Promises and Pomegranates by Sav R. Miller

sisters sometimes say.”
“Ah, yes. Carmen and her big fucking mouth.”
The animosity in his tone catches me off guard; I know he and my parents
have a relationship that predates his time as a Ricci Inc. employee, but it was
always my understanding that he was like family to the two of them. The
distant, mysterious extended relative who only came to town when he
absolutely had to and made a stink about it every time, but family
nonetheless.
Kal blows out a breath as if trying to collect himself. “Well. What else?”
Blinking, I frown. “What do you mean?”
“What else do they say about me?” His eyebrows raise, practically
grazing his hairline, and he holds his palms out to the sides as if in offering.
“Did they turn you against me? Give you the gritty details of all the evil I’ve
done?”
My tongue feels too thick for my mouth. “Papá always avoided
specifics.”
“But you still heard rumors, right? You can’t exist in this fucking world
without the mills working overtime, especially when you make it clear you
just want to be left alone.”
Bracing my heels on the mattress, I push into a sitting position, trying to
feel slightly less vulnerable as he glares at me. My clothes are draped over
the chaise at the foot of the bed, so I grasp at the cotton sheets, moving to
duck beneath them.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
I pause, my fingers gripping the bedspread until my knuckles cramp.
“This feels like a conversation I shouldn’t be naked for.”
“Put your fingers back on your pussy and show me what you think of the
shit they say about your husband.” Licking his lips, Kal moves forward to
kneel on the bed with one leg. His arm lashes out, grabbing my wrist, and
uncurling each individual finger from the sheet.
“I don’t even know my husband,” I snap, trying to twist out of his grip.
The arousal I was feeling minutes ago evaporates as his agitation manifests in
his sharp tone, and in its place is the need to fight.
Baring my teeth, I rear my free hand back, sending it sailing through the
air at his face.
Stupid, really. Kal catches my hand before it even makes contact; he
wrenches the one holding the sheet behind my back, trapping it between us,