Page 28 of Cruel Pawn
I waved a hand, dismissing it. “Nothing. Do you want dessert? I noticed you always buy halva in your monthly shop, so I made sure to stock up a lot of it.”
“Arden,” she said in a cold, iron tone that made my heart skip and my stomach get all squirmy. “You’re bleeding. What—oh, I stabbed you,” she remembered with a soft laugh.
Was it weird that it turned me on to hear her laugh at stabbing me? She was so cruel and a little mean and fuck, I wanted to be inside her again. I reached into my sweatpants to adjust my cock, my balls aching.
“You need to bandage it,” she pointed out.
“It’s already bandaged.” The back of my neck heated. This always happened when someone showed even an iota of concern for me. Even years later, even after a decade of being part of the Marshall Family with all their exuberant, defiant love and obsessive care, it was still jarring when someone gave a fuck. And Priya could fight me all she liked, but the way her voice hardened and how she now glared at my thigh told me she didn’t like seeing me bleed. She cared.
We had all the time in the world for that care to bloom into love.
“You need to change the bandage then. And I need the bathroom, so you’d better unchain me.”
A laugh began low in my chest, growing in volume. “My sweet, sweet, pretty little opera. I’m never going to unchain you.”
“Well, I guess I’ll just piss myself,” she said, almost as a threat.
As much as I wanted to call her bluff, Priya was so stubborn and so resistant to even the suggestion of defeat, that she’d probably go through with it.
I crossed to the shelf above the fridge where she couldn’t reach and slid the small key into my palm. The chain keeping my future wife confined to the bed was looped around and secured with several padlocks—the strongest, most indestructible, tamper-resistant padlocks on the market. The key was a tiny thing, so small but powerful. Two clicks of the lock and she could cross to the bathroom just beyond the door to her left. She could even reach the sofas, and another padlock could open to give her kitchen access, but the one thing my future wife could not do, and would never be able to do, was reach the door. She would never escape from me.
She was mine, from now until eternity.
15
Priya
Arden was watching me in that intense, constant stare that made my skin burn. It seared my face, my chest, my stomach, lingering on the indents on my thighs like he was imagining fitting his hands to them and—
Nope.
Horny Priya was not winning this time. Cold, calculated Priya was in the driver’s seat now, and I refused to be beaten by a psychopath with a god-level cock and words that made my heart flutter.
It was a relief to escape into the bathroom and not just because my bladder was uncomfortably full. Like the rest of the room, the décor here was dark and sumptuous, a white clawfoot tub breaking up the deep green of the walls, the dark wood of the cupboards. Rich, vermillion towels draped over a heated rail and felt like heaven when I ran my fingers over them. A big, arched window let in veils of sunlight, keeping the place from seeminglike a dungeon, and life overflowed from the top of the cabinets in the form of foliage, and ferns draped over the wall from a golden planter, interspersed with vivid red flowers. Ferns and roses. My favourite.
“How the fuck do you know this?” I hissed as I sank onto the toilet, even that expensive and classy. If I’d ever had the luxury of decorating my own home, it would have looked exactly like this—a little threatening, a little warm, but homely. Not pristine and carefully arranged. Lived in and welcoming.
I did my business, my bladder thanking me by stabbing needles of discomfort into my gut—bitch—and washed my hands, taking the time to lather the rest of my body to wash off the remnants of sweat. And the cum liberally coating my inner thighs. Jesus, it was like he’d fucked a gallon of it into me.
I glared at the cuffs at my right ankle and both wrists, keeping me attached to the damn chain. I guess I should be grateful both my ankles weren’t wrapped in cold metal.
“The window’s painted shut, my opera,” Arden called through the dark wood door, his voice singsong and sweet.
“I’m not trying to escape,” I growled, passing the warm cloth over myself to be certain I was clean. “I’m getting rid of your fucking spunk.”
“Not a sexy word,” he remarked, closer. I could picture him pressing his face against the wood in a mindless need to get closer to me. My heart softened.No, you useless fucking organ, you’re supposed to quicken with unease.“Also, how dare you? I put that cum there, and that’s where I want it to stay. I’ll have to fuck it much deeper next time so you can’t erase my essence.”
“Not a sexy word,” I parroted, though snarlier and full of venom. I glowered at the framed watercolour art on the walls—more roses, royal ferns, and horsetails, interspersed with baby’s breath. Then a beautiful rendering of a hedgehog, a markhor, and a dark orange fox. Another had sea creatures alongsidedolphins and sharks. Detailed but simple, the paintings wouldn’t have been out of place in a children’s book. “Where did this art come from?” I asked suspiciously, drying myself.
Every flower, every plant, every animal was one of my favourites. Just how much about me did Arden McFadyen know?
“They sprang into creation from my own fair hands,” he replied grandly.
My reflection rolled her eyes hard as I inspected the shadows under my eyes, visible now my concealer had washed off. Frown lines cut into my face.
“I know you think that was shameless bragging,” he said through the door, “but I really do have fair hands. Come out and see.”
“I’m busy,” I bit out, staring at myself in the mirror. I was stalling, nervous to go back out there and be assaulted with his obsessive affection. I wasn’t sure I could fight it. The woman in the mirror was dark-eyed—not just my irises but the light in them had gone out years ago. She wasalwaysdark eyed. Death-eyed, Silvio called it. But now they were bright, feverish,excited.
