“Just remember when you look upon yourself next week, loathing your own reflection in the mirror, you only have yourself to blame.”

I pull out of his grasp, the glee of moments ago faded. Turned uglier.

“What do you want?” I ask.

“You on your knees to start.”

My belly flutters as my gaze dips from his face to his crotch and back. Fine. He wants me to suck him off? I can do that. I may bite tonight, though. So I push off the blanket that’s barely covering me and drop to my knees before him. Before he can order me to, I reach to undo his belt.

He closes his hand over mine to stop me.

“No.”

“What is it? Don’t tell me you came in here to talk.”

His gaze is on the bed at my back. I turn to it. See what he sees. That tell-tale smear of blood.

I look back at him grinning wide, the feeling inside me ugly, not me. Not at all.

Santiago’s jaw tightens.

“What’s the matter, dear husband? Another month gone and after how much you’ve tried, I dare say done your best, there’s nothing to show for it? Have you considered having your sperm checked? Maybe the fire that deformed—”

He has me by the throat in an instant pushing me backward against the bed, my back bending painfully, his hand cutting off my air so I’m left sputtering. He looks like he has a hundred things to say to me. A thousand curses to hurl my way. But instead, all he does is haul me up onto the bed, sets his knee beside me, and eyes locked on mine, he closes his other hand over my sex.

He loosens his grip on my throat a little as I claw at his forearm. He must see I can’t breathe, but he doesn’t let go entirely.

Holding my gaze, he pulls the little string of the tampon, and I feel it slide out, slick with blood, then he pushes his fingers inside me, and I force myself to grin as he brings them up between us, looking at the bloodied digits.

He growls a curse, wipes the blood off across my face, then shifts his grip to my arm and hauls me roughly to my feet.

“Deformed?” he starts, controlled, voice low, rage just there, just beneath.

“Let go of me.” I try to pull at his hand as he marches me to the door, ignoring my protests as he walks me to the stairs and down, picking me up and throwing me over his shoulder when I slip. I’m sure his grip is adding more bruises.

“Did you enjoy that?” he asks as he walks into his office and slams the door. “Had you been waiting to play your little trick all day? Practiced what you’d say. What insults you’d hurl?”