Page 42 of Unwillingly His

“What if what?”

“What if I’m not ready to get married?”

“You’re twenty-six years old. You’re plenty old enough.”

“I know I’m old enough, but what if I’m just not ready? What if I want?—”

“What you want is irrelevant when it contradicts what I want. Now get dressed and meet me downstairs for breakfast. You are to be fully dressed and at the breakfast table by 7:00 a.m. every morning, do you understand me?”

“Yes,” she said with a bite to her tone.

“You want to try that again?” I asked, looking back in the mirror at my perfectly tied Windsor knot.

“Yes, sir. But what am I supposed to wear?”

CHAPTER 18

STELLA

This had to all be some deranged fever dream.

Or maybe I had died in that car, and this was my hell.

Was this all punishment for making fun of Mitzy Buller’s braces in the third grade? I had apologized for that.

I stared at Lucian’s back as he walked out of the door, closing it behind him.

If looks could kill, I would have set his gray suit on fire with my eyes alone.

Not that he cared. Not that he asked what I wanted at any point. The only thing he cared about was that I called him sir. And didn’t break his rules.

I didn’t know which I hated more, the fact that he made me do it, and it felt so demeaning, so embarrassing, and just wrong, or the fact that every single time those words came from my mouth, there was a pulse of pleasure between my legs.

It was so messed up.

This man, this gorgeous, older man.

I was friends with his daughters and daughter-in-law, for Christ’s sake. He couldn’t be serious. The rules he had given me were completely asinine, and I didn’t believe what he said about my father’s money for a second.

Lucian had told me to get dressed, but I had no clothes here.

I hadn’t been allowed to take anything from the hotel suite. Everything was being held until I could figure out a way to pay my bill.

What was I supposed to do? Fashion a dress out of his bed linens? God knew after the way he was with me last night that they were not fit to wear. He had done things to my body that left large sticky white stains over the black satin.

Heat burned my cheeks again as I thought about last night.

About how good everything was. The pain, the pleasure, and how they swirled together in a way that was intoxicating, and so warm. Last night I had slept in his arms, and I wanted to feel like I should be sick about that. I wanted to feel like that was something horrible, but the only thing I felt was warm.

The truth was that it had been the best night of sleep I’d had since the accident.

It was the first time I had slept through the entire night without those dreams haunting me. The first morning I had woken up to the feeling of his cock sliding inside of me, my muscles aching from soreness, and it still felt exquisite. It was far better than waking up to the echoing, pounding sound of the flask hitting the roof of that limo, or having the image of my mother’s lifeless eyes seared behind my eyelids when I first opened them.

I thought back to how he’d touched me, expecting the revulsion to hit any minute, but it still didn’t. Instead of that, a slow creeping warmth glowed in my core again, and I couldn’t help the way my fingers slid down my body, stopping to pinch my nipples like he had, thinking about the way his hot mouth pulled at them before my hand slid down further to my wet, aching, and very messy pussy.

My finger had only barely touched my clit when the doors slammed open, and a parade of staff came into the room. Grateful that I was still under the blankets, I held them to my body and demanded to know what the hell was going on.

“Mr. Manwarring is having us deliver your wardrobe. We are to put it into the spare closet in this room so that you may get dressed. Mr. Manwarring has insisted that while we prepare your closets, we are also to draw you a hot bath so that you may cleanse yourself,” a man with slicked back hair and a tuxedo with a bow tie and tails said, while looking down his nose at me.

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