"Angry doesn't even begin to touch what I am right now." I whirl her around in my arms, and she struggles against me as I yank her head to the side, biting at her throat. "I'm your worst fucking nightmare, wife of mine. It's about time you realized it."

She sucks in a sharp breath as red blooms across her skin from the drag marks I left behind with my teeth. I'm fighting with her clothes, ripping off her sweater and trying to push her nightgown up over her hips, but the silk keeps sliding back down. In a fit of frustration, I haul her to the desk and fold her over it, opening the top drawer to retrieve the scissors.

"No!" she screams.

I force her head back down with my palm, pressing her cheek against the wooden surface with one hand while I cut with the other. It's a messy, frenzied job with her squirming beneath me, but soon, her nightgown and panties are in shreds, the remnants lying on the floor of my office.

Our heavy breaths are the only sound in the room when I yank the ruler from my drawer and slide it over the skin of her bare ass. She's craning her neck, trying to see what I'm doing, so I push her hair over her eyes.

"You lost the privilege of sight," I snarl.

The ruler cracks against her ass cheeks with a sound that echoes off the office walls, but it's soon drowned out by the force of her scream.

"Santiago!"

"That's for snooping where you don't belong."

Crack. Another shriek pierces my ears.

"That's for drinking when you know goddamn well I’m going to put a baby in you."

Crack. A soft whimper bleeds from her lips this time, her tears dripping down onto the desk.

"And that's for being a fucking Moreno."

“Stop it!” She flails under the weight of my palm, twisting her torso enough to scrape her nails down my arm.

I grunt at the sting of her endeavor on my scarred flesh. And that momentary weakness gives her the courage she needs to hurl her bare heel up into my shin.

“Motherfuck!” The word hisses from between my teeth as I bring the ruler down against her ass once more. “You will submit to me.”

“Never!” she bellows.

I smack her again and again, the force of my efforts reverberating through my palm. Ivy fights me at every turn, trying desperately to exert her will. But she is no match for me in size or strength, and eventually, even the ruler cracks under the weight of my anger.

Hot tears streak her pretty face when I toss the now useless instrument aside and stare down at her, chest heaving. I wanted her broken, but she isn’t. Even as she cries into the desk, refusing to meet my eyes, I can see her resolve to withstand me, no matter what may come. As if she could.