Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 79991 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79991 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
“Motherfucker!” I slam the whiskey bottle onto the cart after filling a glass. I doubt there’s enough in the bottle to blot out my rage and regret, but I can sure as hell try.
Married. We have to get married. Has she known all along? My god. All this time, has she known?
I don’t know why it matters. I don’t know why the question burns more intensely than the whiskey now burning its way through my chest. Pretending to be frightened, knowing she’d be safe in the end. I should kill her for it. That would show Alvarez who’s in control, wouldn’t it? The thought brings me a grim smile and the first semblance of peace since I took the phone call earlier. He would learn how dangerous it is to fuck with me.
The thought is enough to make me start for the stairs, prepared to make her regret thinking she can pull some shit like this without facing repercussions.
Something stops me, leaving me gripping the banister as I stare up into the hall. I know how it’s going to go. How I’ll start out wanting to punish her but quickly end up wanting to indulge in her even more. I don’t know what it is about her, but she’s managed to work her way into my brain, into my soul. Like a drug I can’t kick, always in the back of my mind, promising relief. Peace. Everything I crave most. All the empty promises an addict struggles with that’s what I wrestle with. And I can tell myself all I want that I’ll know when to stop, that I’m in control, but I know it’s a lie. A means of justifying my dark, primal desire. My weakness.
But oh god, how much do I want to watch her come? To see her unravel in front of me, to hear my name tumbling from her lips again and again. No man has ever done that to her, and oh, she’s so eager. She can fight all she wants, can pretend and deny, but there’s no denying her body’s reaction.
She’s a magnet, pulling me up the stairs. As much as I know I shouldn’t, I also know I don’t have a choice. I’ll have to face her eventually. There’s no running away from this—nor should there be. I put myself in this position. But I can’t touch her. Not now, not until after the wedding. Her father probably knows she’s untouched, and I have no doubt my grandfather would want proof of that, as well. He wouldn’t want me marrying anyone he doesn’t approve of, no matter how crucial it is to the future of our family.
Still, my feet are heavy as I climb the stairs, but my heart is heavier. I’ve never been someone who can live with being told what to do. I don’t dance to anyone else’s drum, only my own. Or so I’ve wanted to tell myself. Underneath all of that has always been the awareness of Grandfather’s power over me. I can deny it all I want, but that makes it no less potent. After all, if I denied the presence of gravity, would I suddenly float away?
I did this. I put myself in this position, and now my hands are tied. Hands that are clenched in tight fists when I stand in the open doorway, gazing upon the woman who is now my bride-to-be.
She’s curled up on her side, miserable if the pained expression she wears is any indication. I want to take my rage out on her. I want to tell her how much I regret the entire situation. I wish I could punish her. I wish I could comfort her.
One thing I know, or at least strongly suspect: she had no part in any of this. No one could look so miserable, so bewildered, and not mean it.
I enter the room, but she gives no hint that she notices or even cares. Have I finally broken her down? Has some of the fire finally fizzled out? Is she just as much a pawn in all of this as I now am? I wish I could ask her, but I don’t know the words to use. I don’t know how to express myself in any genuine, meaningful way.
Especially not when all I want to do is continue what I started before. Just the thought of it makes my pulse quicken. It’s so easy to arouse a virgin. To make them moan and beg, to make them lose their breath and their sense of time and place in favor of sensations they’ve never indulged in before. It’s one thing to touch yourself, but to be touched by someone else? Someone who knows their way around a woman’s body?
The way I know how to touch hers. And I want to give her more that’s the worst part. I want her to feel these things with me, only with me. I want her to look at me in wide-eyed wonder, breathless and hazy and unable to wrap her mind around what her body just went through.