Condemned Wife's Compliance

The bed dipped, and Adrea felt a sense of joy wash over her drowsy form. He was here. A part of her wanted to sit up and acknowledge his presence, but she was mostly asleep. She heard and felt him moving about as sleep took her under. She was aroused a little when he lifted the covers, and the cold air went in and brushed her bare skin. She shivered as he slowly got under the covers. Sleep crept onto her again, but he kept it at bay by shifting his body close to hers and laying his arms around her. Instinctively, Adrea rolled over and snuggled him.She felt him breath on her neck before he began to butterfly kissed on it. She let out a breath but kept her eyes closed and held him close. That was when she first registered something was wrong. Something was very wrong. Something was different. He felt wrong. The texture of his skin, the contours of his body.Even as she registered that the clothes were wrong, and so was his scent, the light was clicking on. But it was too late. She shie

Adrea stayed in bed most of the day. Her mind was a fog, filled with an unending mist of questions that had no clear answers. What was going to happen now? What was she going to do? She could not get over the tightness in her chest, the lump in her throat, or the weight in her belly. She felt cold, as though she were seeing the world from another realm. She might as well be. How could this be her life? How had she gotten here? She was still not sure.Even as she remembered the events of that night a week ago, she could not believe it. Why had Felix done that to her? Was he in trouble? Had he gotten into the wrong bed and been too embarrassed to tell his brother?But that did not make sense! It did not explain him essentially claiming he was having an affair with her. It was just not right! She had thought he was her friend. But he had not reached out to her to check if she was okay.When she thought about it, he had taken great pleasure in making his mother call her to scold her for b

The world tilted on its axis. She could hear her heart beating like an angry drum. There was a pitched ringing in her ears. Each breath she took was more painful than the last, like an elderly whale was sitting on her chest. She looked at her husband through a blurry film.“What?” Her voice was just above a whisper.Surely, she’d heard him wrong.“There is no way on this earth I will ever touch you again,” Rafael told her frankly. “So, one way or the other, we go our own ways.”He watched Adrea open her mouth and close it. She was pale, deathly pale. Her eyes were crammed with pain and unshed tears. He felt a rousing of sympathy within him. Images of her in bed with his brother extinguished that emotion and replaced it with something else... anger and pain. He could never forget the sight of her brother kissing her neck and her holding him close.He was not blind to her pain. He was hurting too. All because of her. Because of what she did. Her selfish desires were what drove them here

Her father had always told her that sometimes it was best to divert your mind from a problem in order not to harm yourself. That was what she was going to do now. Through something that was a big part of him. Poker.The game was supposed to remind her of her father and the many games he would take her to play and the fun times she would have with him. But thinking of her father always made her think of Rafael. Thinking of Rafael came with thoughts of her marriage.She tried not to think about her marriage, she did… but thought of it sneaked up on her every now and then. She would click at her laptop, winning hand after hand but the joy every single time was short lived. She had good control of her hands in the game but she lacked control of the game that was her life.It had been three months. Things between her and Rafael remained tense. He did not speak to her unless he needed to. Sometimes he came home late looking very exhausted. They did not eat together like they used to. In fac

No one in their right mind would want to play with Aris Zervas. Not if they wanted to keep their money — or win at all. The same thing applied to Andreas Galanis’ daughter. The fact that she had taken the table for a ride and then beaten Aris at his own game was proof enough. The players who had been sitting around the table gathered their chips and made their way to other tables. Adrea did not notice when the dealer quietly slipped away from the table. She was too busy watching Aris as he rose from his chair and moved to the one beside hers. He moved like a panther stalking its prey. Considering that she felt she was the prey, she didn’t dare take her eyes off him. It felt like if she blinked, he would pounce. He sat in the chair beside her and looked at her, his long, elegant finger drawing invisible patterns on the felt of the table. “I see you got married,” he said, nodding at her ring finger. She looked at the finger in question as if surprised it was there, then looked up at