Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80919 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80919 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
We were above all. We looked down upon our kingdom that we merely allowed others to inhabit. I had been raised to rule my empire with an iron fist, and any less would mean the downfall of me and my family.
Failure was not an option.
The pressure had scared the shit out of me when I was a kid, but now the challenge excited me.
I loved looking at this view. Soon, very soon, it would be mine. I reveled in the challenge of rising to the level of a titan of industry and taking my place. Every time I looked out this window, that was the future I envisioned.
Though since the engagement, the mental pictures had somewhat shifted.
I was no longer alone at the head of my family.
A wife stood next to me—well, below me—but still above everyone else.
Then there were the children who would inherit not only the family business as it was now, but what I grew it into. I no longer saw this as my empire, but one I was meant to strengthen and grow for the next generation of Manwarring men.
I just had a few things to do first, mainly, dispose of my father before his recklessness became a liability we couldn’t mitigate.
That wasn’t where my mind was this morning. I wasn’t studying the buildings or the lights in the skyline, or even my future as the head of the family.
I was thinking about Amelia.
More specifically, the way I had left her the night before.
The struggle in her eyes as I left her, in her bed, alone to clean herself up, handle the fallout, and deal with the fact she was no longer a virgin.
I had been rash and fucking stupid.
Marksen had tried to get into my head with his lies, and I had let him.
The idea that he had been with her, that she wanted him and every time I fucked her she would think about him, had utterly consumed me. Or worse, that she’d go to him whenever she could.
He’d never had her. The more I thought about it, the more I doubted they’d ever had more than a few passing conversations, let alone some love connection or bond that united them as lovers.
No, he had bluffed, and though I hadn’t given him what he wanted, I had let him get into my head, and I had taken my future wife’s innocence by force.
Not that I would have made her first time on our honeymoon sweet or gentle.
God no. I would have at least been easier on her, though.
I would have done a better job making sure she was more prepared before I stretched her wide. She would have been ready, and I would have at least taught her what I like. Given her an opportunity to learn my body and discover what felt good for me and her.
Though she hadn’t fought me for long.
When I’d agreed to this scheme, I’d known there was a good chance that every time I lay with my wife, she would merely lie there like a cold, dead fish. Just there to fulfill her obligations. I had expected sex with her to be a fight, then a chore.
She was nothing like I had expected.
Her body had responded to mine. She had leaned into my kiss, purred under my touch, and her hips rocked into mine, racing toward her own glorious release.
Once she’d let go, once she’d accepted what was happening, she’d become something unexpected. She was hot, wild, and hungry for me.
She’d been possessed by an exquisite, wild abandon, like she’d stopped thinking. She’d stopped analyzing everything and had given in to it. She gave in to me.
Every time I’d demanded more from her, she’d met the challenge.
It was the most unexpected, satisfying thing that had ever happened. Until I got out of her bed and got dressed. The look of a well-fucked, contented woman had melted off her face as she realized what had just happened. Like an idiot, I had left her there alone.
She was probably terrified of me now.
There were lines a man of society shouldn’t cross, and I had crossed each of them. I had entered her house, destroyed an ornate antique door and ruined priceless furniture, and I had taken my bride before our wedding night.
We’d fucked like wild animals.
No, I’d fucked her like a whore, expecting that was what she really was.
I’d told myself that once we were married, I’d lock her away so she could never cuckold me like her mother had her father.
Any time I had to travel, I’d lock her in a chastity belt and keep her in my hotel room waiting for me. Even then, I would have every child she bore DNA tested. The second one of them wasn’t mine, she would be penniless and out on her ass.