CH.118

"Forgive me for last night," Knox rasped.

His deep baritone usually rough around the edges, was laced with an unfamiliar tenderness.

He placed a feather-light kiss against Serena’s disheveled tresses, breathing in her sweet, familiar scent. "I lost myself when you hurled those accusations at me, love."

Serena remained utterly silent, her mind struggling to catch up with her battered body.

She processed his gravelly words through the hazy fog of residual newfound shyness that felt utterly foreign to her usually fiery nature.

‘Last night...it really happened, didn’t it?’ She wasn't merely imagining the wild, passionate lovemaking that had left her body deliciously sore and aching all over, was she?

The vivid memories played like an erotic film reel in her mind. Each scorching touch, each groan and gasp seared into her memory.

The vindictive part of her wounded side that still simmered with quiet fury wanted to lash out once more - to make him hurt as much as she did in that moment, to inflict a measure of the pain gnawing at her. But the genuine regret saturating his gravelly tone gave her pause, momentarily reining in her quick temper and the bitter, accusing words poised on her tongue.

Serena parted her lips, intending to tell him that it was okay, that she was just as much at fault for letting the heated situation escalate too far with her hateful insults.

She had struck a nerve, she knew. But before the raspy words could tumble out, the insistent buzzing of a cell phone rudely interrupted them and shattered the fragile peace that had settled over them.

There was a tense, heavy silence that stretched on interminably, punctuated only by the frantic chirping of the insistent device.

Then, the obnoxious ringtone started up again, blaring out tune after tune without any sign of stopping.

Each note grated on Serena's already frayed nerves.

This wasn't the generic default one on her own phone, which meant it could only be Knox’s.

"Don’t you want to see who it is?" Her voice was roughened by the force of her cries the previous night.

She tried and failed to lift her aching head from where it was pillowed against the solid warmth of Knox’s chest.

Knox's full lips were tenderly planted on the crown of her head, peppering her with a trail of soothing kisses.

His heavily muscled arms wrapped securely but gently around her battered frame in a possessive gesture that sent a conflicting wave of longing through her.

Serena felt an unmistakable flutter deep in her core at their intimate position and the sheer warmth emanating from his body. It made her heart soar with a joy that belied the lingering ache in between her thighs, which acted as a souvenir of the intense and brutal passion they had shared just hours before.

Last night wasn't her first time, yet it felt like it in many ways.

The night she had clumsily lost her virginity to this same man was such a blur that she could barely recall any of the details.

But every moment, every scorching sensation of last night was seared into her memory, playing on an endless loop behind her eyes.

Serena remembered with vivid clarity how he had taken her with the ferocity of a wild, raging beast, utterly unchecked in his primal desire and need to claim her.

A shudder ran through her at the memory of his immense size and the way he had ravaged her mercilessly, his thick length stretching her to the point of madness as he pounded into her velvet depths with relentless force and claiming her in every way a man could claim a woman.

She made a mental note never to rile this man to such an extreme again with her reckless, often cruel tongue.

He was undoubtedly a dangerous force of nature wrapped in a deceptively handsome package. However, she had never imagined just how dangerous and life-threatening his raw, unbridled he could be when fully unleashed, fueled by his possessiveness and her own ill-chosen words.

His manhood alone was so terrifying in its immense proportions that she had been certain she would shatter beneath his relentless assault.

Serena's mind snapped back to the present when the phone wouldn't stop ringing incessantly. "Aren't you going to take that?" she asked again.

"It's not important," Knox rumbled.

Serena’s curiosity was instantly piqued, and her insecurity kicked in.

If the call wasn't important, did that mean it was that shameless mistress calling again to pursue her husband with her usual brazen disregard for boundaries?

A fresh wave of scorching jealousy flooded her mind at the thought of that woman relentlessly going after what belonged to her and the flames of possessive rage she had momentarily forgotten in the aftermath of their passionate reunion rekindled.

Knox felt the sudden change in her.

He realized her mind was spiraling down a dark path once more with jealousy and hurt clouding her judgment and threatening to unleash the fury he knew she held within.

He needed to do something to nip this poisonous line of thinking in the bud before it reached an uncontrolled frenzy again.

Knox had realized his wife was extremely possessive and consumed by jealousy, although he knew she would never admit such feelings if he called her out on them directly.

She was too proud, too stubborn to openly voice the insecurities that tormented her, preferring to lash out with biting words and accusations instead of confronting the root of her volatile emotions head-on.

"I know you have questions," Knox began, running a hand through his tousled dark locks. The strands were sticking up at odd angles, offering a rare glimpse of vulnerability in his usually impeccable appearance.

He fell silent again, unsure how to explain the tangled, complicated situation without triggering her infamous temper again.

Knox hated having to delve into such lengthy explanations and lay his feelings and thoughts bare, but he knew he had no choice if he wanted to avoid another disastrous confrontation that could leave them both shattered in its wake.

Knox pinched the bridge of his noble nose. "I need you to understand something, dear wife. You don’t have to fear sharing me with another woman," he stated. "I've never once been unfaithful to you. You're my mate….”

Serena immediately bristled. "I'm not asking if you've been cheating or not," she snapped. Her delicate features contorted into a look of utter indignation.

"All I want to know is what the hell is truly going on between you and Mia Collins. Why are you keeping her around as your mistress, even though you claim you're not sleeping with her? What hold does she have over you?"

Knox was taken aback. How did she find out about Mia’s identity?

He realized a lot had happened while he was away attending to important matters. And he was going to find out about every aspect of the last few days.

Knox’s focus reverted to his wife.

He didn't like her tone and indulging her appeared to be a bad decision on his part because she was steadily spiraling out of control.

He pressed a lingering kiss against Serena's disheveled hair, inhaling deeply as if drawing strength from her familiar scent.

Then his palm drifted lower, caressing the soft, feminine curves of her body with a possessive sort of reverence before delivering a light, stinging swat at the plump swell of her butt.

Serena gasped sharply. Her eyes went wide as saucers at the unexpected sting that seemed to aggravate the lingering soreness between her thighs.

"Ow! What was that for?" she yelped, swatting at his broad chest in a feeble attempt at retaliation that only seemed to amuse the man caging her in his arms.

A ghost of a smirk tugged at the corners of Knox's full, luscious lips. "To get you to behave and calm down so I can explain," he mumbled, his amber eyes glittering with exasperated amusement and something darker. "Now, will you let me talk without interruption, or do I need to put you over my knee again, little wife?"