We’re in a limo. I don’t remember exactly how we got here. The past hour of my life has been such an overwhelming whirlwind of emotion, I can’t think straight.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to think straight again. My brain is broken. There’s a network of cracks all over the poor thing that look exactly like my new husband’s dumb spiderweb tattoo.
Sitting beside me, Quinn stares at my profile in broody silence. Then he reaches over and drags me onto his lap.
“What the—”
“Easy,” he murmurs when I yelp in surprise. He winds his arms around me and holds me in a tight, possessive grip, gazing at me with hooded eyes. The skirt of the wedding dress poufs all around us like a cloud.
“Quinn, I’m not sitting on your lap!”
“Funny, but it looks like you are.”
“Let me go.”
“No. Now, listen. No, don’t start cursing at me. Listen.”
He takes my chin firmly in hand and turns my face so I’m forced to look at him. His voice low, he says, “You’re in shock.”
My laugh sounds crazed. “You think?”
“Aye. I’ve seen you stab a man in the neck without batting a lash and hunt armed intruders with the enthusiasm of a big game poacher, but saying ‘I do’ seems to be beyond your stress threshold.”
“Marriage is beyond any rational woman’s stress threshold.”
His lips thin in displeasure. “I’m not your bloody dead husband.”
I try to look away, but he doesn’t let me. He keeps those fingers clasped around my jaw, holding my head in place.
Looking into my eyes, he demands, “Say it.”
I frown. “Say what?”
“That I’m not him.”
He’s deadly serious, his expression dark and his eyes darker. I don’t know why it’s so important to him, but I don’t have the presence of mind to figure it out. Or to argue.
All I really want is to take a bath, go to bed, and wake up tomorrow morning with someone else’s life.
“You’re not him.”
“Say it again.”
“For fuck’s sake!”
“Indulge me.”
I sigh and close my eyes, too tired to fight. “You’re not him. I know you’re not. Honestly, I do.”
When he remains silent, I add softly, “You’re ten times the man he was. That doesn’t mean my feelings about this situation are illegitimate.”
He strokes his thumb along my jaw and murmurs, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Are you ever going to look at me again?”
When I crack open an eye, he smiles at me. Then he turns serious and businesslike.
“We need to talk.”
“Why do I have a bad feeling about this?”
Adjusting my weight in his lap, he spreads his legs wider so my butt is resting on the seat and his thighs are open around my bottom. He pushes on the mass of white chiffon so it’s out of his way and slides his hand up my thigh, pulling me closer and digging his fingers into my bare flesh.
I say drily, “My, aren’t we handsy all of a sudden.”
“I’m only getting started. But that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“I’d like to get drunk first, if you don’t mind.”
“I do mind. I need you lucid for this.”
“That sounds scary.”
“I want to fuck you as soon as we get to the hotel, so we need to get this conversation out of the way first.”
My face flushes with heat. I chew on the inside of my cheek as he stares at my mouth with undisguised longing.
His voice thick, he says, “I won’t force you, I want that to be clear. Just because you’re my wife doesn’t mean you can’t say no.”
Feeling as if I’ve just been run over by a truck, I take a deep breath and blow it out.
“Are you forgetting our pleasant little chat in the back room of the church where you demanded this fake marriage had to include sex or the whole thing was a no-go?”
“I remember that you agreed to it,” comes the hard reply.
“Because my niece was about to be shot by her father.”
“Okay, let’s get into that.” He pauses to smirk at me. “You’re full of shite.”
I say hotly, “He would’ve shot her! And Juan Pablo, too!”
“Mmhmm. And there was no way you could’ve wrestled the gun from his hand or distracted him long enough to shoot him yourself, right? Because you’re so meek and incapable.”
The sarcasm in his tone makes me stare at him in outrage. “Are you suggesting I wanted to marry you?”
“I’m suggesting that if you really didn’t, you’d have figured out how to get a handle on your idiot brother without strutting down the aisle in a wedding dress.”
I say through clenched teeth, “I. Didn’t. Strut. I walked.”
“My point is that I saw you stand in front of a man pointing a gun at your chest and you told him to go fuck himself. You said you’d see him in hell, where you’d cut off his balls and choke him with them.” His smile is small and hideously smug. “There’s no way Gianni scared you.”
I lift my chin and sniff snootily. “You’re delusional, but you can think whatever you want.”
“I will. And what I think is that deep down, you wanted to marry me.”
“Your ego is the eighth wonder of the world, my friend.”
Ignoring that, he continues in a softer, more intimate tone. “Because you’re not a woman who’d give up a freedom that was won by such a high cost.”
His gaze is piercing, drilling into mine and daring me to contradict him. He waits for my response, stroking his thumb gently back and forth over my cheek as he holds me.
“This is a terrible thing to say, especially on our wedding day, so please forgive me. But there’s no guarantee I won’t be back to wearing black before the month is out.”
He stares at me in tense, blistering silence.
Then he throws his head back and laughs.
He laughs so long and so hard, I get irritated. I give him a smack on one of his big, stupid pecs.
“It’s not like you didn’t already know that! You said you’d be taking your life into your own hands!”
“Aye,” he agrees, still laughing. “And I am.”
“Then what’s so funny?”
“I never thought I’d find a threat on my life romantic.”
“Oh, shut up,” I grumble, shaking my head in disgust. “You’re an idiot.”
“But I’m your idiot,” he says, his laughter fading. His voice lowers an octave. His gaze grows intense. “And you’re my viper.”
“I hate that nickname.”
He growls, “No, you don’t, you fucking liar.”
He pulls me in and kisses me.
Wrapping his big hand around the back of my neck, he holds me close and drinks deep from my mouth as I fist the lapel of his tux in one hand and cling to his shoulders with the other. He slides his other hand up my thigh to my hip, which he squeezes.
Then he hooks his thumb under the elastic of my panties and tugs on it, sending shockwaves of pleasure through my pelvis as the cotton drags against my clit.
Against my mouth, he murmurs, “You’re trembling. I suppose that’s fear, right?” He chuckles. “Because you’d never be aroused by such an idiot.”
“I hate you.”
“The lies never stop with you, do they?”
He takes my mouth again, kissing me harder. I arch into him, my heart hammering and my nipples hardening with every sweep of his tongue against mine. He tugs on my panties again, making me squirm restlessly, then slides his hand between my legs.
“Soaked,” he whispers, rubbing my panties. “Sweet little viper, you’re already soaking wet.”
“I was thinking about poisoning your coffee,” I say raggedly.
“You were thinking about riding my dick.”
“How are you so awful?”
“You bring out the bastard in me. Now let’s see if I can get you to do something with that mouth other than slice me to ribbons.”
He slips his fingers under my panties and gently pinches my swollen clit.
I gasp, stiffening.
When he slides one thick finger inside me, I close my eyes and moan.
“Perfect,” he murmurs. “What if I do this?”
He presses his thumb against my clit and slowly works his finger in and out, fucking me with it. I shudder, dropping my head against his shoulder and biting my lip so I don’t make a sound.
Until he adds another finger. Then I groan like a zombie crawling out of a grave. It’s the most unattractive sound I’ve made in my life.
But Quinn doesn’t think so. He growls in approval, dipping his head to latch onto my throat with his hot mouth. He sucks on my neck and finger fucks me while I helplessly grind against his hand.
He says hotly into my ear, “You want to come like this, baby? Or do you want my mouth?”
Delirious, my eyes rolling back in my head, I gasp, “What the hell is happening?”
“Your husband is fingering your gorgeous wet cunt, that’s what.”
“Jesus! Quinn!”
He breathes, “Aye, lass. Say my name just like that when you come.”
Rocking his hips into me so his erection is pressed right up against my hip, he kisses a path down my neck to my chest, then licks at my cleavage, dipping his tongue into the cleft between my breasts. When I groan again, he lightly bites down on the swell of one breast.
“I need to taste every inch of you,” he whispers, his voice dark. “I need to bite every perfect part of your skin. I want to fuck you and spank you and make you take my cock down your throat. I want you to tell me every filthy thing you want me to do to you, starting right fucking now.”
He pulls his fingers out of me and slides them lazily up and down through my soaked folds, spreading the wetness around. When he brushes against my clit, I jerk.
“Start talking, viper. What do you want?”
“An annulment.”
“Liar.”
He bites my hard nipple right through the delicate fabric of the dress.
Panting, I say, “Do you not care that you’re giving the poor driver a show?”
“I care that you’re flexing your hips to try to get my fingers back inside you.”
Horrified that he’s right, I drop my head back and squeeze my eyes shut. “Gah!”
Laughter in his voice, he whispers, “So greedy.”
“Quinn—”
“Ask me to finger fuck you, viper. Ask me to make you come. I want to hear it.”
“You and all your talking! Is this what you learned in therapy? How to break a girl down with your incessant chatter? It’s like water torture, only with words!”
Sweeping his fingers back and forth over my throbbing clit, he says, “Tell me you need my cock. Tell me you want me to fuck you. Tell me you’ve been dreaming about it every night and aching for it every day, the way I have.”
When I open my eyes, he’s got the most intense look on his face. So intense, it’s frightening.
Holding my gaze, he commands, “Tell me.”
Then he slides his fingers inside me again.
Arching my back, I suck in a breath. My eyes widen. He crooks his fingers and hits a sensitive spot inside me, rubbing against it with maddening slowness, intently watching every expression that crosses my face.
I can’t look away from him. I want to, but I can’t.
Somehow, he’s got me trapped in the weight of his powerful gaze. A fly caught in amber.
A desperate little insect snared in a hungry spider’s web.
And for all my pride and independence, for all the times I swore I’d never allow myself to be owned again, I find it impossible not to give him what he’s demanding.
Staring into his eyes and breathing hard, I whisper, “Yes. All of it. I want you to fuck me. I want you to kiss me everywhere. I want your hands and your mouth and every other part of you, and I honestly despise myself for wanting it, but I do. So please make me come now. I’ll get back to hating us both after.”
“You said you downgraded the hate to dislike.”
“That was before I married you. Now, all bets are off.”
When he grins, his smile victorious, I snap, “But no spanking. If you ever try to hit me, I’ll consider it a declaration of war, and that will be the end of you!”
He growls, “Fuck, it’s hot when you threaten to kill me.”
Then he crushes his mouth to mine and ravages it as he works his fingers in and out of me, thrusting them deep, moaning into my mouth when I spread my legs wider.
When I come, it’s with fireworks behind my eyelids and a full-body jerk that makes one of my shoes go flying. Quinn swallows my moan, humming his approval into my mouth and holding me against him, a Popsicle viper impaled on his huge hand.
I convulse and clench around his fingers until finally, I collapse backward, shaking and spent. He holds me up with that one strong arm around my back, slips his fingers out of me, and slides them into his mouth.
As I watch in dizzy, breathless astonishment, he lazily licks his slick fingers dry, savoring my taste.
Watching me with hooded eyes, he growls, “That’s my good girl.”
And oh, what that does to me. The golden shimmer of happiness that floods my cells. It’s ridiculous how soft and melting I become, as pliant as a green blade of grass under the spring sun.
But I’m not a blade of grass.
I’m a blade. Period.
I’m a strong, capable, grown-ass woman who intimidates Mafia men so much, they can’t even look me in the eye.
My voice shaking with emotion, I say, “I’m not good and I’m not a girl. I’m not yours, either.”
Chuckling softly, he presses a gentle kiss to my lips. “I’ll concede the first two. But you’re definitely mine.”
Just for an added little fuck-you to make his point, he drawls, “Mrs. Quinn.”
That right there tells me all I need to know about how this marriage is going to work.
I never knew before this moment that enemies with benefits is an actual thing.
