Empire of Desire by Rina Kent

It’s impossible to keep up. One, I’m drunk—so drunk that I see double and can’t feel my legs. Two, I think Nate just told them he’s my husband. He broke his own rule and told my friends that we’re married.

Holy shit.

I think I’m drunker than I thought, because I’m unable to sort through all of these things.

When I keep tripping over my own feet, Nate picks me up bridal style. My arms automatically wrap around his neck and I squeal, but I don’t hear it through all the noise and chaos.

Once again, I’m caught in a trance by how easily he carries me, how effortless the act is, as if he’s not lifting a person in his arms. Not just any person. Me. His wife. That’s what he said, right?

Put your hands on my wife again and I’ll break them.

I wiggle in his hold but not so he’ll put me down, just to feel him more. To feel the strength of his taut arms wrapped around my back and under my legs. To soak in the hardness of his chest against my side and to breathe in his scent that’s more intoxicating than alcohol.

He’s not paying any attention to me, though.

Nate never watches me, not like I watch him. He doesn’t stop to see me as I see him.

The emptiness I shoved to the background jostles and rears its ugly head, and I don’t have the strength to push it back down.

I don’t have the strength to fight it.

The night air hits us and I shiver as he strides toward the parking lot. I don’t even focus on the onlookers who are watching us.

They don’t matter.

They never did. People don’t understand. People judge.

He doesn’t. Nate’s never judged me, even when he acts like an asshole with multiple jerk tendencies. He’s strict but never judgmental.

He’s practical, but never narrow-minded.

“Nate…” I whisper his name in the silence of the night, and I sound so drunk and emotional because he’s still not looking at me.

“Shut the fuck up, Gwyneth. I don’t want to hear your voice right now.” The harsh anger of his words is like a slap to my face, a hard one that springs tears. They’re gathered in my lids now and I don’t get the chance to wipe them away before he opens his car door and drops me in the passenger seat.

After he fastens my seatbelt, he yanks off his jacket and throws it on top of me. It smells like him—spices and woods and damnation. That’s what he is and always will be.

My crime and my worst damnation.

Another word on my D list.

By the time he’s in the driver’s side, I’m clenching the jacket tight against my hammering chest.

He pulls out of the parking lot and drives down the streets in silence. There’s no radio or words, and the more time passes, the tighter my grip on his jacket gets.

“Aren’t you going to say something? Anything?” I try not to slur but do so anyway.

“I said to shut your mouth, Gwyneth.”

“I don’t want to shut up. I want to talk, okay?” It’s probably liquid courage—or stupidity or whatever—but it’s there and I’m taking the bull by the horns. “In case you didn’t notice, you ruined my evening.”

“What the fuck did you just say?” He fixates me with a sideways glance and it pins me to my seat so forcefully, I hiccup. Or maybe that’s because of the alcohol.

“My evening, Nate. I was having fun until you showed up.” I’m feigning nonchalance and lying through my teeth.

No, I wasn’t having fun. I was miserable and headed down a path I didn’t like even in my intoxicated brain.

“You were having fun grinding against those kids and I ruined it, is that what you’re saying?”

“We…were dancing.”

“I saw your ass and stomach rubbing against their fucking dicks, Gwyneth. There was no fucking dancing involved.”

“Maaaybe.”

“Did you like it?” His voice is calm, but his entire body is tight, especially the hand on the steering wheel. That strong, veiny hand that I dreamt about when he wasn’t there.

“Did I like what?”

“Humping them, gliding your body against their dicks and turning the two of them so fucking crazy with lust that they would’ve taken you on the dance floor. Did you like it?”

“Maybe I did. Maybe I’m a slut.” I throw his jacket to the side, still high on the alcohol-induced adrenaline.

I remove my seatbelt and close the distance separating us, pressing my breasts against his shirt-covered arm.

“What the fuck are you doing, Gwyneth?”

“I’m showing you how much of a slut I am.” I press my lips to his hot neck and trail my hand from his chest to his erection. It jumps to life under my touch and I squeeze it as I continue kissing down his collarbone.

“Get back to your seat. Now.” He’s ordering me, but I’m too far gone to listen. His body is tightening against mine and I rub my breasts down his arm, hardening the tight buds until they’re painful.

“My nipples didn’t get this hard earlier, you know.” I take his free hand and slip it under my dress until he’s sinking his fingers against my folds. “I wasn’t this wet either. Do you know what that means?”

He doesn’t look at me, his entire attention on the road, but he doesn’t remove his hand from my pussy either. “What?”