"You make a stunning bride," she gushed.
Normally, I wouldn't think anything of her compliments—I was so used to hearing them from her sweet lips—but right now, I had to admit she was right. This dress. The makeup she’d put on me accented my skin tone well. It made my eyes look bigger, rounder. My lashes were longer and darker. My hair had been curled into the waves Gertie seemed to prefer and pulled away from my face, arranged so that the veil could fit at the back of my head. The entire look—the makeup, the dress, the veil, and the jewelry—turned me from merely adequate to extraordinary.
And last, but certainly not least, the necklace that Gaven had originally gifted me sat at the base of my throat flush against my skin. Reminding me physically, with its glittering jewels and weight, that my body was about to become owned by him. I turned slightly, the skirts clinging to my legs swished with the movement.
"Gertie," I said, throat growing tighter the longer I stared at myself in the mirror, "can you give me a few moments alone?"
The older woman tilted her head back, her all too-knowing gray eyes likely recognizing the riot in my mind. She nodded and then quietly left the room. As soon as the door shut behind her, I stepped off the dais that had been placed in front of the mirror and turned away from it. My chest felt tight.
As strong as I’d tried to be, it was this moment—the dress and Jackie’s fucking words—that were finally getting to me.
My gaze fell to the table that had been set up to display all of the useless items brides needed for a wedding day, something old and new, borrowed and blue. My lips thinned as I eyed each object before, finally, I glanced down at the ring on my finger. It'd been delivered by a man I hadn't recognized not long after the dress shop trip. A single gold band with a cluttering of diamonds that glittered every time I moved my fingers. It was gorgeous. It was ostentatious. It made the rock sitting at the bottom of my stomach feel that much heavier.
"What the hell am I doing?" I asked myself, pressing the back of my hand to my forehead. My skin was clammy.
"That's what I'm wondering." The familiar baritone was so sudden and startling that it nearly made me trip over my own skirts as I whirled around too fast to face the man who'd—once again—snuck up on me.
Gertie had evidently not locked the door when she’d left, and I hadn’t heard him come in. Gaven stood there, just inside my bedroom door, his hands in the pockets of his black suit. Far be it for him to dress for a wedding. He looked like he was dressed for a funeral. Black shirt, black jacket, black slacks, even a black tie. It was always the same with him. I wondered if there was even a single spec of color in his closet. Still, he was handsome. Entrancing. I couldn't pull my eyes away from him. My breathing sped up. Steel blue eyes moved down my body, examining, analyzing, heating.
"What are you doing in here?" I asked. "You're not supposed to see me before the wedding."
"It's in an hour," he said with a shrug. "And I'm not one for waiting. What are you doing?"
My hands found the skirts at my upper thighs, my fingers digging into the fabric. "Getting ready." It felt like the lamestthing in the world to say, but that’s what I was doing, wasn’t it? Preparing myself to marry the cruelest man I’d ever met, and the most frustrating.
“Are you admiring your dress?” he asked.
I frowned at him before I shrugged. “I suppose.”
"Yeah?" He arched a brow. "Usually, when one admires something, they have to be looking at it. Why aren't you looking at yourself, darling?" Heat rose to my face, and I had no response to that. He pushed away from the door and approached. "Well?" he prompted when I still hadn't answered him. The closer he came, the faster my heart beat until I swore it would leap right out of my chest.
I moved away, but he came forward. It was as if we had this constant push and pull between us. Whenever I would pull away, he would push forward. Whenever I’d push back … well, sometimes, I wondered if he actually liked that. It wasn't until the backs of my legs met the table that I realized he'd been steadily directing me. By then, though, it was too late.
Gaven's arms came down on either side of me, and he leaned in close enough that the scent of whatever cologne he'd chosen for today's special event was all that I could smell. It was something spicy and it enticed me. I hated that.
"Are you having second thoughts, Angel?" he taunted. “Are you wanting to run away again? You remember what happened the last time, don’t you?”
"You’re not doing that to me again," I replied tersely. Both he and my father had made it all too clear that regardless of my wishes, this wedding would come to pass. There was no way out.
He chuckled, the sound reverberating through his chest and into mine. “You act as though you hated it,” he said, leaning closer. “I distinctly remember your wet cunt gripping me so tight, not wanting to let my hand go. I remember your bodyrolling against me, your hips thrusting onto my fingers and fist as you came apart.”
Why is he always trying to humiliate me?I wondered. It was as if he got off on the degrading words that came out of his lips.No,I corrected mentally.Heisgetting off on them and more so on what they do to me.
Gaven dipped his head as one of his hands came up and swept my hair back. My pulse throbbed in my veins as he leaned down even further, pressing a chaste kiss to my throat. Right where he’d tied a fucking noose around my neck. I parted my lips to speak, except the hard bite of his teeth shocked me mute as they sank into my skin. I gasped, and without thinking, my hands went to the waistband of his pants, gripping onto him there but not quite pushing him back.
The sharp pain of his bite slipped through my senses and traveled downward, lighting a fire within me as the place between my legs softened. "Gaven..." I whispered, both a plea and a refusal. I wanted him to release me almost as much as I wanted him to give me more of those sensations. My brain lit up with the pain as it morphed and shifted, changing into a distinctly wicked kind of pleasure.
"You have no clue what I'm going to do to you tonight, do you, Angel?" he said, but even as he asked the question, he kept going, pressing himself more firmly against me so that even through the copious fabrics of my dress and his pants, I could feel how hard he was. The thick length of him throbbing against me. "I'm going to mold you, sweetheart. I'm going to teach you exactly how to please a man like me, and I promise you that you’re going to like it. You'll like everything I give you and ask for more. You’ll beg for it, and as it’s your duty to submit to me, it’ll be mine to give you all that pleasure and maybe just a little bit of pain.”
I pulled my head away and glared at him. “It’s always more than a little bit of pain with you,” I reminded him.
Gaven grinned and twisted his head as his gaze roved over me. Sweat popped up along my spine. “You like the pain I give you, sweetheart,” he replied.
I didn’t say a thing in response. I knew any denial would be a lie, and fuck him, but so did he. I licked my lips and moved my head back so I could look into his perfect, devious, blue eyes. Reckless. He made me want to be so fucking reckless. “You said that if I gave you what you wanted, you might give me something I wanted,” I reminded him instead, lifting my hand to his chest. His body tightened against mine and a flare of something wicked entered his eyes. “Is that still true?”
“Yes.” His answer was quick.
“What do you want now, Gaven?” I asked.
