Chapter 4
The kiss was nothing like the man.
It was greedy and invasive, wild and domineering, like he meant to swallow me whole.
My mind went blank, and all I could do was cling to his shoulders and ride out a kiss that hit like a storm.
Somehow, my towel ended up on the floor in all the chaos.
He scooped me up and carried me toward the bedroom in long strides.
He tossed me onto the big, soft bed, and his tall frame came down over me.
"Lily."
He murmured it against my ear, his hot breath fanning the shell of it and sending shivers through me.
"Who am I to you?"
"My husband," I managed. His kisses had scrambled my brain, and I could only answer on instinct.
"Good girl."
He laughed, pleased, and the sound was so low and sexy that my chest buzzed with it.
What happened next was beyond anything I knew.
The iceberg CEO I thought I'd married was a completely different animal in bed.
He was a tireless beast, conquering ground after ground and taking without limit.
I was a tiny boat on an ocean of desire, tossed up and down by the waves he made.
He could lift me with one arm and put me in positions I'd only ever read about.
I went from shy resistance to total surrender, and finally to crying and begging him for mercy.
He acted like he hadn't heard a word, leaning in to whisper in that devil's voice, "Good girl. Now call me your husband one more time."
When I woke up the next morning, I felt like I'd been taken apart and put back together wrong, and my lower back ached so badly it didn't feel like mine.
I shifted, and the man beside me woke instantly.
Alexander pulled me back against him, his warm chest to my spine, his chin resting on top of my head.
"You're awake?" His voice carried a lazy morning rasp. "Still sore?"
I yanked the blanket over my head, too mortified and too angry to look at him.
He was an animal in suit!
He laughed low, and the rumble in his chest passed straight into me.
"Sorry." He mumbled it into the crook of my neck. "I lost control last night."
He called that losing control?
That was a plan he'd been sitting on for weeks!
I wanted to kick him, but the second I moved my leg, it pulled on a certain part of me that was already way too sore, and I hissed.
He instantly tensed up.
"What's wrong? Did I hurt you?" he asked, his voice full of concern.
He was already lifting the blanket to check.
"Don't!" I grabbed his hand, my face hot enough to bleed. "I'm fine!"
He looked at me with eyes full of concern and, maybe, the tiniest bit of pride?
I had to be imagining it.
"Let me rub it for you." His big, warm hand slid under the covers, settled on my lower back, and started kneading with exactly the right pressure.
God, that felt good.
I let out a happy little hum, then slapped a hand over my mouth.
That was so embarrassing.
He smiled even wider, kept massaging, and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead.
"Go back to sleep. I'll make breakfast," he said softly.
I mumbled something like yes and drifted off again under his hands.
In that moment, a thought popped into my head.
That wasn't bad at all.
I was way too naive.
After that night, Alexander dropped the iceberg act completely and turned into a wolf who couldn't be fed.
By day, he was still the ruthless head of Reed Holdings.
But the moment he came home and shut the door, he turned into a two-hundred-pound koala attached to me.
He had to hold me while we ate.
He had to hold me while we watched TV.
He even stood guard outside the bathroom door when I went in, with a look on his face like he was afraid I'd get flushed down the toilet.
The nights were what really broke me.
His stamina wasn't human.
The legends listed an eight-pack, a V-line, seven inches, and thirty-minute rounds.
I verified every one of those legendary numbers with my own body, and the process was inhumane.
They were all true.
If anything, the legends undersold him.
I'd gone from being the one who played games to being the one getting played.
I started to get scared.
I mean, really scared.
Every night, the moment I saw that fire in his eyes, my calves started shaking.
I tried sleeping in a separate room.
In the middle of the night, he let himself in with the spare key, bold as anything, and climbed into my bed.
"Babe, I'm cold."
He wrapped himself around me from behind, sounding as wounded as an abandoned Great Dane.
Was he cold?
Dude, it was the middle of summer! I could've fried an egg on him!
I pushed at him, but he held on tighter, his hot breath on my neck.
"Babe, I want you."
His hands started to wander, and they weren't polite about it.