Bitter Heat

by Mia Knight

  “You need to go by the fire.”

  “Why don’t you warm me up instead?”

  He boosted her up on the counter. She shrieked when he buried his face into the crook of her neck.

  “You’re insane! Get off me!”

  He spread her legs and moved between them. She smacked his chest as his hands slipped beneath her robe and moved over her flesh.

  “You’re freezing,” she whined and covered his cheeks and ears with her arms. “You stupid man. You’re going to get sick.”

  “I haven’t been sick in years.”

  “Today might be your lucky day,” she retorted.

  “I grew up here. I know my limits.”

  When he pressed his cold nose against her cheek, she flinched.

  “Warm me up, princess.”

  “Seriously, Roth, you need to—”

  Two cold fingers speared into her, and she gasped at the polarizing sensation. “Oh, my God.”

  “I was hoping I could fuck you awake,” he said against her ear.

  “Roth, you need to—”

  “See, my hand’s already warm. Your pussy gives off more heat than the fire.”

  He roused her curiosity and lust. Could she warm him up? Well, if she didn’t, he was going to be in trouble. She cupped his clammy neck, and he pressed against her, telling her without words to carry on. Hmm… She pushed against his chest, but he didn’t budge.

  She raised a brow. “Do you want a blowjob or not?”

  It took him less than ten seconds to pull her off the counter and have her on her knees in front of him. She shifted uncomfortably, and a second later, his wool jacket landed on the floor, revealing another flannel shirt, this one blue. She knelt on the padding, undid his jeans, and wasn’t surprised to find him flaccid.

  “Poor baby,” she said and pressed her cheek against it as she cooed.

  “Jasmine,” he said through clenched teeth.

  For the first time since he tracked her down in the hospital, she was in charge. She looked up as she wrapped her hand around his dick and clucked her tongue.

  “Maybe you got frostbite,” she mused.

  “Why don’t you put your mouth on me, and we’ll find out?”

  She chuckled as she massaged his balls. When he shivered, her playful mood died.

  “Seriously, Roth, you should go in front of the fire—”

  She didn’t finish her sentence because he grabbed his dick and shoved it in her mouth. When she tried to draw back, he held her in place. She glared up at him and found him watching her with predatory, laser focus.

  “Suck me,” he ordered.

  Fine. If he wanted to catch pneumonia because he wanted a blowjob instead of warming up in front of the fire, that was his issue. She cupped his balls, which felt like cold iron and used her mouth to coax his dick to come out of hiding. His icy hands sank into her hair, and as he began to lengthen, she pulled down his jeans and ran her hands over more of his chilled skin.

  He undid her robe and pushed it off her shoulders. She took her mouth off him to hold onto it.

  “Stop, Roth!”

  “I don’t want you to smell like her,” he growled.

  She gave it up since he made it clear he was going to rip it off if she didn’t comply. “You’re such a bully!”

  He cupped her face with one hand and redirected her mouth back to his cock. “You like bullies.”

  “I don’t,” she muttered and frowned when she saw his skin covered in goose bumps. Maybe a little dirty talk would help leech away that terrible cold.

  “I’ve always loved your cock,” she breathed, letting her hot breath feather over it. Veins pulsed beneath her hand as she kissed the head of it and sat up to lick his lower stomach. She pressed her nude body against his legs and shivered as she absorbed the cold.

  “You jacked off on me while I was asleep, didn’t you?”

  “Twice,” he said in a guttural voice that made her breasts tingle.

  “Do you know how long it took to wash the cum out of my hair?”

  He planted his work boots on either side of her while she worked him. Her hands stroked over his muscled thighs, which no longer felt like frozen tree trunks. She licked around his groin, nipping here and there while his hand flexed in her hair.

  She glanced up the mighty length of him to see his chest moving double time beneath his shirt. Her hand drifted down her body and between her spread legs. “You’re right, Roth. I can still feel you.”

  He yanked her off her knees and plopped her on the counter. He slid inside her with a groan filled with pain and relief. Her arms came around him as he shuddered.

  “Why do you feel so good?” she whispered against his neck and raked her nails down his back, wanting to unleash his beast. “I hate that you give me what I crave.”

  He began to move. Deep, powerful strokes that made her inner walls flutter around him. She tucked her face against him and breathed in his musk, which smelled like her body wash and a hint of evergreen.

  “I have wet dreams about you,” she confessed, and his rhythm faltered. “You’re my favorite nightmare.”

  She rocked against him to get him moving again and smiled when he let out a guttural groan. She clasped the back of his neck and tugged on his earlobe with her teeth before she gave it a little nip.

  “I hate that you’re from my father’s world, that you care about the stock market, hedge funds, and investors. I wish you were normal, a cowboy who clocked out and came home to fuck my brains out.”

  He gripped her hair and yanked her face away from his neck so he could pierce her with a forbidding gaze that held the promise of violence.

  “Cowboy?”

  She gave him a cocky smile. “I want a good rider.”

  He tightened his hold, making her eyes water. “Don’t talk to me about other men.”

  “You know there have been others. You read the books,” she said hoarsely and ignored his stinging grip. “How else was I supposed to cope? You showed me who I really am and then you left me.”

  “You left me,” he hissed.

  “I did what was best for both of us.”

  “You don’t know what’s best for me.”

  A tear slid down her cheek as his brutal grip made her scalp prickle. He looked homicidal, but she didn’t care.

  “You unlocked something dark in me I didn’t know I had,” she purred as she stroked his sides. “I tell them what I want, but they don’t give it to me raw the way I need it. You give it to me without asking. It isn’t fair.”

  She caused herself considerable pain to get close enough to press her lips against his.

  “Why couldn’t you just love me?” she whispered.

  He yanked her backward until she lay flat on the counter. He drew her legs together and clasped them to his chest as he began to power into her with hard thrusts that made her body arch in an effort to ease the pain. He battered into her with such force that she screamed.

  “Come, Roth!” she pleaded.

  “I’ll come when I’m damn good and ready,” he growled. “Your job is to take what I give you.”

  Her hands scrabbled over the counter as he sped up his thrusts. The sharp sound of his balls slapping against her ass accompanied her moaning and his harsh breathing as he planted himself deep.

  Her head tossed from side to side. “Roth, I don’t—I can’t—”

  “You have to. No one’s here to save you.”

  Her body bowed as she rode the crest of pain and pleasure and then exploded off the end of it. He rode her through her orgasm and didn’t let up on his pace as he chased his own climax. She writhed on the counter. Her body was an aching, throbbing mess, and she wasn’t sure how much more she could take. With the last of her strength, she sat up, cupped both sides of his face, and kissed him. She kissed him the way she used to, before he shattered her world and made her feel like nothing.

  He rammed home. When she winced and tried to draw away, he gripped her nape, keeping the
ir lips sealed as he came. She felt the warm gush of his seed, and when he released her, she pressed kisses over his cheek and neck as he panted. She ran her hands down his damp flannel and smiled. Apparently, fucking could save someone even if they were frozen.

  “We haven’t used anything,” she said quietly. “I’m on the shot, but we haven’t been using condoms.”

  “I’m clean.”

  So was she, but… “You don’t care if I’m on anything?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  He stepped back, leaving her on the counter, legs splayed and completely exposed.

  “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter? How could it not matter? You’re not worried that I’d throw a paternity suit at you?”

  He zipped his pants. “No.”

  She reached for some paper towels to clean herself before she hopped down. She couldn’t believe his cavalier attitude. For someone obsessed with building an empire, she would have thought he would be more paranoid about hookups.

  “I don’t understand,” she said as he picked up one of the sandwiches and took a bite.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  She crossed her arms. “Why are you so casual about this?”

  “I’m not casual.”

  “You are. You didn’t talk about birth control before you hooked up with me, and you didn’t ask if I was clean either.”

  “I assumed you would have said something if you weren’t clean.”

  “And the birth control?”

  “You’ve always been on something.”

  “But you didn’t know that.”

  He finished the sandwich and went for the soup.

  “Roth!”

  “What?”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  He eyed her over his bowl. “It would be impossible for you to get pregnant.”

  “Why?”

  “I got a vasectomy.”

  There was a short silence in the kitchen as she tried to digest that. “You had a vasectomy? Why?”

  “I would think that’s obvious.”

  So he wouldn’t get all the women he fucked pregnant? Did he really fuck around that much that he had to get snipped? As she tried to process this information, a thought crossed her mind that made her go very still. “When?”

  “When, what?”

  “When did you get the vasectomy?”

  She was watching him close enough to see him stiffen. Something icy and sharp sliced through her middle as her intuition pinged.

  “You got a vasectomy when we were married?” she asked tonelessly.

  “Yes.”

  She felt as if she had been punched. Her ears started ringing, and the breath whooshed out of her lungs.

  “I don’t want children,” he said.

  For several seconds, she didn’t react. She couldn’t. He had just dropped a nuclear bomb on a world she was trying to rebuild and decimated the foundations to rubble. She thought she had gained some perspective and peace with the decisions she had made with her father and now closure with Roth, but with a few words, he shoved her back under the arctic waters of their past.

  When she could breathe past the ice forming around her heart, she started toward the exit. She had to get away from him. Years of neglect, humiliation, and fury geysered up out of nowhere. Her eyes burned with tears. Fuck him. Fuck him hard. They had been divorced for years, and he still found new ways to hurt her.

  When his hand closed around her arm, she wrenched away violently.

  “Don’t you fucking touch me,” she said in a lethally quiet voice that trembled with rage.

  “We never talked about having children.”

  She held up a hand. “Don’t.”

  He grabbed for her again, and she lost it. She lashed out with every ounce of fury pumping through her veins. Roth’s head snapped to the side as her palm cracked his cheek. He glared at her as his fingers dug into her arm, but she didn’t flinch. Physical discomfort couldn’t compete with the pain radiating from her chest.

  “I took care of it,” he said between clenched teeth.

  “Took care of it for who?” she hissed. “You? You’re so busy trying to protect yourself from me, you never realized I’d never use a baby against you! I have more self-respect than to trap a man who doesn’t want to be with me. Let me go, Roth, or I swear to God—”

  “It had nothing to do with you.”

  She swung again, but this time, he caught her hand and yanked it down. That didn’t deter her. She stomped on his foot, but he was still wearing those hulking work boots, so it made no impact. When she tried to knee him in the balls, he thrust her against the wall and pinned her there with a hand around her throat. Still, she fought. She was totally out of control and didn’t care.

  “I hate you!” she screamed.

  “Stop, Jasmine!”

  She didn’t stop until she was exhausted. When anger faded, leaving only pain in its wake, she slumped against the wall with tears pouring down her cheeks. She sacrificed everything for him while he held her at arm's length.

  “I never intended to have children,” he said.

  “Fine,” she said. “Get your hands off me.”

  His hand tightened around her throat. He was adding new marks to the ones he had already left, but she didn’t care. Nothing mattered anymore.

  “Look at me.”

  “Let me go.”

  “Not until you look at me.”

  She lifted her face and stared at him with all the violent fury pulsing through her. He looked as impassive and untouched as he always did. How had she ever convinced herself that he gave a shit about her?

  “Now, let me go,” she said raggedly.

  “Talk to me.”

  It was so absurd to hear that line from him that she let out a humorless laugh. The knife he had plunged in her heart sank even deeper. “Now you want to talk? After you made decisions about our future without talking to me? Fuck you, Roth.” The laughter vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “You hated my father so much that you got a vasectomy so we wouldn’t have kids?”

  “It had nothing to do with your father. I just don’t want children.”

  “I suppose it had nothing to do with me either? You just keep showing me that we never had a real marriage. I was just a prop to get you where you wanted, and when I didn’t get you there, you ditched me.”

  “You left—”

  “I wasn’t even a factor in your decision-making! You built a life you didn’t want me to be a part of. You didn’t want children with me; you didn’t want to share a home with me.” She sucked in a shaky breath. “I can’t believe you’re still hurting me.” She closed her eyes and pushed at his arm with cold, trembling hands. “Let me go.”

  When he dropped his hand, she sagged before she caught herself. She panted against the wall and gathered what strength and dignity she had left before she met his gaze.

  “How would you feel if I told you I tied my tubes because I didn’t want your blood tainting the Hennessy line?” she asked hoarsely.

  His expression didn’t change, but the energy in the room did.

  She lifted her chin. “Exactly. Now you feel a tiny fraction of what I do.”

  She walked out of the kitchen and locked herself in the bathroom. She turned on the shower, climbed in, and fell to her hands and knees. The steaming water hit her cold flesh, but she welcomed the sting. It was over. They were finally ash.

  Chapter 6

  After she showered away her latest monumental lapse in judgment, she tamed her knotted hair, which bounced around her bruised shoulders. She braved the cold loft to change into a sweater turtleneck that would cover up all signs of depravity and cake makeup on her face so she didn’t look as haggard as she felt. Her cranberry-colored leather jacket, scarves, beanie, and ankle boots were no defense against the frigid Colorado day, but it would have to do.

  When she descended the staircase with her luggage, she found Roth standing in front of the large picture
window. When he started toward her, she prepared to knock him in the face, but all he did was reach for her bag, which she relinquished. When he stalked out to the truck, she tidied up the best she could and threw the soiled linens in the washer and started a load. If she was talking to the douche, she would have reminded him to toss it in the dryer once he brought Kaia home. As it was, she averted her face and slipped past him, turning sideways so she didn’t touch him since he was standing in the doorway like an Indian chief. She wanted to admire the diamond dust, but the cold penetrated through her clothing and took her breath away, so she hurried to the truck instead.

  The trip down the mountain was nothing like last night. It was amazing the difference a few hours could make. The world around her shimmered with a pure innocence she wished she could go back to. Under other circumstances, she would have enjoyed the beautiful scenery, but the suffocating proximity to this asshole made the hour-long trip hell. She needed to get away from him so badly, her skin itched. He lied and betrayed her in so many ways, it made her head spin. The worst part was that she had wanted children with him. She had fantasized about having a son that looked like him or a girl with his eyes. The fact that he had stolen even that dream from her made her want to rip his face off. If possible, this hurt more than anything he said to her in London because it showed, in no uncertain terms, he had never pictured a future with her. Their relationship had been a sham.

  When he parked at the hospital, she had her door open before he came to a full stop. She charged toward the doors, determined to say her goodbyes to Kaia and get out of here, but Roth’s long strides quickly caught up to her. They walked into the hospital with enough space between them for a gurney to pass through. When they entered the elevator, she stood in the corner with her arms wrapped around herself. Like the car ride, neither of them spoke. When they reached the ICU, the nurse escorted them to Kaia’s room. She listened with half an ear as the nurse discussed Kaia’s care plan.

  When she entered, Kaia’s face lit up, but when her eyes went past her to Roth, her face went dead white.

  “James?” Kaia whispered.

  Jasmine rounded the bed and watched as mother and son stared at one another. As the silence stretched, the nurse’s gaze went from Kaia and Roth to her. Jasmine shrugged to show she didn’t know what was going on either. She married into the Roth clan but knew very little about their dynamics. Neither Kaia or Roth had ever explained their very distant relationship, and she had never pried.