I smile cordially at the member of the Drakos household staff who greets me when I step off the elevator into the lavish home.
“Good evening, Mrs. Drakos—”
“Ms. Kildare.”
The man frowns in puzzlement.
“I’m keeping my maiden name,” I explain.
He nods stiffly. “Very good, ma’am. Drinks are being served in the second-floor library.”
“That sounds great.”
Was that too enthusiastic? I’m already buzzed from the two glasses of wine I drank a little quickly at the cocktail lounge down the street.
“May I trouble you for the time?”
The man smiles and glances at his watch.
“Quarter after seven, miss.”
“Lovely. Thank you.”
“Shall I escort you to the—”
“Oh, no, thank you. I can manage.”
A spring in my step and a pleasant wine buzz lifting my spirits, I skip down the hall to one of the elegant marble staircases that lead to the second floor. I pause at one of the gold-gilded mirrors hanging on the wall, spinning and grinning at myself.
The strappy, open-backed, floor-length dress is far more my style than whatever that Pretty Woman bullshit was that Ares wanted me to prance around in. This one is white with a blue design, reminding me of a classic blue china pattern, and I love it.
This is what happens when Ares decides to throw his weight around and try to make me his docile, obedient little wife. Not “ready and waiting for him” at six. Not wearing the little dress-up outfit he picked out for me.
My terms.
I enjoy one more delighted twirl before I make my way up to the library for cocktails. But I’m barely stepping off the staircase before a hand suddenly grabs my wrist and spins me to pin me against a wall. I gasp, my heart skipping and thudding as my eyes lock with my husband’s stormy, piercing ones.
“This is an interesting game you’ve chosen to play.”
I shiver. Even though I’ve got liquid courage flowing in my veins, and even though I’ve given myself a pep talk over the past hour sitting at the bar, telling myself I’m not going to put up with his crap…standing here, pinned to the wall, with the most dangerously attractive and lethal man I’ve ever known looming over me, I still falter a little.
Then I catch myself, drawing a breath and shrugging casually.
“I’m not playing any games.”
“Bullshit. I waited for you for—”
“I’m simply choosing not to play your game.”
Ares’ eyes narrow.
“I told you quite clearly—”
“It still hasn’t dawned on you that you don’t own me, has it?”
His eyes flare and his grip tightens on my arm, making me shiver as heat and lust simmer traitorously and dangerously through me.
“Like hell I don’t. You’re my wife.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m your roommate, Ares. We don’t even share a bed.”
“It’s a little hard to feel sympathy for a woman who’s actively decided to spend her nights on the couch, Neve.”
“Wow, Ares, I know a woman not falling over herself to crawl on hands and knees to your bed is a foreign concept to you. Well, I’m glad to be opening your eyes to fresh experiences. You’re welcome.”
He smiles smugly.
“Ahh, there’s that jealousy again.”
“I—”
I pause when I see a flash of movement past his shoulder. Down the hall, a woman steps out of the library, cocktail in one hand and a cell phone up to her ear in the other. She smiles broadly at something, nodding before she turns to glance our way.
I wasn’t “jealous” a second ago. But when I realize who the woman is, my temper—and the jealousy I keep swearing to myself doesn’t exist—surges.
Lucia fucking Bolinaro.
Here.
Again.
She flashes a quick, fake smile at me before she ducks back into the library. My pulse thuds as I turn back to Ares and smile. “Oh please. You wish I was jealous of your whores.”
He snorts.
“My whores?”
“Your special friends,” I sneer. “Women. Girlfriends. Fuck-buddies. Paramours. Whatever you call them all.”
His brow furrows, a slight curl lingering at the corners of his mouth.
“I’m thirty-one, Neve,” he growls. “I hope you weren’t under the impression that I’d been saving myself for marriage.”
“Oh, believe me, I never once imagined you would have that sort of self-control,” I snap. “But I’m not sure, given how important our whole image thing is to you, that inviting them to dine with your new wife is exactly appropriate.”
He frowns in confusion before its click for him.
“You’re talking about Lucia?”
“I’m not talking about—”
“She’s a friend.”
“Great.”
“As in a friend, Neve,” he mutters. “That’s not a euphemism. Her father is Ricardo Bolinaro. We’re connected through business. Not that I should have to fucking explain myself to you.”
“You don’t. Because I don’t give a shit.”
He rolls his eyes before narrowing them at me.
“And you?” he growls quietly. “Any skeletons of ex-boyfriends I should know about?”
“Oh, loads.”
It’s like pushing a button. Instantly, I watch his face stiffen into a mask of fury, his eyes livid and dangerous.
I shiver, swallowing back the flush of excitement at how outrageously hot it is that he looks like that at the mention of my exes.
Of which, by the way, there’s a grand, pathetic total of one.
“I’m twenty-four, Ares,” I spit back at him, mimicking his tone from a second ago. “I hope you weren’t under the impression that I’d been saving myself.”
His jaw tightens, and so does his possessive grip on my arm, to an almost painful level.
But fuck, is it hot to see him morph into this mask of fury and jealousy just at the teasing mention of someone else.
“Aww, is your poor widdle ego bruised that I wasn’t a blushing bride on our wedding nigh—”
I gasp as he suddenly yanks me almost off my feet, dragging me around the corner and shoving me ahead of him through a doorway into a guest bathroom. My pulse skyrockets, my core quivering and clenching as Ares storms in after me and locks the door.
“Just what the fuck do you think you’re—”
My words turn into a whimper as he forcibly spins me around, pinning me to the full-length mirror mounted on the tiled wall just inside the bathroom. His weight presses to me, crushing me and making me gasp eagerly as I feel his lips by my ear.
“I saw plenty of blushing on you,” he growls.
I blurt a stifled, shuddered moan when his teeth rake my earlobe.
“Especially when I was fucking you.”
My brow caves, my cheek pressed to the mirror and my breath fogging it as he yanks my dress up to my waist. He spanks my ass with his palm, making me yelp as I claw at the glass in front of me.
“And let’s get something straight,” Ares hisses dangerously into my ear.
I gasp and my eyes stare as he yanks my panties down to my knees and shoves his thigh between my legs, forcing them apart. I hear his zipper, and I tremble as I pant against the mirror, shuddering when one of his big hands wraps around my throat from behind.
“We are not roommates. You’re my fucking wife.”
His fat, swollen cock head sinks between my pussy lips, pausing there as I teeter on the edge of my sanity.
“And I’m fucking tired of pretending otherwise.”
He grips my hip, squeezes my throat, and drives every fucking inch of his huge cock deep into me in one powerful thrust.
Holy. FUCK.
For a split second I wince, but the pleasure that follows the initial invading sensation is overwhelming. He growls, roughly plunging into me again—this time so forcefully that it raises me up onto the balls of my feet. I cry out, moaning against the mirror as waves of desire cloud my vision. Ares growls into my ear, gripping me tightly and fucking me brutally. Mercilessly. Aggressively.
Deliciously.
And as his gorgeous cock piledrives into me over and over, his abs slapping my ass and his fingers wrapped tight around my throat, I lose myself in the savageness of it.
I’ve been craving this, like a drug. Like a junkie aching for the next hit. All freaking week.
“Tell me,” he rasps into my ear, grunting as he fucks me, his balls slapping my clit as I whine in pleasure. “Tell me how many times you’ve touched yourself on that couch over the last week, thinking of me pinning you down and fucking you like I know damn well you’ve wanted me to.”
I whimper again, panting as he rams into me, fucking me against the mirror over and over.
“I—I didn’t—”
“Liar. How many times, Neve?” He growls as he buries himself, his hand leaving my hip to spank my ass, hard. “Tell me how many fucking times you made this pretty little pussy come, wishing it was—
“Ten!” I blurt, sobbing on the pleasure as he grinds his cock deep into me.
Ares groans.
“You touched yourself ten fucking time in seven days?”
I whimper.
“Such a dirty girl.”
His teeth bite at my neck, making me gasp as the pleasure mounts.
“Show me.”
I don’t even bother fighting it. I don’t try and act scandalized, or shocked. I can’t. I just instantly drop one of my hands eagerly and greedily between my legs, moaning as I start to rub my slippery clit as he fucks me.
“There’s my good girl,” he rasps into my ear. “Let me feel you fucking come for me. Let me feel this hot little pussy come all over my fucking cock, like I know it’s been aching to all fucking week.”
I cry out, moaning loader and louder as he hammers into me. I know our families are right down the hall and might be able to hear. I know I’m being too loud.
But I. Can’t. Stop.
I feel a pinch and a yank at my knees, and then the sound of fabric ripping. Before suddenly, lace is pressed into my mouth, and my world ignites.
It’s my panties.
He just ripped my fucking panties off and shoved them into my mouth to muffle my moans and cries as he fucks me against the bathroom wall.
I lose all self-control. All composure. All sense of anything except the electric feel of his body pinning me to the mirror as his thick cock pistons into me again and again, like a jackhammer, until my legs start to give out.
His hand tightens around my throat as his mouth teases over my earlobe.
“Look at yourself,” he commands.
I whimper as my eyes lift to the mirror. My pulse surges and my core clenches tight as I take in the utterly submissive sight: Ares roughly fucking me from behind, my face turning red from the pleasure and his fingers around my throat, my panties stuffed into my mouth as drool drips down my chin, all while I’m rubbing my clit furiously, desperate for release.
“And now you’ll watch yourself fucking come for me. Do it. Watch yourself come all over my cock like a greedy girl.”
I explode. I mean my entire freaking world detonates. I scream into the gag in my mouth and claw at the mirror so hard I’m sure it’s going to shatter. I arch against it, my toes flexing as I rise up onto the balls of my feet with his cock buried to the hilt inside of me.
The release feels like crossing over into the afterlife for a second. It’s like being blown apart into a million fluttering, scattering pieces swept up in the vortex of a hurricane.
I blast off into another world, choking and sobbing in pleasure against the mirror as Ares sinks into me. I moan as I feel his cock throb and pulse, spilling his cum deep inside of me as I sink back into him.
Time goes still. The world stops turning.
Holy. SHIT.
I’m still shaking as I feel his lips brush my neck and my ear. The ruined panties are pulled from my lips, and I choke out a whimpered moan. Then suddenly, he’s twisting my head around, and his lips are crushing mine, kissing me deeply.
Slowly, I turn in his arms. My hands cup his face as his slide possessively over my hips, pulling me to him. The kiss deepens, surging as we gasp into each other’s mouths.
And then, it’s over.
Slowly, he pulls back, his eyes sparking with liquid fire as they meet mine. I blush as he tucks his cock back into his slacks and smooths down my dress.
“I’m not sure you’ll be putting these back on.”
I look down to see him twirling my ripped, wet panties on a finger. My face burns hotly and my lips purse as I yank them from his hands and stuff them into my bag after I pick it up off the floor.
Swallowing, I look up into his eyes, and we both just sort of—freeze.
Ares clears his throat as he fixes his jacket and sweeps his hair back from his face with his fingers.
“Now,” he growls, eyeing me with a small smirk on his face that electrifies me all over again. “Let’s go eat.”
I don’t know what that just was. But it was something else altogether.
Something unexpected. Something soaring and high. Maybe to a height we weren’t supposed to reach, like Icarus flying too close to the sun.
Because it sure as fuck feels like I’m on fire.
