No Strings Attached

Chapter Forty-Three

"Maybe I don't want to see you. Maybe the sight of you makes my stomach drop to the floor. Maybe I want to HURT you, hurt you like you hurt me!"

He spins to face me, his eyes wide. "Then HIT ME! Do it! HURT ME!"

"Violence doesn't compare, Giovanni," I seethe in his face. "No, I want you to see me move on... I want you to see me move on from you and live happily with someone else, someone who will keep their promises. Someone who will–"

He stares down at me, chillingly still.

I grin, ignoring the frost he's sending my way, wanting to taunt him, hurt him. "I want you to imagine me with someone else, like I've had to do so many goddamn times all these months. I want you to imagine me looking at someone the way I look at you, touching someone the way I touch–"

He seizes the nape of my neck and pulls me to him, grimacing from the force of his mouth against mine. I twist from him, slamming my hands against his chest, his face. He steps to me, fisting my hair tightly, forcing me to look up at him as he pulls us back through the room until my back is against the cold column.

We're both out of breath, glaring at one another.

"I hate you," I whisper, smiling, loathing and desire consuming my body.

"You love me," he replies calmly, confidently, shaking his head.

"No."

"Yes."

"Get your hands off of me."

He stares down at me, without saying a word. I stare back, my eyes moving anxiously over his perfect, achingly familiar features. Being this close to them makes me want to scream.

He slowly lets my hair go, pressing both of his hands to the column beside my head.

"You're thinking about it, aren't you?"

His expression could melt a glacier. "What?"

"Fucking me," I state bluntly, my anger making me bold. My palms are sweaty, my skin prickled with apprehension.

"I'm always thinking about it," he confesses just as bluntly, without so much as a crack of a smile. "But we're not going to do that."

"Oh, we're not?"

"No. I'm fucking pissed. You're pissed."

My eyes travel over his face, his neck, his chest... his abdomen... lower...

"Why don't you just do it?" I flash a suggestive, livid look his way. "You don't want me?"

I grab his hand beside my head, smiling at the way he lets his guard down as I guide him under my skirt. I flatten his hand with my own, moving his palm up my thigh, over one of the lacy garter straps he picked out for me nearly seven months ago.

He doesn't say a word, his breathing only accelerates as I begin to rub his fingers over my panties.

"Oh fuck," he breathes, his eyes closing. I smile in triumph, focused on bringing him to his knees.

"Just take me, Giovanni. You've done it countless times before," I growl, resentment in my tone. His eyes flicker to mine as he pulls his hand out from under mine in a flash, leaving me wanting.

"What the hell do you want from me, Scarlett?"

My cheek are on fire. "I want you to take me like hard and fast, make this feel like what it is. A meaningless fuck."

"That isn't how this works," he barks, grabbing the back of my neck with one hand. The other disappears under my skirt again. I flinch, unable to move as he pushes my panties to the side, shoving a finger inside of me. My hands instinctively reach out, grasping onto his suit for support as he enters a second one, turning his wrist to position his thumb against my nub.