Chapter 5 Kiss Me Like You Hate Me

Chapter 5 - Kiss Me Like You Hate Me

POV: Ivy

The chapel was soaked in blood money and silence.

I stood at the altar in a gown that shimmered like ice under the chandeliers-cold, sharp, untouchable. Lace clung to my skin like a second betrayal. Around us, the pews were filled with suits and secrets. Every guest had killed someone or ordered it done. The air smelled of expensive cologne, cigars, and quiet threats.

Ares Valen stood beside me in black-on-black. No tie. No smile. Just a velvet suit over a loaded gun. His hand grazed mine, steady as stone. I didn't flinch. I smiled like the good little bride I was pretending to be.

Because today, I wasn't marrying a man.

I was marrying my revenge.

He slipped the ring on my finger like a shackle. I let him. He didn't even look down. His eyes were locked on mine the whole time. Watching. Measuring. Maybe even knowing.

When the priest declared us husband and wife, there was no applause. Just a ripple of murmured respect and fear. Ares didn't kiss me. He took my hand, tugged me down the aisle like he was leading me to the gallows.

Maybe he was

The reception was held in a private estate off the Amalfi coast. Guards lined the cliffs. Drones circled above us. The wine was vintage. The food untouched. Ares stayed silent the entire time, sipping whiskey, nodding when men bowed to him.

I kept my mask on-sweet, gracious, unreadable. But inside? I was screaming.

This was supposed to be a win.

I was inside the house of monsters now. Married to the son of the man who murdered my mother. I should've felt powerful. Untouchable.

Instead, I felt like glass.

Every time Ares touched my back, every time his breath grazed my skin as he leaned in to whisper something for show, I flinched-not from fear. From something worse.

Attraction.

No. It wasn't attraction. It was the proximity to danger. The thrill of the edge. He was a hurricane in a suit. And I'd married him willingly.

Stupid. Stupid girl.

We arrived at the Valen family's private villa after midnight.

The bedroom was cathedral-sized, with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the sea. The bed was black silk. The air was thick with silence and something hungrier.

Ares shut the door behind him.

I turned to face him, pretending to unpin my veil with trembling hands. "We should rest. It's been a long day."

"You're shaking," he said softly.

I froze.

"I'm not," I lied.

He walked toward me slowly. No rush. No smile. Just the predator closing in on the fox that thought she'd tricked him.

I kept talking to fill the air. "You didn't even kiss me at the altar. People noticed."

"They'll get over it."

"You really are the worst groom."

He stopped in front of me. His gaze dropped to my lips, then lower. "And you're not really a bride, are you?"

My breath caught. "Excuse me?"

He reached up and pulled out the last pin in my veil. It slipped from my hair like a guillotine had dropped. He was watching me too closely. Not like a man looking at a wife. Like a man studying a threat.

"Aren't you tired of pretending?" he asked.

My skin prickled. "Pretending what?"

"That this marriage is just business. That you're here for anything other than blood."

I blinked too fast. "You think I want to hurt you?"

"No," he said, stepping closer. "I think you already have."

He reached up, brushed a curl behind my ear. "But the problem is-I don't care."

His mouth crashed into mine.

It was not a gentle kiss. It was a war.

He kissed me like he wanted to punish me, like he wanted to rip the lies out of my mouth with his tongue. I kissed him back because I wanted to punish myself. I wanted to feel something real, even if it hurt. Especially if it hurt.

He picked me up like I weighed nothing and slammed me against the wall, hands roaming, heat rising between us like a firestorm. I moaned against his lips, hating how much I needed it. Hating him. Hating me.

The gown ripped.

He didn't ask.

He didn't stop.

He dragged the fabric off my body, mouth trailing down my neck, teeth grazing my collarbone. I clung to his shoulders, nails digging in as I arched toward him.

"I should hate you," I gasped.

"You do," he growled against my throat. "That's what makes it good."

He carried me to the bed and dropped me onto the silk like an offering. I watched him strip-methodical, beautiful, lethal. My chest rose and fell like a drumline was beating beneath it.

When he climbed over me, he didn't say I was beautiful.

He said, "If you're here to kill me, Ivy..."

His mouth dipped to mine, and his body slid against mine with terrifying perfection.

"...then do it after I've made you scream my name."

And he did.

Again.

And again.

Until I didn't know if I wanted to kiss him or stab him.

Much later, breathless and wrecked, I curled away from him.

I couldn't sleep. My head was a hurricane.

His arm was heavy across my stomach. Possessive. Protective. Like I was his.

Like I wanted to be.

God.

No.

I slid out of bed quietly, slipping back into my torn dress, gathering myself like a ghost.

He didn't stir.

I went to the bathroom. Washed his scent off my skin. Stared at myself in the mirror.

Who are you?

The girl who lost her mother in a pool of blood?

Or the woman who just came undone under the man whose family caused it?

I opened the cabinet. Pills. Razors. A drawer of old photographs. Ares's past.

And then-

A flash of paper. Old, faded. A photograph.

I picked it up with trembling fingers.

My brother.

As a boy.

In Ares's childhood room.

No.

No no no no-

What the hell was this?

I turned it over.

My brother's name, scrawled in a child's handwriting.

Ares had known him.

Ares had played with him.

What else did he know?

A voice behind me, low and lethal: "You're not the only one with secrets, Ivy."

I turned slowly.

Ares stood in the doorway, bare chest rising and falling, eyes darker than the night outside.

He walked toward me. Took the photo from my hand. Looked at it like it hurt.

Then he leaned down.

His lips brushed mine.

His next words were a dagger:

"I think you're here to kill me."

Then he kissed me harder than he ever had before.

And I let him.

Because maybe I was.

Maybe I wasn't.

Maybe I didn't know anymore