by J. L. Beck
I agreed to this.
I agreed to this.
I agree—
“Ow, oh my God.” I stare down at the tiny well of blood on my forearm as the doctor packs the device in his bag again. Then he swipes the wound with an alcohol swab that sends another bolt of pain into my elbow. He applies a bandage and I jerk my arm up into my chest the best I can with Adrian on me and glare at him. The man doesn’t seem to care as he gathers himself and leaves again.
I turn my accusing gaze to Adrian, but he’s staring at me with the same hungry feral gaze he had when I met him at the casino. It terrifies me and sets things on fire at the same time. I blink and wait for him to sit on the bed again. “What the hell was that?”
“A microchip. I told you I’ll know where you are every second of every day. This will ensure I can keep you safe. No one else will have access to the data except me. Not even my men.”
I’m about two seconds from bolting again, but…I agreed to this. He eases his weight off me and sits down on the bed near my splayed knees.
To my relief, he doesn’t force me to lie down again. I guess if I’m well enough to have something implanted in me, then I’m well enough to sit up on my own. Another thought hits me hard, and it scares me.
“When you’re done with me, are you going to let me go?” I’m not brave enough to look at him when I ask.
He drags my eyes to his again, and there’s something deadly there.
“Understand this now. I will never let you go. You belong to me and only to me.”
I blink at the vehemence in his voice. The sheer conviction spoken in a silken caress reminds me once again that I made this happen. This deal is mine. So I nod because I don’t have any words to explain what’s happening in my brain and in my body right now.
When I can speak, I turn on the bed and offer my hands to him. “Then I’m ready. Are we going to have sex here, or did you want to go somewhere else that doesn’t smell like a hospital room?”
A tiny smile plays at the corner of his mouth, and it mesmerizes me.
“We aren’t having sex right now, Angel. Don’t worry. Some things need to be taken care of before I sink inside your little pussy for the first time.”
Heat flashes through me again at his words, pooling at my core, reminding me yet again how he felt clutched tight in my hands.
He tipped my chin up and leaned down to nuzzle the side of my neck. I can’t even help leaning into him. The scent of him, his warm skin, everything about him draws me in and comforts me.
“As the only man who will ever be inside you, I plan to take my time. Sometimes, little Angel, I’ll be gentle with you, and others, I’ll take my pleasure from you as surely as I’ll force yours upon you.”
His voice rumbles against my skin now, turning the hot flash of need into something deeper, warmer. Each word he speaks stokes it higher until I can feel it in my breasts, my cheeks, my ears even.
I squeeze my thighs together, knowing it won’t quench the fire he’s started. Even after everything I’ve gone through, every beating, every humiliation, every trauma, he makes me feel…something. I’m not sure what it is. Safe doesn’t seem a big enough word, and loved is a joke, considering we’ve only known each other a month or so.
It takes me a moment to realize he’s staring down at me expectantly. “Sorry, I got distracted.”
When he licks his lips, I’m lost all over again.
“Listen to me. Are you listening?”
I nod and meet his eyes so I can actually do what he says.
“Right now, we are going to take a shower while the staff comes in and cleans up. Then we’ll make arrangements for our wedding. Once you have my name and my official protection…then I’m going to sink deep into that hot cunt of yours. After that happens, there’s no going back for either of us.”
My mouth hangs open as he scoops me into his arms and carries me into the bathroom.
Married. To him?
15
Adrian
Despite the doctor’s clean bill of health, and her insistence that she’s fine, I try to keep her in bed as much as possible for another week. By the end of it, she’s going stir-crazy, and it grates on my nerves. There is one thing we need to go over before we can complete the ceremony. The ceremony my team has been setting up while I kept her confined so she doesn’t make a run for it. She agreed to our deal, but I’m not sure she has a full understanding of her place in my life now.
I need to ensure she understands, and I need to know exactly what Sal and her father did to her. Both of them will die when I get my hands on them, but I need to know exactly how much pain to inflict before their last breaths leave their bodies. I can already feel Sal’s neck under my hands, and I can’t wait to squeeze his throat until his eyeballs bulge out of his greasy little head.
A hand brushes my shoulder, and I snap my gaze up. Valentina is there with a look of concern etched over her features. “Are you all right? You looked upset for a moment.”
I shake off the reverie and focus on her. Instead of eating in the bedroom, I brought her to the dining room for breakfast today. She gave my stainless steel, granite, and glass décor a quick once-over before sitting down. But I can’t read her well enough to tell if she approves.
We’ve finished eating, and I asked her to remain so we can talk. The staff has cleared out, and my team is still preparing for the ceremony.
She watches me carefully, and I shift to grab the edge of her chair. Her little squeak of surprise echoes through the room as I drag the chair close to me, so close she must part her thighs to keep from touching my legs with hers.
Only once she’s met my eyes do I speak. “Now, we need to discuss your father and your—Sal. I need you to tell me what they did to you. Everything from the first time your father raised his hand to you to the moment I saved you from the house.”
Her forehead bunches hard as she drags her eyes away to stare at the table. “I…Well, it started after my mother died. He sort of changed. With her death, the loving father I’d grown to know just disappeared. Suddenly, everything I did was wrong. His brutality worsened as I got older.”
She speaks in a matter-of-fact tone as if she’s already resigned herself to that abuse, and it didn’t matter. I suppose after ten years or so, it wouldn’t anymore. Not if you had to live with it every day.
“And Sal?” I prompt. “When did that start?”
This subject isn’t as easy for her. She swallows heavily and wrings her hands in her lap. “On my eighteenth birthday, my father announced I was engaged and introduced me to Sal. He made it very clear that if I didn’t marry him, Rose and I would be thrown out without a penny to my name, and he’d do his best to ruin any effort I made to stand on my own.”
I clench my fists but try not to show her the rage pouring through me in a slow trickle.
She continues, and I catalog every single word. “It started innocuously. He’d touch me inappropriately. Well, he didn’t think it was wrong since we were engaged. That’s when my father made it a rule that he couldn’t sleep with me until we married.” She lets out a rueful chuckle. “Probably the only nice thing my father ever did for me. Anyway, once he couldn’t get a sexual release from me, he started beating me and showing me videos of the most hideous things. He’d take videos of him hurting me, and—” She cuts off with a gasp, and I scan her features for a clue as to what’s wrong.
“Sal, he…” Her voice quakes, and she blinks several times. Then she wraps her arms around herself and starts a slow rocking back and forth. “He…and…Rose.”
A sob rips from her lips as tears pour down her pale cheeks. “Rose,” she says one more time.
I gather her into my arms and hold her sideways across my lap. Her memory must be coming back now, and all I can do is comfort her until I show her proof of Sal’s death.
A few seconds pass as she cries softly, and then she wriggles in my grip and shoves at my chest. “You, you didn’t tell me Rose was dead. You
let me think she was still out there, alive and safe.”
I narrow my eyes and grip her forearms to keep from her beating at my chest with her small hands. “First of all, don’t speak to me that way.” I keep my tone calm and even, and it seems to settle her back into my lap. “Second, I never once said a thing about Rose or where she was. I simply didn’t give you any details about your rescue as I wasn’t sure where things were in your memory.”
Another sob shudders out of her, and I release her forearms to gather her up again. For a second, she pushes against me to get free, but I won’t let her go, not while she faces the truth of what happened to her.
“Is there anything else? Can you tell me what Sal did to you that night? The last time you saw him?”
Her voice is garbled from tears and snot when she answers. “He beat me. I snuck back inside, and he’d already ra—hurt Rose, and then he came for me.”
The doctor did an examination, so I know that even though Sal raped her cousin, he didn’t touch her that way. He’d harmed her just fine without the additional torture, but for some reason, he didn’t take that final step in his game.
I still haven’t figured out if he thought he could go back to the house and resume his relationship with her and marry her as planned.
Before I try to puzzle it out some more, my phone digs in my pocket. She stiffens in my grip, and I stand with her still tucked tight in my arms. “I’m sorry that we didn’t get to finish talking,” I tell her, “but we have an appointment to keep. I’ll take you upstairs so you can get ready. Andrea will help you.”
Her face is tear-streaked and pale, but it doesn’t matter. She’s still achingly beautiful to me. I nuzzle my face against her neck and breathe in her scent. “Wear your hair down for me.” I don’t bother saying please. It’s nothing less than an order, and if she doesn’t release it before I watch her walk down the aisle, I’ll do it myself.
I leave her with Andrea and go to my office to get ready. It doesn’t take me long to put on the tuxedo and dig out the ring box from my bottom desk drawer. As I walk out to the command center, I wonder if I should feel nervous. I don’t. From the second I saw her, I knew she belonged to me. A wedding will give her a certain level of protection from society. It will also ensure Sal or her father don't try to claim her once they realize I have her.
The ceremony is small; Kai and my five plus the minister are all that’s necessary. I watch her walk down the aisle, a white silk dress hugging every inch of her body. Her hair is unbound but pushed away from her face by some kind of sparkly hair accessory.
She’s wearing makeup now, but it doesn’t hide the red rim of her eyes nor the wet sheen on her cheeks. But she walks down the aisle of her own volition and makes her vows without any prompting. She knows this is her best shot at staying safe. I only hope I can convince her that in time, things will be different between us.
We eat dinner alone in the dining room, and she barely pushes food around her plate. This I can’t have. I pull a chair beside her and take her fork. She doesn’t even protest, as if all the fight has gone out of her.
“Look at me,” I snap.
Her red eyes lock on mine.
“You’ve endured everything they put you through. Don’t let them break you now that you’re free.”
She stares down at her plate again. “Am I, though? I’ve traded one kind of captivity for another.”
I grab her chin hard and force her to look at me. “I won’t tolerate talk like that. We made a deal, and I expect you to honor it. As I will honor my side. You agreed to this. I didn’t force you for a single moment.”
She blinks a few times, and her shoulders slump. “You’re right. I know. But I can’t stop seeing Rose’s eyes in my head now that I remember. They won’t go away, and I don’t know if it’s better to have just forgotten her death.” She sighs and tucks her fist against her chest like she’s trying to hold her heart inside. “It certainly hurt less.”
The image of my father’s vacant eyes hits me, but I shove it away, the same as I always do. “If you aren’t going to eat, then we should go to bed.”
She nods, and I pick her up before she can inch out of her chair. When we reach the bedroom, I set her on the side of the bed and find the zipper of her dress to help her out of it.
“It was a pretty dress,” she whispers. “Thank you for thinking of it. The flowers and the minister were also nice. I know you didn’t have a lot of time to prepare.”
I don’t respond to her thank you because I’m too busy staring down at all the pinky pale skin revealed after removing the dress. She’s only wearing a scrap of lace for panties and nothing else. Her breasts are full enough that I can fill my palms, and I do it since I can’t stop thinking about touching more of her.
I thumb her nipple with one hand while I rip my bow tie off with the other. Then I shrug out of my jacket, kick off my shoes, and finish undressing in seconds. Her eyes are wide and scared as I crawl onto the bed naked. She’s so small compared to me, and I don’t want to hurt her.
She lies back on the pillows, and tears start sliding down her cheeks again. I lean over her, propped on my elbow, and slide my hand over her smooth belly. Soon, my child will grow there, and I can’t wait to see if my son has curls like hers.
Her hard sniffle makes me scan her face again. Seeing her cry does something to me. I hate it more than anything. Each sob wrenches a tiny bit of my sanity loose until I can’t take not touching her, comforting her.
I drag her into my arms and curl around her back. “Calm down, Angel. I’m not going to force you. We’ll keep things slow, but understand, we will keep moving forward. You belong to me now, and I want everything from you.”
She sniffles again, and I lean in and rub my nose up the curve of her neck. Then I press my face into her nape, her soft curls brushing my cheeks. “I want your joy,” I murmur, burrowing deeper against her. “I want your tears. I want your pain. I want your pleasure. It all belongs to me. And you’ll give it to me before I take you.”
Despite my declaration, one niggling thread of doubt winds through my head. Every minute Sal is alive is another minute I haven’t held up my end of the deal. It’s another minute she might think of leaving me, and I’ll never allow her to go.
16
Valentina
I can’t stop crying, and every time I so much as sniffle, Adrian stiffens and his fingers tighten on me. Remembering my cousin and best friend is dead a few minutes before I have to walk down the aisle is not how I imagined my wedding day. Hell, none of this is how I imagined my wedding day. But to be fair, I’d avoided thinking about it because my fiancé was never my choice. Despite my tears and the sorrow rolling through me, Adrian is my choice.
It might not be a marriage in the traditional sense, but I am trying to believe he’ll keep me safe. Even from himself. I swipe at the tears on my cheeks and blink up at his face. This probably isn’t the wedding night he envisioned either. His fingers dig into my hips—not painfully, but it feels like he’s waiting. If it’s a holding pattern for me to be ready for sex, it’s definitely not happening.
All over again, Rose’s face flashes in my head, and another round of tears starts pouring out of my eyes. Adrian tugs me tight into his chest so I’m lying with our legs intertwined and my lips almost against his sternum. So much of his bare skin drags me from my grief. I latch onto it, pressing my fingers into his very solid pecs. There’s a slight smattering of dark hair across them, but it’s soft against my cheek.
I focus on his skin and breathing. Hoping it’s enough to keep my thoughts on hold so I can stop crying.
“I understand you’re upset,” he says, his voice deep and rumbling in the confined space between us. “But you’re stronger than this. You need to be stronger than this.”
It’s not a censure; his voice isn’t hard or scolding. He says it matter-of-factly, and somehow, it’s his frank tone that makes me scrub the tears away again and lift my chin to look at his face.
<
br /> He’s staring down at me, and there’s no pity in his gaze. No sympathy yet no give either. I swallow hard and whisper, “I don’t want to have sex right now. I just can’t.”
“It’s our wedding night.”
I move to push away from his hold, but he tightens his grip. A spike of fear shoots through me. Is this when he shows his true colors and turns into someone like my father, someone like Sal?
No sooner does the thought drift into my head does he shove me away hard and climb off the bed. It takes me a second to catch up, then I sit up to study him. If I don’t watch him, I can’t protect myself if he comes at me.
But he doesn’t. He only paces back and forth at the end of the bed, clenching his fists. I’ve made him angry because I won’t sleep with him. I realize this is a part of our deal, but the thought of sex right now, after the memory of Sal’s hands on my naked body burned its way into my brain only a couple of hours ago, sickens me. It physically makes me nauseated.
I swipe more tears away, impatiently, and watch him pace. Should I apologize? Throw myself down on the floor and beg him not to take what he’s already bargained to have? I thought I’d accepted what is happening between us, but now, on the other side of my memories resurfacing, it all feels so much heavier, so much more real.
And I want Sal so much more dead. It hits me all over that his death is why I made this deal. Why I married a stranger today, and why I’m currently sitting in his bed in only a scrap of lace. I can’t risk him backing out on that because I can’t kill him. As evident by the fact that he almost killed me, and I barely put up a fight.
“I’m sorry,” I say barely above a whisper.
I have no idea if he hears me or if he’s just ignoring me, but he doesn’t stop his pacing. Tears squeeze out of my eyes again, and then he swipes a lamp off a side table, and it hits the floor in a shattering crash.
I scurry to the top of the bed, huddling in the pillows. He whirls toward the bed, bracing his fists on the end of it to look up the length at me. “I haven’t touched you.”
