That makes me pause. I glance at him over the rim of my cup. “You’re sharing your schedule with me?”
He shrugs and sits up fully, the blanket falling away from his torso. “Figured I’d throw you a bone.”
“How generous,” I murmur.
“Careful,” he warns, taking the cup from my hands and finishing the rest himself.
"I always want to know where you are. And I know you feel the same, given your newly confessed love for stalking." I raise an eyebrow, letting my gaze drift to the nightstand that’s stillshamelessly stocked with my dirtied panties, then back to him with a pointed look.
He laughs softly, then leans over and brushes his mouth against my neck. The heat of it makes me press my thighs together beneath the sheets. He kisses the curve just below my ear, a soft inhale of my skin, as if he wants to remember exactly how I taste.
His hands trail down my body and between my legs, slipping his fingers into our mix of slippery wetness from the night before.
Sinfully, he lifts his fingers up and to his mouth, tasting the mix of our cum from between my legs.
The look of him, so devilish and sexy, makes me suck in a breath as my nipples harden.
“Everything about you belongs to me.”
“I never outright agreed to be yours, you know,” I lie, tilting my face away as though I hadn’t confessed my love for him only just last night.
He kisses my neck anyway, the kind that makes my breath catch and my heart trip over itself. His hand returns to between my legs and finds my clit quickly, granting me the gift of those slow and perfectly pressured circles he loves to draw there.
The teasing pressure of his fingers and his luscious lips at my neck is enough to bring me to a quick and sharp orgasm, and within seconds, I’m crying out his name.
By the time he pulls away, I’m annoyed with how much I want him to stay. I desperately reach for him, trying to pull him back into bed with me, but with the self-control of a saint, he kisses my forehead and leaves me in bed to begin his day.
Hayden swings his legs out of bed and stands, stretching. The light shifts over his back, catching old scars and the cut of muscle along his shoulders. I’ve never had the chance to learn about his body; our time together is usually so stolen or controlled by him.This is the first time I’m able to enjoy his naked body. The first time I’m able to see him and know him like this.
I watch him cross to the wardrobe and pull a shirt from a row of pressed white collars, everything arranged by the house staff in militant perfection. He buttons it slowly, cufflinks already set out for him.
As he fastens them, I push myself up on my elbows, the blanket sliding down around my hips.
“Can we throw a party this weekend?” I ask as casually as I can muster, although I'm asking on bated breath.
He pauses, glancing at me in the mirror.
“A party?”
“A celebration,” I clarify. “For our marriage. Something beautiful.”
He turns, one brow lifted. “You want a room full of people in exchange for an evening of just you and me?”
“No,” I say with a slow smile. “I want a room full of people wishing they were us.”
His mouth twitches like he’s fighting a grin, but he says nothing. Just watches me for a long moment, the weight of whatever he’s thinking hidden behind that careful, calculating gaze.
I barely hold in my anticipation, unsure of why I suddenly want a party, but feeling like it’s one of the best ideas I’ve ever had. Isn’t this what my mother said marriage was all about, after all? Just a series of parties you barely remember and feigned interest masked with alcoholism?
And I hope he says yes. Because for once, I want to be seen. Not just as his wife. But as someone who has returned to Society after months of silence. I want to talk to strangers and make friends with his acquaintances. I want to know and enjoy his family, and I want to see Society members from Eulogia that I’ve been kept away from these past months.
I never thought I would long for Society, but once removed from it, I realized how integral it was to my daily life. How much of a poised aristocrat I genuinely am, and how purposeless I feel now that it’s been stripped from me.
I miss school, but clearly that’s an argument for another day. Only recently has he begun having my schoolwork sent to the house so I may keep up with my courses from afar.
If the campus isn’t safe, I appreciate how he brings it to me. And this party could be the perfect exception, as it would take place on the estate grounds. Which, according to Hayden, is perfectly safe, and from what I’ve experienced of his insanity for control, I know it will be.
He finishes fastening his cuffs, then turns toward me entirely, eyes dragging down the line of my bare legs still tangled in the sheets. He studies me the way someone might assess an antique, priceless perhaps, but breakable if mishandled. He doesn’t speak right away, just moves to pour himself another cup of coffee, the steam curling between us.
