Page 181 of Marrying My Ex's Brother
“You know I do.”
“I like knowing.”
That nearly undoes me.
I put her beneath me and fuck her until the headboard hits the wall and she forgets to be quiet. Her legs wrap around my waist, her nails dig into my back, and when she comes again around my cock, she looks at me like she’s choosing me all over again.
That’s the part I can’t defend against.
The sex is easy to understand. Hunger, heat, possession, release.
It’s the after that becomes dangerous.
The way she curls into me without asking. The way she falls asleep with her hand on my chest, as if my heartbeat issomething she has the right to keep. The way I wake before dawn and find myself still holding her.
I have never held anyone in sleep. Now I do it like a habit.
She also knows the house and its staff like the back of her hand.
“They act like I need permission to breathe,” she says one afternoon.
“You don’t.”
“No, only to leave, ride, walk near the east wall, speak to delivery boys, open certain doors, or ask about anything interesting.”
“You have a gift for exaggeration.”
“I have a gift for accuracy.”
She says it in the breakfast room, wearing pale yellow, one bare foot tucked under her chair. Three weeks ago, she would have sat perfectly straight and waited for someone to tell her what role to play. Now she argues over tea and steals strawberries from my plate because she says mine look better.
I let her.
That’s another thing I don’t examine too closely.
Buran becomes hers before either of us admits it.
At first, she only visits the stables when I’m with her. She brings apples in the pockets of coats that cost more than some horses. The stablemen learn quickly not to warn her away every time Buran pins his ears back.
“He’s pretending,” she says on the fourth visit.
“He has bitten six people.”
“Maybe they were annoying.”
“They were.”
She looks at me. “See?”
I shouldn’t smile.
I do.
Buran takes the apple from her palm with insulting gentleness. The horse that has tried to kick two of my best men lowers his head so she can touch the white mark on his face.
The stable goes quiet when it happens.
Anya notices. Her hand stills. “Is this bad?”
