Throne of Truth (Truth and Lies Duet #2)(10)

He shook his head. “You’re not leaving until you understand your place is by my side.”

“My place is running Belle Elle. With you in a prison cell.”

He chuckled, mirth bright in his green eyes rather than retribution. “You’ll change your mind the more you get to know me.”

I highly doubt it.

Carting me from the bedroom, he guided me into the bathroom and undid the rope around my wrist. “Get in the shower.”

I rubbed at my sore skin, backing up against the sink. “I’m not washing with you in here.”

“Oh yes, you fucking are.” He grabbed the edges of his boxer-briefs, pulling them down his legs. His cock sprung free, heavy and hard with red veins bulging on the sides. He wasn’t as big as Penn, but it looked angry.

Before I could move, he grabbed my shoulders and spun me around. With quick fingers, he unhooked my bra.

My arms slammed over my chest, covering myself.

It didn’t do any good.

He snatched my arms away, making me teeter, bruising me as he ripped the straps down and tossed the bra into the hallway. He spun me back to face him. “Now the rest.”

“Go to hell.” I kept my arms over my chest, defending my modesty.

His gaze fell to my panties, a heated smirk on his lips. “Are you going to remove those or shall I?”

I backed up. “Greg...don’t.”

“Greg, don’t,” he mocked with a sneer. “Do you know how many years I’ve had to listen to you giving orders? Smiling at me over the dinner table with your holier-than-thou bitch face. Giving me commands at work when all I really wanted to do was fuck you.” He loomed over me. “You thought you hid your true feelings, but every time you looked at me, I knew. I saw your disdain. I knew you believed you were better than me—”

I slapped him.

I didn’t think it through. I just did it.

We both froze, equally shocked.

I hissed, “If that’s the bullshit you’re feeding yourself, then you’re completely screwed up. I never looked down on you, Greg. For most of our childhood, I enjoyed playing with you. But then you went and let jealousy corrupt—”

He grabbed my jaw, squeezing my sentence to a stop. “Jealousy? You think this is about jealousy?” He laughed with utmost frustration. “I’m not jealous of you, Elle. I don’t envy what you have.”

He brushed my lips with his thumb. “I don’t care that you’re one of the richest women in the world. That doesn’t intimidate me. What does intimidate me is some fucking loser thinking he can lie about being engaged to you just to get access to what you have.”

I fought in his hold, lashing my fingers around his wrists to get free. “That wasn’t why he lied.”

He did it to sleep with me after a three-year promise in an alley.

“Don’t care. He’s gone now. I merely want to be with you, to share in what you have. Is that so wrong?” His voice lowered. “I don’t want to take it away from you, Elle. I only want to enjoy it side by side. I’m willing to be a good husband, hard worker, and loyal father to any kids we have. This isn’t about me stealing from you. It’s about me giving you what you deserve.”

I snorted. “What I deserve? Do I deserve to be kidnapped and held against my will?”

Please, he was moronic.

“Until you listen to me, yes.” Shoving me away, Greg ripped at my silver and white panties and jerked them down my legs.

One arm stayed glued to my chest, and the other darted between my thighs to hide the trimmed curls and smoothness I’d taken to maintaining ever since I met Nameless and became a slave to my libido in an open park. I’d never wanted to be unprepared for a moment where sex could be a possibility—even when my life had been chained to work with no time for pleasure.

Until Penn.

My heart threw up then did an odd pirouette. Part of me was repulsed I’d slept with him knowing what I knew now, while the shallower, less cohesive part of me couldn’t care less. He’d been a crook three years ago—could he have changed? Could he be a good person after being so bad?

You’re talking gibberish.

I blamed it on Greg.

I only accepted Penn’s lies and who he was hiding because even in that dark alley with his awful fingers shredding my clothes and stealing my money, he still wasn’t as bad as Greg was. Sure, he would’ve scared me and stolen what he could. But Greg thought he could keep me in a lifetime of servitude, believing we were equals all while he suffocated me in a marriage I resented, revoked, and wanted to rip to shreds.

Grabbing me around the waist, he lifted me over the edge of the tub and held me until my feet gained traction on the slippery bath.

Climbing in behind me, I shivered with repulsion as he reached around my nakedness and turned the tap on.

I gasped as icy water spewed from the single showerhead directly onto my chest.

Greg wrapped his arms around me, keeping me under the glacial torrent, breathing hot breath into my ear. “See how cold you are on your own, Elle? How hard it is to get warm?”

Moving closer, his front pressed against my back, wedging unwanted but much-needed body heat against my back.

His cock thickened, pulsing against my lower spine as he cradled me. I hated that he offered shelter from the cold spray, twisting my mind as the protector when he’d been the one to turn on the water in the first place.