Hard Way (2 page)

“What?”

He had a better grip on her wrists and hair than he did on his temper. Somehow he managed to keep his voice even when he asked, “Have you slept with him?”

Sunny had recovered the placid tilt of her lips. Not a smile, exactly, but an expression that said she was perfectly calm. “Not yet. That’s why I want a divorce.”

The civilized part of Dash’s mind winked out. He yanked her head back and kissed her. She hadn’t given him the homecoming kiss he’d wanted, so he took it. Soft lips gave way to his sudden assault. He forced his tongue inside. Tasted her sweetness. Inflicted his confusion and hurt on her delicate mouth.

The complex knots and braids that held her hair in place served as the perfect handhold. He snugged his fingers into that glorious mass. Her head, her neck, the angle of her mouth—his to control. With his other hand he clamped both of her delicate wrists, even as she struggled.

Breathing heavily through his nose, Dash took the kiss deeper. She squealed and tried to shake him off. Her resistance stoked a hotter flame in the only part of his mind that still worked. Someplace primal and violent.

“What’s his name?” he rasped against her reddened, swollen lips.

“Fuck off.”

He smiled. It felt cruel. But he loved it. Loved that he’d cracked past her ice-queen exterior. “Tell me or this gets nasty.”

Her defiance was back. The spark in her eyes. The coiled tension in her limbs. She breathed as tightly as when they sparred. “His name is Jake.”

Dash dove back in. Kissing. Then…tearing. Her coat and blouse gave way beneath his taut fingers.

“Jake. Hm.” He sounded preternaturally calm. “You’re a married woman, Mrs. Christiansen. That’s not your husband’s name.”

Hideous images overwhelmed his view of her moist lips and flushed cheeks—images of divorce lawyers’ offices, contracts, an empty apartment. One day, he’d see this guy Jake. Actually
see
him. The fucker would have his arms around Sunny.

She’d expect Dash to behave. Maybe he would.

But not yet.

Some pin or barrette had snapped. A thick braid became the perfect tether. He looped it twice around his fist and pulled her toward the couch. Her screech of pain and protest turned his anger into pure, dizzying arousal.

She hooked her heel behind his knee and yanked. Dash lost his balance. They collapsed onto the living room floor as if onto a wrestling mat.

For seconds filled with breathless gasps and grunts, they actually fought. Grips, handholds, twists. Every blow she landed on his back and shoulders was an encouragement, not a deterrent. Dash stripped the rest of her blouse in a single tug. Sunny shrieked, but he grabbed her braid again. Pinned from thigh to shoulder, she wouldn’t be able to move without pain.

He was so fucking hard.

“
I
am your husband, Sunny.”

She twisted her hips, then winced. “Get off me, you piece of shit.”

“You’re not hearing me. I am your husband. That means all of this…” he gripped her hair, grazed teeth against her throat, thrust his cock against her softness, “…all of this is mine.”

“Not for long,” she spat.

His cruel smile had returned. He shoved a hand beneath her skirt and yanked down her stockings and panties. That ripping sound…

God, yes.

“Then I’m going to take what’s mine while I still can.”

Chapter Two

Demented. Sunny had always known that way down deep, under the education and the sophistication she tried for, she was slightly deranged at the edges.

This was proof.

Dash was hurting her. Actually hurting her. The grip in her hair stung her scalp, bad enough that her eyes watered. Her panties had cut into her hips when he ripped them down. Her hose were ruined.

All temper and meanness.

Secretly, she was broken. Her breathing was out of control. Blood rushed through her veins. Spikes of excitement tingled up her palms like they hadn’t in years.

All she could think was
finally
. Finally she’d cracked through that goddamned shell of his. The constant jokes made her laugh when their moods matched, but they got old when she wanted something real. When there weren’t any jokes, he was a million miles away, even when he was physically right there. She needed a future, and she wasn’t sure if that would ever be a certainty with Dash. He barely seemed to
care
enough for it to be a worry.

The way he held her hands above her head
was
something real. The back of her wrists pushed into the tile. She’d be bruised tomorrow. Already there was a burning in her skin, but nothing competed with the sting shooting through her body. He had draped one leg across both of hers, but loosely.

An opportunity.

She jerked her knee up in a move that would dig into his hamstrings. As in shape as Dash was, the kick wouldn’t make much difference.

She wasn’t the type to lie back and take it.

If anything, that shark-blade smile of his widened. She’d always loved his mouth. His lips were saved from irredeemable thinness by the defined bow at the top. That divot disappeared when he smiled, and yet it didn’t matter. His grin took over his whole face. Like it did now. Except his eyes… They bored into Sunny’s with the heat they’d lost over recent years. Over the past three or four years, if she was honest.

She never would’ve applied for the job with Representative Rueland if she’d feared they would head this way. Toward the end.

“Nothing to say, Mrs. Christiansen?”

“Don’t fucking call me that.” Her heart twisted. When they’d first gotten married, she’d been so damned hopeful about who Mrs. Christiansen would be. Few of her dreams had turned out. “Not when you hardly notice me coming and going.”

“I had no idea you were so incredibly full of shit.” He spread his hand over her bare stomach. Cruel fingertips dug into her ribs.

She ought to tell him no. Get the fuck off her.

She didn’t.

Logically she understood the intersection of fantasy and reality. Didn’t mean she accepted the fact that her pussy was throbbing. Opening and heating. Wanting.

Wanting Dash. Liam. Her husband.

But then, wanting him had never really been a problem. More like she wanted
all
of him, even the stuff he hid behind a shiny veneer.

So she licked her bottom lip. Her mouth had gone bone dry. “Not full of shit. More like I’m tired. Tired of trying to make this work.”

“That’s what a marriage is, Sunny. Work.”

“I shouldn’t be the only one, though.”

His fingers sank into her skin. Another flash of pain across her ribs. He drifted upwards. His thumb stroked under her breast, across the lace and wire of her bra. “I keep my mouth shut when you leave six times a fucking year? That’s not work?”

“That’s payback.”

He wrenched her braid. Her head yanked back, chin pointing to the ceiling. He pulsed his cock at the apex of her thighs. “Goddamn it, Sunny.”

“Do it.” The words hurtled forth between them like blows in their sparring sessions, each landing with more force than the last. “I fucking dare you.”

“You dare me. You
fucking
dare me?” The furrow in his brow etched with more lines. “This Jake… He must be a pussy.”

She forced a laugh. “You wish.”

“Has to be. Otherwise you’d know better than to dare a man.”

“Jake is smart and savvy.”

“Does he touch you like this?” His hand was so strong at her breast. He pinched the soft mound mercilessly. “You’re panting, Sunny. Did you realize?”

She hadn’t. “The fight.”

“You love fighting with me.”

“Not the same thing.”

He shoved that damned hand between her legs, above the panties and nylons tangled at her thighs. She’d expected it when he ripped them, but Dash kept her guessing. That was part of the problem.

Jake was safer. She only had to
be
. Didn’t need to keep guessing what he was really thinking about. He had an open face, nicely blunt features. Not sharp like Liam’s. Her husband reminded her of an eagle.

He dug his talons into her. Fingers along her pussy lips. He pressured and pleased at the same time. She held back her shudder.

“Part of you seems to disagree.”

“Physiological reaction.” Her voice rasped. She hardly sounded like herself—always that way when she lied.

“Really,” he drawled. “Maybe I should have paid more attention in biology.”

She swallowed again. There was a lump in her throat, all nerves. Making her mouth form the words was damn difficult. “Get off me, Liam. Now.”

“No.”

Cold. Cruel. Implacable.

Then he was moving. Not pinning her down. He released her, then flipped her facedown. She struggled automatically. Her legs scrambled against the tile.

He still had her. One arm wrapped low around her hips. Her ass pressed up against his cock, which was hard—pipe hard and burning even as something deep opened. Something she needed.

Everything rational was fighting to get through, to get up. Get away. To see if she could.

If he’d let her.

He was lean and sinewy, but that didn’t mean he was weak. Never had been. Those sleek muscles concealed an enormous amount of power. The only way she got the better of him during their sessions was either by executing maneuvers flawlessly or by taking him by surprise.

Like the elbow she drove backward. She caught him across the jaw, right at the hinge.

He grunted. More than that, he froze.

She did too. Everything in her chilled.

A line in the sand.

His hold on her hips loosened. She looked backward over her shoulder as he rubbed his cheek.

His eyes were still glittering. But then he worked his jaw back and forth. Shook his head.

The truth—the thing that made her skin prickle with more terror than when she’d uttered the four words that sparked all this—was she feared he would back down.

The air was thick with their heavy breaths. Their living room. Not even on the couch she’d picked out five years ago—picked out while sitting at her computer alone, sipping wine, trying not to think about Dash flying over a war zone. Instead they were two feet in front of it, sprawled on the damn tile.

Her elbows dug into the implacable marble.

His fingers slowly untangled from her braid. “I don’t— I can’t— Jesus, Sunny. What the fuck…?”

The warmth along her back was pulling away. Skin off skin. Planes off softness. All ending.

This wouldn’t save them. It couldn’t. Too much was broken in the silences between them. But she couldn’t be faulted for wanting a little taste. Something to carry away when she moved on to a new life. A divorced woman. At least she’d know that once or twice she’d claimed something of the real Liam.

The darkest, truest part of him. She’d spent years wondering what it might be.

She reached back. Fingertips on his nape, she held him to her, so close. One word slipped from her lips in a tiny whisper she barely heard.

“
Yes
.”

Maybe he’d been waiting for it. He grabbed her. Hands everywhere. Pushing her against the floor. Her cheek slicked over the tile, smearing her foundation. He cleaned up before her returns, brought the maids in, but his life didn’t change whether or not she was home.

Nothing mattered, though—not when he snatched her braid. Yanked. Her head jerked up, neck aching against the hurt. She lashed out instinctively, slapping backward. Her knuckles cracked across his cheek. The hit was loud in a silent room filled with only her wanting and his taking.

The sharp line of his forearm dug across her shoulders. She knew those fumbles behind her ass. Tingles like lightning stung through her blood. His fingers pinched her skin. Then the clink of his belt buckle and the slide of his zipper.

Oh God, that was his cock pressing against her. He stroked it up and down the cleft of her cheeks. “Here,” he rasped. “I could take you here. You couldn’t stop me.”

Helpless. Jesus.

He’d stolen her strength, her power. He’d only absorbed each blow. Taking what he wanted. She didn’t say a word. Couldn’t. It was all she could do to choke down the soft moan threatening to wiggle up her throat.

“No protests? Means I might as well. Have you right here.” He scraped his teeth down her shoulder blade. Down her spine. The tension in her bones was enough to make her implode. “If you leave me, Sunny…”

He didn’t finish the thought. She didn’t want him to. If anything, she didn’t want to go back there. To the horror of entering their home knowing it could be the last time.

This, the way they had twined up, was something new. Something different than the cold indifference of going through motions. Something different than their flirty, playful first years together.

Darker.

She bucked. Tried to throw him off or to the side. Not happening. Instead he laughed cool and low in her ear. His chin dug into her shoulder, pushing her down farther. There was no escape.