming me back for himself. Him as he was when he was unleashed, when his desire took him over and he became the animal, holding me and taking me as best he knew.