My Husband Lent Me to His Best Friend for the Night, and the Man He Chose Was the One I Hated Most novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Night

Kali strips Nikos on her own order and takes the wedding night as hers, on top, slow, and does not ask for anything she has not asked him for; he leaves her before dawn with her brother's old knife on the dresser.

He took off the jacket and folded it over the chair.

He did it carefully, and he did not look away from me while he did.

"Now the shirt," I said.

His fingers went to the buttons.

They were not quite steady, and I watched them.

Nine years ago those hands had picked up a fry pan.

I wanted to see what they did when I told them to be slow.

He undid the shirt from the collar down and let it hang open.

Then he shrugged it off his shoulders and let it fall.

He was heavy through the chest and shoulders, with dark hair going gray across the middle.

A long pale scar ran across his left ribs.

I put my fingers on it.

He drew a breath through his teeth.

"Who did that?" I said.

"A man in Cicero with a boning knife," he said.

"A long time ago."

"Did you deserve it?" I asked.

"Probably."

I traced the scar from his side to his breastbone, and the muscle jumped under my nail.

"I'm not going to be gentle," I said.

"I know."

"You keep your hands off me until I put them somewhere," I said.

"If you move them without my say, I stop.

"I put my dress on, I unlock the door, and you explain to Stavros why you're in the hall."

"I won't move them," he said.

"Say my name," I said.

"Kali."

It came out low and rough, as if the sound hurt him.

I had not known what my name would sound like in his mouth.

I took his wrist and lifted his hand and laid it flat against my waist, over the thin silk.

"There," I said.

"Only there."

His palm was hot through the slip, and it covered most of my ribs.

He held it perfectly still.

I put my hands in his hair, pulled his head down and kissed him.

I kissed him hard, with teeth.

He made a sound I felt in my own chest.

Then he kissed me back like a man who had been underwater.

He tasted of coffee and the cold, and his beard scratched my chin.

His mouth opened under mine and let me take whatever I wanted.

I wanted all of it.

I bit his lower lip and he groaned, and his hand tightened on my waist.

"Still," I said.

The hand went still.

"Good," I said against his mouth.

"That's good."

He shuddered.

I pushed him backward until the backs of his knees hit the foot of the bed.

He sat down on the edge of it, and I stood between his knees in the lamplight.

I took the straps of the slip off my shoulders, one and then the other, and let it fall to the floor.

I wore nothing under it.

He looked at me, and I watched what it did to him.

His eyes went black and his throat moved.

The long body went rigid, and he gripped the edge of the mattress with both hands.

"Kali," he said, hoarse.

"God."

"Don't pray," I said.

"Look."

"I'm looking," he said.

"What do you see?" I asked.

"Everything I'm not allowed to have."

I took his face in both hands.

"You're allowed what I give you."

I climbed onto him.

I knelt on the mattress with a knee on either side of his thighs.

I could feel the heat and hardness of him through his trousers, pressed right where I ached.

I ground down once, slowly.

His head fell back and a curse came out of him in Greek.

"Say it in English," I said.

"You're killing me."

"Good."

I undid his belt and the zipper and reached into his clothes and took him in my hand.

He was thick and hot and hard, and I had to wrap my fingers twice to feel the shape of him.

He thrust once into my fist, helpless.

"Don't," I said.

He stopped, and his whole body shook with it.

"Please," he said.

"Not yet."

I stroked him slowly from root to tip, my thumb catching the wet at the head.

I watched his face.

His mouth was open and his eyes were shut and the cords stood out in his neck.

I had never seen a man look like that for me.

I had never seen anyone look at me at all.

"Lie back," I said.

He lay back.

I stripped his trousers off him and tossed them on the floor.

He lay across the foot of my wedding bed, naked, with his hands fisted in the quilt.

I kissed my way down his stomach, slowly, over the hair and the hard muscle, and he held his breath.

I took him in my mouth.

He said my name in a broken voice and arched off the bed.

I went slowly, to make him wait.

I swirled my tongue around the head and took him deeper, and the salt of him spread across my tongue.

One of his hands came up toward my hair and I caught his wrist.

"I said no hands."

"I'm sorry," he gasped.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

I pinned his wrist to the mattress and sucked him until his thighs were trembling.

Then I let him go.

He made a noise of loss, and I crawled up his body and sat over his hips.

I held him against me and looked down at his face.

"I'm not on anything," I said.

"I don't care tonight.

"I want you to feel it."

His eyes snapped open.

"Kali, you can't mean that."

"I never say what I don't mean."

I sank down on him slowly.

The stretch of it was almost too much, thick and hot and deep.

I stopped halfway with my nails in his chest and my breath going.

He lay under me with his jaw locked and his hands shaking in the sheets, and he did not move.

"Look at me," I said.

He looked.

I took the rest of him, and we both made a sound.

I started to move.

I rode him slowly at first, my hands on his shoulders and my hair falling around us.

I rolled my hips so that every stroke dragged along the place that made me gasp.

He watched me.

He watched my breasts move and my mouth open and my eyes close.

"You're so beautiful," he said, rough and awed.

"You're so beautiful, Kali, I can't."

"Tell me."

"You feel so good.

"You're so tight and so hot.

"I've thought about you for nine years and I'm not allowed to touch you."

I took one of his hands and put it on my hip.

"Now you are."

His other hand found my other hip.

He held me, and I felt the strength he was holding back in his arms.

He let me set the pace.

I went faster, and he groaned each time I came down.

When I leaned over him and kissed his throat he said, "Please let me.

"Please, I'm going to."

"Not yet."

I slowed and ground down on him, and he whimpered, and I loved it.

"Tell me what you want," I said.

"You.

"This.

"Whatever you say."

"Then wait for me."

I reached between us and touched myself.

The pleasure built in a hot knot, and he watched my fingers with his mouth open.

"Look at what you do to me," I said.

"Kali."

"Now," I said.

It broke over me in one long hard wave.

I cried out against his neck, and my whole body clenched around him.

He came with a shout, jerking up into me, hot and deep, his hands bruising my hips.

I felt every pulse of it.

We lay tangled for a long time with our hearts going against each other.

His arms were around me, loose and careful, as if I might break.

"Kali," he said into my hair.

"Don't say anything," I said.

He didn't.

I slept for an hour with my cheek on his scarred ribs.

When I woke the window had gone gray and the bed beside me was empty.

He was standing by the dresser in his trousers and his open shirt.

He had set something down on the wood beside my ring.

It was a short fry-cook's knife with a worn wooden handle, black with age.

A small A was burned into the grip.

It was my brother's.

I knew it before I sat up.

"I've kept this nine years," Nikos said.

"Ask me why when you're ready."

He took his jacket and went out by the side stair.

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