Chapter 546: 546. I’m Going To Start Counting Before She Gets The Same Treatment
"You know...? It’s funny..." Rex held Mireya’s chin, but she tried to look away because she predicted what he was going to say, having known him well enough since then.
Rex’s grip on her jaw tightened, his fingers digging into her skin with a bruising intensity that demanded total submission. He didn’t just want her eyes; he wanted her spirit to buckle under the weight of his gaze.
A cruel, lopsided smirk played on his lips, the expression of a predator who had already cornered his prey and was now simply enjoying the frantic beating of its heart.
"Look at me, Mireya," he commanded, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that vibrated in the small space between them. "Stop looking at the floor like a scolded child."
"You aren’t in the expedition anymore, and you certainly aren’t in control here."
Mireya’s breath hitched. She tried to avert her eyes, her gaze flickering toward the window, toward the room where Apollo lay sleeping, the man she was supposed to love, the man who had failed to satisfy the hunger growing inside her.
But Rex wasn’t having it. He jerked her chin upward, forcing her to meet his predatory, blond-framed stare.
"Is he really worth it?" Rex taunted, his eyes scanning her face with a mocking hunger. "That pathetic, sleepy little boy?"
"He falls asleep when things actually get interesting."
"He’s a fucking amateur, Mireya." Rex gets closer. "A boy playing at being a man, leaving you cold and aching while he drifts off into his little dreams."
Mireya felt a flush of shame creep up her neck, a heat that had nothing to do with the amber sunlight. "Urk..."
’He’s being so cruel... so incredibly disrespectful... so why does the sound of his voice make my thighs ache?’ she thought, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
"You pretend to be this untouchable ice queen," Rex continued, his thumb stroking her lower lip with a roughness that bordered on painful. "But we both know the truth."
"Underneath all that ’noble’ posturing and those stupid, naive opinions, you’re just a thirsty bitch waiting for someone who actually knows how to take what he wants."
"You’re not an ice queen, Mireya."
"You’re just a woman who’s been starving."
"Shut up..." she whispered, though there was no strength in the command, and it sounded more like a plea.
"Am I wrong?" Rex leaned in closer, his tanned, muscular frame looming over her, casting a shadow that seemed to swallow her whole. "Tell me the truth."
"Don’t give me those polite, ’reporting’ lies you use to keep your dignity."
"Tell me how much you hate that your body reacts to me, and don’t forget to also tell me how much you want me to wreck that composure of yours."
"That’s enough... I changed my mind..." Mireya averted her gaze.
He leaned in until his lips were inches from her ear, his hot breath sending shivers down her spine. "Come on now~! You know you want the man who actually makes you feel alive, instead of the one who makes you feel lonely."
Mireya’s pride was a crumbling fortress. She wanted to scream at him, to slap that arrogant, beautiful face, but her body was betraying her with every passing second.
Her eyes were glassy, locked onto his, trapped in the gravity of his sheer, unapologetic masculinity. She was standing on the edge of a precipice, and Rex was the one pushing her.
Rex’s laughter was a low, menacing rumble that seemed to mock the very air she breathed. He could see the war raging behind her light blue eyes, the frantic struggle between the dignified woman she had spent years cultivating and the primal, desperate creature his presence was awakening.
Mireya squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, trying to build a mental wall. ’I knew that he was going to be like this... I hate it when my body takes over me...’
’That’s why... Ignore him...’
’He’s just a beast, a man with no respect for the sanctity of a relationship.’
’He can’t be better than Apollo because he’s gentle and also kind because he’s the real hero... just... focus on the warmth of the sun, focus on the quiet of the house...’ she told herself, desperately trying to drown out the heavy, intoxicating scent of his skin. ’He is just noise... and... He is... just a storm passing through.’
But Rex was no mere storm; he was an earthquake, and he knew exactly how to shatter her defenses.
Seeing her attempt to retreat into her own mind, Rex’s hand moved with lightning speed. He didn’t just hold her jaw this time; he grabbed her wrist, his large, tanned hand encircling it completely, pinning her arm against the chair to prevent her from turning away.
He leaned in so close that their noses almost brushed, his blonde hair catching the dying amber light like a halo around a devil.
"Don’t you dare try to hide in there, Mireya," he hissed, his voice dripping with a dark, knowing malice. "You can try to lie to yourself all you want, but you can’t lie to me."
"Your silence is the loudest confession of all."
He tightened his grip slightly, a silent reminder of the physical power he held over her. "You think you’re being subtle?"
"You think you’re some invisible observer?" He let out a sharp, cruel chuckle. "I’m not a fucking idiot, Mireya."
"I saw you... Every single time... I felt your eyes burning into my back while I was buried deep inside Amelia!"
"I saw the way you watched us breeding, the way your breath hitched when you heard her scream my name!"
Mireya’s face went from a flush of shame to a ghostly, terrified pale. The secret she had guarded so fiercely, the voyeuristic hunger she had felt while watching Rex dominate Apollo’s own mother, was laid bare, stripped of all its elegance.
’He saw me... God, he saw everything... he saw how much a part of me wanted to be in her place...’ The thought crashed through her mind, leaving her feeling utterly exposed, as if she were standing naked in the middle of the room.
Rex leaned in even further, his eyes locking onto hers with a terrifying intensity. "Your fate is already sealed, little ice princess."
"You can keep playing this game of ’polite distance,’ or you can finally be honest, but let me make one thing very clear..." He paused, his voice dropping to a predatory whisper that made her blood run cold and hot all at once. "If you don’t start telling me the truth, if you keep trying to pretend you aren’t starving for me... then you’re going to get raped for the second time."
"And this time, it won’t be a lesson..." Rex grinned. "Let’s say that... this... nah... It’ll be a FUCKING conquest!"
"Do you want me to take you right here, while your precious Apollo sleeps just a few rooms away, oblivious to the fact that his woman is being claimed by a real man?"
He watched her pupils dilate, savoring the exquisite terror and arousal dancing in her gaze. He had her exactly where he wanted her: caught between the pride of an ice princess and the desperate, filthy need of a woman who had finally been found out.
"I’m waiting here... and I hate a woman who wastes my time being conflicted with her own mind and feelings..."
"You know what? I’ll just count from one to ten... if you still don’t have any answer, then better get ready for what happens next."
"One..."
The weight of his words hung in the air like a thick, suffocating fog. Mireya felt as if she were drowning in the very heat she had tried so hard to deny. Her mind screamed in protest, a frantic chorus of moral indignation, but her body was a traitorous, pulsing mess of contradictions.
"Two..."
She couldn’t stop the mental images from flashing behind her eyelids: the raw, primal sight of Rex’s muscular, tanned back arching as he drove himself into Amelia. She remembered the sound of Amelia’s desperate, uninhibited cries, a sound so different from the quiet, polite intimacy she imagined with Apollo.
"Three..."
Even though they never do it because Apollo fell asleep and doesn’t have a chad mind to fuck his harem.
"Four..."
Most devastatingly, she remembered the sheer, overwhelming power of Rex’s seed, the way he had claimed Amelia so thoroughly, so aggressively, that she knew the woman would be carrying the mark of his dominance within her for months to come.
"Five..."
’He’s a monster... a beautiful, devastating monster,’ Mireya thought, her knees trembling. ’And seeing him make her pregnant... seeing how he can just take a woman like that... why does my womb feel like it aches for that same violence?’
"SIX!"
The conflict tore at her. She was the Ice Princess, the pillar of composure, yet she felt like a melting glacier under his scorching, evil gaze.
"SEVEN~!"
She looked at his hands, those large, powerful hands that had just finished ravaging her mother-in-law, and she knew she was lost. The pride she had clung to was nothing but a thin veil, easily shredded by a man like Rex.
"Eight..."
"Fine..." she finally gasped, the word escaping her lips like a broken sob. "Urgh..."
"Nine..."
"Stop counting!" She looked up at him, her light blue eyes shimmering with a mixture of defeat and a dark, burgeoning lust. "I said fine... stop talking, and just... do it."
"I do want you to stop tormenting me and just take it... enough with all those nasty talks."
