by Sienna Blake
I frowned. We’d been driving for at least twenty minutes now. Was he going to talk on the phone the whole damn time?
I crossed my arms over my chest. His eyes dropped blatantly and unapologetically to my breasts. Small yet perky, they were being pushed together by my crossed arms. Something flashed in his eyes. My chest tingled at his heavy assessment. I wanted to uncross my arms but I was paralyzed, like he’d somehow pinned me with his stare.
“I don’t give a shit. It was supposed to be on my desk by the end of last fucking week.”
His cursing caused me to flinch. I’d never heard such blatant swearing. So foul. So rude. The prickling in my stomach turned…warm. Liquid. How strange.
His eyes snapped back up to my face, his voice growing more aggressive at the unknown person on the other end of the line.
I wanted to snatch that stupid earpiece from his head.
Instead I pressed my lips together, tilted my head and raised an eyebrow at him. I knew I shouldn’t be displaying my disapproval—this was not the action of a good wife—but dammit I was jet-lagged, I hadn’t slept for almost twenty-four hours, and I’d ripped myself from my family and married a stranger who lived on the other side of the world. It might as well have been another planet.
I felt like I might cry. I didn’t want to. Especially not in front of him.
Instead I channeled all of this flurry of emotion into my glare.
“Roger, I’m going to have to call you back.” Without waiting a beat, he ripped the earpiece from his ear and tossed it onto the seat beside him.
His eyes assessed me, his perfect lips pulling into a half smile. I was sure my hair was a mess and I had bags under my eyes, but he seemed pleased with what he saw.
“Noriko.” His voice moving across my name was seductive like bassy jazz.
“Mr. Blackwell, I presume,” I replied in English.
“Please, call me Drake.”
“Drake,” I repeated his name. It felt like power on my tongue. “How good of you to notice I’m here,” I couldn’t help adding.
His dark eyebrow raised in response. “I came to pick you up at the airport.”
“Well, that certainly compensates for not being present at our wedding ceremony.” My lips dripped with sarcasm.
“I had something important arise that I had to deal with personally.”
“So you sent an assistant in your place to pretend to be you in front of the celebrant?”
He gave me an odd look, like he was trying to decipher me. I imagined that it wasn’t often that he was met with such blatant disapproval. “My signature on the contracts are real, I can assure you.”
I almost snorted. “Will you be sending an assistant to perform in your place on our wedding night?”
His lip twitched. Now I’d really pissed him off. “That will not be happening,” he growled out between clenched teeth.
“Good to know that you will be present for some things.”
“I’m a very busy and important man,” he said as if he was telling me a truth, not bragging at all.
“And so humble, too.”
“I’m just telling you how it is.”
“I’m not surprised you think so. You seem to surround yourself with people who are all at your beck and call.”
His lip lifted into a scowl. “Do you even know how much that telephone call that I cut off for you was making me? Do you even realize how much my time is worth?”
“I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” I muttered.
His eyes flared. Before I could react, he reached across the divide with his long arms, grabbing me by the wrist. His grip was firm, on the verge of hurting me, but not quite. He yanked me across to where he was sitting. I landed, sprawled across his lap. I let out a yelp and stiffened.
He was close. He radiated heat even through his suit; I felt my own body growing hot. He smelled heavenly, of expensive cologne, fresh and clean like a sea breeze.
His lips brushed my cheek sending tingles down through my body. What the hell is this?
“Forty thousand a minute,” he said in a low voice, his deep tone vibrating through my cheekbone. “So the fact that I’ve taken time out of my evening to meet you at the airport and am choosing to sit here arguing with you, my dear wife, instead of on the phone with my CFO is a big fucking deal.”
Forty thousand dollars a minute.
I didn’t know what the equivalent was in yen so I had no idea what that meant.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You don’t seem impressed.”
“Sorry, should I swoon or giggle insipidly at you?”
“I expected some sort of positive reaction, especially considering the conditions I pulled you out of.”
I stiffened. The conditions…? As if my family lived in squalor. Okay, we were poor, but there was nothing that we wanted for. “Typical western man,” I spat out, “you think money is the answer to all your problems.”
He leaned in closer. I could feel the heat of his breath on my ear. “Money is the answer to all problems. Your father’s problems were certainly solved with my money.”
I sucked in a breath. He knew about my father? Of course he did. He probably had me researched before he picked me out. “Well,” I said, “I hope you get your money’s worth.”
“I’m beginning to wonder about that,” he muttered under his breath. “I thought you Japanese girls were supposed to be demure or something.”
…you Japanese girls…
I should slap him.
But my stomach jumbled with fear, overriding my anger. I thought you Japanese girls were supposed to be demure or something.
I had almost given myself away. Mr. Blackwell thought he was getting a perfect little Japanese girl as a wife. Instead he got me. If I wasn’t careful, Mr. Blackwell would annul the marriage and take back the money meant for my father.
I couldn’t let that happen.
I forced myself to bow my head. “Mr. Blackwell, I do apologize. I didn’t sleep on the plane. I’m delirious. I don’t know what I’m saying.”
“Lying to me already, dear wife?” His voice was a mixture of amusement and suspicion.
I tensed. Finally, I had the sense to remain silent. I’d already pushed my luck tonight. I knew I wasn’t making a good impression on my new husband. I was surprised he didn’t throw me out of the moving car. Damned if I was going to let him get away with treating me like another one of his staff.
“What?” He shot me a smug look. “Nothing snarky to say back?”
I shook my head slightly, remembering myself. I was here to be his good wife. In exchange for the money my father needed for his experimental treatment.
I caught him studying my features, my eyes, my cheekbones and finally my lips. “As least you are beautiful to look at.”
I couldn’t believe it. “Well done.”
“For what?”
“You’ve managed to compliment me and insult me all in the same breath. You certainly are talented.”
His stare grew intense and heated. Something shivered down my spine. “In so many ways, wife, as I’m sure you’ll soon find out.” He grabbed my hips, tugging me closer. I gasped when the sensitive place between my legs pressed up against the hardness in his pants.
Oh. My. God.
Suddenly I was all too conscious of how I was sitting, straddling his strong thighs. Suddenly I was all too aware of how a man and a woman fitted. A liquid heat began to pool in my lower half.
His head dipped to my neck. He nipped at my ear, sending a rush trickling down my body. “I could take you right here in this limo.”
I flinched. He wouldn’t, would he? “B-But you won’t.”
“Won’t I?”
A shudder ran through me. I didn’t know whether it was from fear or anticipation. Could it be…both?
Mr. Blackwell grasped my chin forcing me to look at him. This close I could see the flecks of lighter brown and amber in his chocolate eyes. “I own you, little girl. I can do wh
at I like with you…” his fingers trailed down my neck, over one of my breasts, “…with this body.”
Real fear gripped me. I couldn’t move. He was right. I was alone in this new country. I knew no one. I had no money. My family could not help me. No one could.
“Don’t look so scared, little wife,” Mr. Blackwell said with a smirk. “Whatever I plan to do to you, I guarantee you’ll enjoy it.”
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Books by Sienna Blake
Irish Kiss Standalone Series
Irish Kiss
Professor’s Kiss
Best Friend’s Kiss ~ coming soon
Quick & Dirty Standalone Series
Three Irish Brothers
My Irish Kings
Royally Screwed
Dark Romeo Trilogy
Love Sprung From Hate (#1)
The Scent of Roses (#2)
Hanging in the Stars (#3)
Bound Duet
Bound by Lies (#1)
Bound Forever (#2)
A Good Wife Standalone Series
Beautiful Revenge
Mr. Blackwell’s Bride
Paper Dolls
About Sienna
Sienna Blake is a dirty girl, a wordspinner of smexy love stories and an Amazon Top 20 & USA Today Bestselling Author.
She’s an Australian living in Dublin, Ireland, where she enjoys reading, exploring this gorgeous country and adding to her personal harem of Irish hotties ;)
