I don’t know who I was expecting to see. I know this is Alfie’s bedroom, but my curiosity was clearly clouding anything else. I know he’s not mine. I know he’s clearly not interested in me, but it doesn’t shove the rising nausea back down my tightening throat as I watch Alfie fuck into that girl from behind.
Even though my eyes fill with unjustified tears, I can’t look away from his huge, rippling back muscles as he punches his cock into this small girl. His tattoos glisten with sweat. The veins in his arms bulge as he digs his fingers into the thick flesh of her ass while his other hand grips hard on her long dark hair and pulls her body into a U shape. Her body’s flawless. A filled-out frame around a deep curve of her spine as she arches her back for him. Smooth, unblemished skin.
Her cries ring through me, slicing through my weak self-esteem while his growly grunts of effort pierce my heart like needles. I’m not upset, not really, it’s just a shock to see him in this way and realise it’s what I wanted him to be like with me. Unleashed, masculine, vulnerable. I’ve never seen that much of his skin, but now I’m seeing too much. The tight mounds of his ass cheeks tightening and plunging forward and back.
My legs squeeze together at the image. Of his rock-hard cock driving into me instead of her. A deep ache appears between my legs. Fuck. I want this man. I want the only one that doesn’t want me back. The revelation is nothing short of having my skin grated off inch by inch. Sheer, screeching, relentless pain.
“Enjoying the show?”
I start at the voice unbearably close to me. I was so mesmerised I didn’t hear footsteps approaching me.
I don’t turn back to look at Caden, my eyes can’t pull away from the spectacle of dominance in front of me. He feels different now, though. The overbearing, animalistic predator is no longer emanating from him. He feels heavy, tired. I hope I hurt him enough.
“Why aren’t you doing that with someone right now?” I say. “Forty days of celibacy, I thought this would be the first thing youalldo.”
He answers stiffly, “Because I’m betrothed to a woman already. A woman I thought might be hungry.”
Surely he can’t mean me. Not after that act in the woods. He had every opportunity to do whatever he wanted. I felt how hard he was, pressing into my body like a brick. But he didn’t. A foiled plate comes into view beside me, the smell of roasted meats floating around me and making my stomach twist.
I don’t respond, nor do I take the plate. The only sounds filling the silence being Alfie’s growls and the girl’s screams.
With their brutal slap of skin meeting wetly, he continues, “I’m betrothed to you, Elodie, whether I like it or not. I’m spoken for. My cock isn’t going anywhere near another woman.” He’s so close behind me I can feel the brush of his body against my ass.
“That’s a ridiculous amount of loyalty.” I know he’s expecting me to say the same, but if I’m not fucking him, I can’t go the rest of my life without – I stare at Alfie’s stretched neck as he tilts his head back in rapture – that.
“Yes,” Caden hisses, “and I hope you’re reciprocating. Or is there another man in your mind right now while you’re watching my cousin fuck that slut like an animal?”
Well, obviously. I’m imagining Alfie doing that to me instead of her. I don’t say that though, and that’s basically the same answer. Which he doesn’t like.
He grabs my wrist and flings me round, slamming me into the wall, the plate now discarded and sliding across the floor. “Tell me, Elodie, who would you like to fuck you tonight?”
I don’t answer and his fist comes flying into the wall beside my head. Alfie’s rhythm stills.
“Why does it matter so much to you? You don’t want to fuck me, so why can’t I think about someone else?” I sneer.
His eyes are as wild as they were in the woods, he still hasn’t released all that he needs to. “I don’t want to fuck you because you don’t deserve it. You’re not half the woman I go for.”
“So why do you even want me to stay?” I can’t hide the whine in my voice. “Just let me go. Why take me if you find me so repulsive?”
He studies me, dark eyes darting all over my face with a pensive depth I don’t understand. “Because it was what my father wanted. We have an understanding, I have faith in those above us. My father approved of you, wanted you, for whatever unknown reason, so I accept it. It’s honour.”
“Sounds more like being a little bitch boy to me.”
“It’s called respect, you bratty little whore,” he spits.
“Tell your dad I ran away or whatever. Get yourself a girl you actually want.”
“No. This is what’s expected of us, and I intend to see it through. I never fail, Elodie, you should learn that quickly, because my challenge is now moulding you into something worthy of me. I do not fail.”
I take a deep breath in, my expanding chest brushing against his. “I can’t be what you want me to be, Caden, this is me. This is the best it can get.”
“I don’t accept that. Everyone can change. You will change. I see the potential, you just have to submit.”
I snort in his face. “Please, you think I’ll submit now? Unless you change, Caden, I won’t either.”
His eyes darken into something unforgiving. He doesn’t reply to me when he grabs me by the arm and starts dragging me to the bedroom. He kicks the door shut behind us and shoves me onto the bed. I fight every step of the way, but I’m spent, and he still has forty days’ worth of pent-up aggression running through those lean muscles.
I kick my legs as he climbs onto the bed, but he easily pries them open and drops his body between them. His warmth swarms me, my heart’s beating erratically as I desperately search for a way out of this. Out of him.
