Page 119 of Carnal Wagers

None of that sounded like someone controlling my ins and outs, and it was screwing with my head.

“Wait.” I caught his arm. “We need to talk.”

“Ah, the famous words men don’t like to hear,” he teased. His lighthearted attitude didn’t help.

“Would you”—my hand fluttered over the cushion beside me—“sit down?”

A divot shaped between his brows, and he circled around to the couch.

“I have to confess something to you.”

His hand crept up my bare calf. “Oh?”

His touch wormed up higher and higher, past my knee, then halfway up my thigh. Each scratch of his callouses zinged a pulse of warmth to my core. I clamped his teasing hand down.

Chewing the inside of my bottom lip, I drew a circle on the couch with the tip of my finger. The leather curved and creased with my movements, never quite smoothing out again until I forced it to, just like our marriage or would-be relationship.

I’d never been the type to hold in what I had to say. Honesty was the best policy, that was my motto. Yet with my mouth gaped wide open, the truth just refused to spill out. I’m your wife. I’m Alizé De Villier.

I felt like a fish gulping water. Maeve’s question spun at the forefront of everything else. What if he abandons you again? That meant losing everything from the last two months. Every lustful gaze, every teasing word, every delicious pounding of his cock, every tender touch. I wasn’t sure I could take it if his affections switched back to indifference.

“So?”

“I know…” I blew out a hefty breath, crossing my arms, then sweeping my hands up and down them. “I’ve always known that you’re married.”

There, I said it, sort of. A weight lifted off my chest.

Well, it did, until Cillian tossed his head back and guffawed.

“That it?” he asked.

“What do you mean, that it?”

His laughter calmed to shoulder-shaking snickers, whereas tension now clenched my jaw, crisped my guts, and stewed in the pit of my stomach.

“With how you’re panicking, I expected worse.”

“How is the fact that you are married and with me a laughing matter?”

“Look, sweetheart.” He cupped my face. “You’re the apple of my eye. You and only you. No one else.”

I shoved him away and leaped off the couch. I didn’t know what I expected of him, but it certainly wasn’t for him to treat this like a joke.

“That is not as reassuring as you think it is. Am I supposed to be thrilled at being the other woman?”

“Funny how that bothers you now, if you’ve always known. Didn’t stop you from coming on my cock, now did it?”

I cringed. “You’re an asshole.”

He shrugged. “You knew that before you stalked me.”

I groaned and buried my face in my hands. The couch rustled, and his arms circled me in what should have been a supportive hug, but only made me feel dirty.

“It’s not cheating,” he said, calm as ever, prying my fingers off my face one by one, “if you have a clear, open-marriage written agreement. There’s zero exclusivity, zero contact, and zero affection. It’s nothing more than a contract between business partners. A signed paper the government declared was worth more than it should be.”

Coldness prickled down my spine.

“And if I tell you I know your wife?”