fanqie novel
Bubble bath
“Good morning, Cat.” Xavier’s voice sliced through the silence of their opulent bedroom. Cathleen, her back rigid and her eyes void of warmth, merely sighed-a sound that seemed to carry the weight of a thousand unspoken words.
She rose from the sheets, a silent specter in the early light, her movements devoid of the grace that usually accompanied her every action. Xavier trailed behind her, the distance between them stretching taut as a drawn bowstring. “Cat, please,” he pleaded, his voice thick with urgency. “Talk to me, slap me for being a fool, shout at me-anything. I can’t stand this silence.”
But the silence was her armor, and Cathleen wielded it expertly, offering him nothing but the cold shoulder of indifference.
His jaw clenched, Xavier turned on his heel and strode to the bathroom, his muscles tense under the strain of their domestic battlefield. He twisted the faucet, letting the water cascade into the tub, steam curling up like wraiths caught in the morning sun. “Cat, the water is ready,” he called out, a command veiled as an invitation.
Without a word, Cathleen shed her nightgown, her bare skin bathed in the soft glow of vanity lights. She stepped into the water, its heat enveloping her in a liquid embrace that Xavier longed to provide for himself.
He watched her with a growing sense of desire, his cock straining against the fabric of his trousers. When she caught sight of the obvious bulge and recoiled in disgust, something dark and primal flickered in his gaze, fueling his lust even more.
“It’s natural for a cock to be this hard in the morning,” Xavier rasped, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the effort to seem unaffected. But Cathleen’s stare cut deeper than any blade, turning away from him, severing whatever fragile connection remained.
The silence stretched between them once more, a chasm too wide to cross with mere words or wanton lust.
Xavier’s patience was frayed, threadbare, and desperate. With deliberate movements, he shed his pants, the fabric falling away to reveal his unabashed arousal. He stepped into the tub behind Cathleen, the water dispersing around them both. She inhaled sharply, her body rigid with contempt.
“Difficult to ignore, isn’t it, Cat?” He taunted, his voice rough as gravel. “Do you want to touch it? It’s so painful, very painful.”
Her gaze locked on him, a solitary tear betraying the fortress of her resolve. Xavier’s heart twisted, a mixture of guilt and stubborn pride. He was lost in the labyrinth of his own mistakes, with a specter named Olivia haunting their sanctuary.
The silence hung heavy until she sliced through it with a scalpel-sharp question. “What’s your plan… about Olivia?”This is property © of NôvelDrama.Org.
His anger flared, raw and heated. The mention of that name, a name that threatened the brittle peace they had left, was a spark to tinder.
“Cat, we need to focus on us, not Olivia,” he insisted, his tone bordering on pleading. “She may carry a child, but you must trust me-I’m not the father.”
Cathleen rose from the bath like a tempest, water cascading down her curves in rivulets of defiance. “I think I’m done,” she declared, her voice laced with an icy finality.
“Cat, please. We can’t keep avoiding this.” Xavier stood up, his nakedness a testament to his vulnerability, his desire still evident, undiminished by the cold air or her disdain. “Talk to me. You’re my wife, for heaven’s sake!”
Her eyes dropped to his throbbing cock, and she swallowed hard, her body betraying a hint of longing even as her spirit rebelled. “Wife,” she spat out bitterly. “The one you’ve shamed without a second thought?” she said and turned away.
In a swift motion, he spun her to face him, his erection pressing against the softness of her thighs. She gasped, caught between revulsion and the carnal memories etched in her flesh.
“Let’s not play games, Cat. You know me-every flawed inch.” His words were a growl, a plea wrapped in dominance, as he searched her face for a sign of surrender-a crack in her armor. But Cathleen, the formidable celebrity lawyer, wasn’t one to yield so easily-not to desire, not to remorse, not to the man who had brought another woman into their sacred space.
Xavier’s grip tightened, his fingers pressing into the soft flesh of her arm as he forced the words from his lips. “Cat, I fucked up.” His jaw clenched with the admission, the stark truth hovering between them like a specter. “I fucked up big time, but that will never happen again.”
The resolve in his voice was ironclad, yet it did nothing to soften the hardness in Cathleen’s eyes. “But I swear to God I will never sign the divorce papers, Cat; you are my wife.” He was pleading now, desperation threading through his dominance.
Cathleen’s facade cracked, and the tears she’d been holding at bay spilled over, carving wet trails down her cheeks. “I just want you to let me go. You are toxic, Xavier.” Her voice broke on his name, and the sharpness of her tongue was blunted by anguish.
His hand dropped away, leaving a ghostly imprint. “I know,” he admitted, raw and exposed before her. “You are my spitfire. I don’t want you to look at my mistakes,” he continued, his plea etching into the charged air. “I want you to look at the man who married you, a man who is not perfect.”
Her breath hitched, and her chest heaved with sobs. “For you, I will be perfect, Cat. I will fight for you. I just want you to trust me.” There was an edge of feral intensity in his words, a primal vow that promised battles and bloodshed for her heart.
Cathleen’s head bobbed, a small nod amidst the tempest of her emotions. “On one condition,” she whispered, her voice laced with steel despite the tears. “I don’t want you near me.”
He acquiesced with a nod, his own turmoil evident in the hard set of his shoulders and the rigid line of his jaw. The silence that stretched between them was heavy, laden with unspoken promises and the shadow of a tumultuous future.