Chapter 39

Why else, indeed? Charley thought bleakly. Desire? Anger? Wounded pride? a determination not to look the fool Adelina had turned him into, no matter what it cost him?

She could have made the list grow and grow if he’d let her, but "Now all I want is you, so badly I ache," he roughed out, and the warm crush of his hungry mouth took away her ability to think.

For the first time since their wedding night, they made love with a grim, silent intensity that pounded her wounded emotions and left her satiated but with tears on her cheeks.

He gently licked them away and said nothing. He continued to hold her close and said nothing. And when she woke up the next morning, he had gone from their bed, leaving her with an ache that dragged on her insides.

It was an ache that was not going to go away any time soon, and indeed, it was about to become a whole lot worse.

though Charley didn’t know that when she crawled out of bed that morning. In truth, she would have preferred to remain in it, with he