Her dress fell away from her curves, and he leaned in and kissed her neck before putting his hand around her throat, tilting her face upward so that she had to look at them full in the mirror. “You belong to me.”
She couldn’t breathe. This was wrong. But then, all of it was wrong. Nothing was right, and it never could be, but surrendering to Andrei like this the night before her wedding was… It was a mistake. But she couldn’t stop herself, any more than she could stop him. She looked in the mirror, at the two of them, at her face, which was like a stranger’s. Her eyes were round, dark with need, fear, desire. She looked hungry, starving for him.
Such pointless honestly in a moment where it was too late. It made her want to rage. But all she could do was stand there, staring, looking at the picture they made in the mirror.
“Watch what I do to you,” he said, commanding in her ear. “And you can think about it later when he touches you. You can watch yourself in the mirror as his hands move over your body. Watch and see if the pleasure is there, the need. It won’t be. You will never want him the way that you want me.”
“You’re cursing us both,” she whispered.
He was. Cursing her to a life that would never feel quite right. Cursing her to an existence that would always feel like half of what they had experienced together that night on the yacht.
She welcomed it, in a perverse way.
Wanted to sacrifice her sexual desire on the altar of Andrei and let it go up in flames. Wanted to punish herself for doing this to the both of them. For choosing to marry Lucian in the first place.
This was nothing like the first time they’d come together. There had been a joy mixed in with the bitterness. A sweetness.
There was none of that here. He was angry, and she couldn’t blame him. She could do nothing but take it. Because she deserved it. She had done this. He tilted her head to the side, and bit her on the neck, then he released the strapless bra she was wearing, exposing her breasts, his dark hands cupping the pale globes before skimming down her stomach, beneath the fabric of her panties, as he roughly pushed his hands between her slick folds. She gasped, moaned as he began to tease her, torment her. She could feel the hard pressure of his arousal against her rear, the insistence of his desire.
“Watch,” he commanded.
He pushed her panties down her hips, just above her knees, placed his fingers between her legs, spreading her lips open so that she could see her own slickness, the pink flesh there. Then he began to circle his finger around her clit before thrusting it deep inside her. Watching it felt obscene. And she was powerless to do anything but stare.
Was powerless to do anything but watch as he pushed a second finger inside her before dragging his fingers up toward her lips, and demanding that she open. “Taste yourself,” he said.
She parted her lips and let him have entry, licking her own desire from him.
“Good girl,” he said. “Would you ever do that for him?” She shook her head. “I hope youdo. I hope it doesn’t taste nearly as sweet.”
Erotic confusion assaulted her, and she leaned back against him as he pushed his hand back between her legs, teasing her, toying with her. He had been a generous, wonderful lover their first time together, and there was certainly a physical generosity to the way he pleasured her now, but the emotional connection was gone. This was rage.
And it still felt so good.
He pressed his hands to the back of her neck and pushed her forward, then she could hear him undoing his belt buckle. He positioned himself at the entrance of her body, thrust inside her, and she watched the pleasure build on his face, watched it build on her own. The anguish.
And there was no small amount of anguish as he drove them both to the peak of pleasure. They made a profane work of art, there in the mirror, one hand on the back of her neck, the other on her hip as he thrust deep within her, driving them both to the limit.
Then he threw his head back and growled, pouring himself inside her, and she gasped out her own release, the waves of need rippling inside her endlessly.
When it was finished, she was covered in shame.
She’d given in to him, to his punishment because even that felt good. Even that felt better than not touching him. She’d been willing to accept his disdain, his hatred, on the eve of her wedding to another man, just as joyfully as she’d accepted their goodbye on the yacht.
Her going forward with this wedding had turned his feelings for her, she could see it. It had poisoned his love.
He hated her as much as he’d ever cared.
“Get out,” she said.
“As you wish, Princess.”
Out of her room. Out of her life.
Then he was gone. She wondered if he would even go to the wedding tomorrow.
Do you even want him there? What kind of sick person are you? There is nothing left for the two of you. Nothing.
She tried to sleep, but it was fitful. It was the night before her wedding, and it felt like a death march. But even more so when early in the morning she realized that for the first time in her life, she was late. And by the time the sun came up she had answered the question about why.
