Reborn to Dodge the Bad Marriage novel Chapter 20

Chapter 20 Wrong Man in Her Bed

A sound got out of Julian.

A voice that close snapped Nora awake, and her hand tightened.

Julian sucked in a breath through his teeth.

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In her head it was Adrian climbing into a bed he had no business being in, and she rolled without ever getting a look at him and drove a foot into his side hard enough to put him on the floor.

She was off the bed a second later, straddling his stomach with one hand around his throat and the other snatching the ashtray off the nightstand.

“You climb into my bed, you die in it.”

There was murder in her eyes as she raised the ashtray and brought it down hard at his forehead.

Julian moved fast and caught her wrist.

Nora simply let go. The ashtray kept falling toward his head, and he turned out of the way and let it roll off to the side.

She used the opening to swing a fist straight at his forehead.

Julian was quick and well trained. He caught her wrist, locked his legs around her waist, and put his weight into it.

He rolled them over, pinned her underneath him, and pushed both her hands up over her head.

“Nora Sinclair.” Julian pinched her cheek hard enough to sting and got the rest out through his teeth. “Look at who I am.”

The sting brought her all the way awake, and what she found above her was a thunderous expression on a face that stayed infuriatingly good-looking. “Julian?”

It was not Adrian, and everything in her let go at once.

His jaw was still tight. “Who else would it be?”

He had not expected anything like that reaction out of her.

And she was the one who had felt him up in the first place, and taken hold of him besides.

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10:33 TNU, Sep 17

Chapter 20 Wrong Man in Her Bed

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Relaxed now and lazy with it, Nora took in the eight-pack hanging over her. “Mr. Weston, those abs are about two inches from ending up in my mouth.”

Julian had no response to that.

Nora took stock of the position they were in, him on top and her underneath.

Color rose in her face and she asked it perfectly straight anyway. “We’re not even properly married yet. Someone’s in a hurry.”

Julian laughed without any warmth in it. “Would you care to think back on which one of us started it?”

She had been half inside a dream the whole time, and when she made herself go back over it, some of it did come back.

Apparently she had nuzzled him like a cat, then taken hold of his tail, and then said…

The rest of it landed on her in one piece.

Her face went red as a ripe apple.

She fought the heat down and explained herself with complete sincerity. “I’m sorry. I thought you were my cat.

“Don’t worry. You’re a patient. Never mind that you can’t, even if you could, I’m not depraved enough for that.”

That got under his skin. His eyes went dark and the warning came out with them. “Stop telling a man he can’t.”

He looked genuinely dangerous saying it.

Nora blinked at him. “But your condition can’t. The poison isn’t only in your stomach and your heart. It’s in your kidneys too, and once those go, naturally…”

She never finished, because Julian leaned in on her.

Their noses touched and their mouths came within nothing of each other.

Nora froze, then started to struggle.

His grip on her wrists tightened, and his legs closed over hers and held them still.

She could not get loose, and she took it in stride. “If you actually can, Mr. Weston, I have no objection to exercising a wife’s rights and getting an heir out of it. A child would lock my

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10:53 Thu, Sep 17

Chapter 20 Wrong Man in Her Bed

position in nicely.”

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She could afford to be that brazen because she was certain of what the poison had done to him. The problem was not that he could not. The problem was that if he actually did, he would die halfway through.

The provocation landed, and he moved his mouth to her ear and dropped his voice. “There is more than one way to do this. There’s also….

“My hand.”

He flexed it and tilted his head toward her. “Would you like to try it, Miss Sinclair?”

Her face was burning by then and she did not dare look at him, which meant she missed the fact that his own face had gone every bit as red.

Competitiveness had been in her since childhood, though, and she was not about to concede.

So she smiled up at him and parted her lips. “By all means. Wash it thoroughly, Mr. Weston. I’ll be needing it shortly.”

The red in his face deepened another shade, and he said nothing at all.

Watching him lose ground was deeply satisfying, and she pressed the advantage. “And eat something first, Mr. Weston. If you run short on stamina or pressure, the experience suffers on my end.”

He had been ready to retreat, and that put the fight straight back into him.

“You make a fair point, Miss Sinclair. We’ll wash together, then.”

He came up onto his knees as he said it, pulled her with him, swept her off the bed, and turned toward the bathroom.

Nora started to panic and grabbed the door frame. “Julian Weston, are you serious?”

Julian stopped and looked down at her. “Are you frightened?”

Looking down put the slipped strap of her dress in view, and with nothing on underneath it there was a great deal of bare skin showing, so he got his eyes off her fast.

She refused to back down and her mouth stayed as hard as ever. “Not at all. I’m only worried about the quality. There’s medicine in my bag. Take two of them first…”

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