Page 71 of Roped

“If I’d told him you were mine, he wouldn’t have believed someone as pretty as a princess would ever agree to belong to an ugly monster like me, not willingly.” I open my mouth to object, but he keeps going, “Couldn’t have told him I was your brother, ’cause the way I’ve got you sittin’ all snug in my lap and the way you like it, like this is the best seat in the house and not my hand that you were sitting on with my finger stuck in your princess pussy, no brother would ever touch his sister that way. And I’m old, darlin’, but I ain’t old enough to be your daddy.”

Every word out of his mouth is filthy and sitting heavy in my belly. I want to say something, tell him to stop, but I don’t know how. And this is one of those times when he has no problem with saying all the things he wants to. I think he knows how crazy it makes me, his deep and rough, nasty words.

“So I told him you’re my wife. At least that way he can assume your piece-of-shit daddy forced you to walk down the aisle for land or some bullshit. Seemed more realistic than anythin’ else.”

“But—”

“Told him you ran off. We had a fight and you were mad at me. As you should be ’cause I screwed up and did it real bad. Told him there ain’t no excuse for the things I’d done. That’s why you came in here, ’cause you wanted to get away from me. And the reason you were flirtin’ with him was ’cause you wanted to make me jealous.”

At this, he squeezes me so hard I can’t help but moan, and I know the bartender heard that, too, because his back tenses. I clench my eyes shut at how crazy this is, how crazy wet it makes me. I go to tell him to stop, but he doesn’t give me a chance. “You wanted to make me regret all the bad things I’d done. Punish me for ’em; make me pay. Make me hurt worse than when I made you stab me with that knife, worse than when that bullet hit me.”

I shake my head. “No, that’s not why I flirted with him. I didn’t—”

“Told him I understand it ain’t his fault, but if he looks at my pretty little Princess wife again, I’ll have to do what any good, lovin’ husband would.”

He finishes that with another squeeze and I whisper, “What?”

Tilting his face to the side, he whispers in my ear, “Blind him.”

I flinch and pop my eyes wide open. “Is that why he won’t look at me?”

His chest moves with a breath as he replies, “Yeah. Told him it pisses me off. When someone looks at my wife. If I had my way, I’d keep her locked up on my ranch. Lock the doors, bar the windows. Shoot anyone who comes within a hundred feet of her.”

My hands slide down from his forearms and grip his hands, threading our fingers together. “That’s worse than psychotic. That’s b-barbaric.”

“She don’t need other men to look at her when her husband’s eyes follow her everywhere. When his eyes stalk her every move like his life depends on it. Like he wouldn’t be able to breathe if he went without seein’ her for more than a few hours. He wouldn’t be able to function from one second to the next if she ran away and he didn’t know where she was the whole fuckin’ time.”

I squeeze his fingers. “Radisson, I—”

“So I told him, no matter what happens, he isn’t to look at you, talk to you, fuckin’ breathe the same air as you,” he growls. “’Cause what happens between a man and his wife ain’t no one’s business but theirs.”

“God, you’re not… you’re not my husband.”

“He don’t know that.”

“And I’m not your wife.”

“But you better act like you are if you don’t want me to hurt him.”

I shut my eyes again. “This is—”

“Psychotic,” he says, completing my sentence. “But then again, you knew that, didn’t you, darlin’, that your husband’s goddamn psychotic for you.”

My cheeks blush and do it so hard I think I’m spontaneously combusting. I think if he doesn’t stop calling himself my husband, my heart is going to start believing his crazy, psychotic lie.

“Anyway,” he rasps, continuing. “My wife’s got some explainin’ to do. So how about you go ahead and tell me why you ran from me, while I get busy doin’ my own thing.”

I’m about to ask him what thing when one of his hands moves away from my waist and goes down my thigh. It doesn’t stay still, though, if that’s what I expected. It moves, gets under my new blue dress, and I gasp, asking, “What are you—”

His chest vibrates with another hum, cutting me off, and that’s because he’s at my panties now. My very wet panties. Then in my ears again, “Gotta say, though, my wife’s a little psychotic too.”

I shake my head, rolling it against this warm but vibrating chest. “I’m not your—”

“Or her tight little cunt wouldn’t be so wet for me.”

I dig my head into his shoulder. “Can you please not do this while I try to t-talk?”

“Afraid I’ve gotta.”