Page 24 of Poisoned Vows

I’m eye-level with his cock for a moment, and I stare for the briefest of seconds. I can’t help it. It’s not that I’ve never seen an aroused man before—but notthisclose. Not literally close enough for me to touch, if I wanted to.

But I don’t want to. I don’t.

When I look up, there’s that smirk on his face again. He saw me looking. And I hate him all over again for it.

I don’t take his hand. I push myself up to my feet and tilt my chin up defiantly, glaring at him. “I can find my own way back to my room.”

“I’ll walk with you anyway.” There’s a note of command to his voice that tells me this is not a battle to pick. I’ll lose it, and it will be pointless.

So I let him walk with me. He doesn’t touch me again, not even a hand on my back as we go up the curving staircase to the floor that my bedroom is on, not when he opens the door to let me in. He doesn’t follow me inside, and I see the glint of a key in his hand as he stands there, looking at me.

He’s going to lock me in again. I’m not surprised, but my stomach clenches with a mingled fear and anger that rattles me.

“You said you weren’t keeping me prisoner.” I nod at the key, and he shrugs, his face carefully blank.

“Maybe you convinced me otherwise.” His eyes still have that stormy quality, but there’s nothing else on his face. “Good night, Lilliana. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He closes the door, and a moment later, I hear the click of the lock.

Nikolai

My new bride-to-be is infuriating.

I hadn’t expected her to be willing. But I had expected her to be pliable. I had expected her to come to us prepared for her fate. Even when I saw her in my father’s study, I hadn’t realized just how much spirit there was in her.

I’m quickly finding out. And the problem is that as maddening as she is, it doesn’t make me want her less.

Normally I’m up quickly in the morning, dressed, and on my way to start my typical routine—which hasn’t changed in years. But I find myself lingering in bed, thinking about my bride-to-be, considering that she’s only one floor up and a few doors away. I’ve stayed at the mansion instead of my penthouse since she was brought here, unwilling to leave her so close to my father without my presence there.

I feel possessive, protective over her already, and it’s a feeling that’s so wholly unfamiliar that I don’t know what to do with it.

I’ve thought more than once about visiting Asha. She’d be willing—eager, even, to help me drain away the tension and built-up lust that Lilliana has been making steadily worse with every day that I see her. But every time I consider going to the dungeon and enjoying the company of my favorite submissive, I find that the lust tapers off. It fades, and I don’t fucking understand it.

There’s never been a moment in my life where I’ve been a one-woman man. I’ve never had a fuckingrelationship. I’ve had women I fucked for an extended period of time on and off—Asha is one of them—but I’ve never fuckingdatedanyone. There have always been multiple women I’ve been seeing at once. The idea that one woman could make me want her so much that the idea of anyone else disinterests me is ludicrous.

But every time I get hard, all I can think of is Lilliana. Her smart mouth and her soft pussy, how wet she got against my fingers despite herself. How I can put both of those to use, once she’s my wife. How I’ll make her mine, how I’ll make herbegfor me before I’m finished with her—on our wedding night, if I can manage it. I want to make her realize how completely she belongs to me from the very first night.

It’s made me feel like a fucking horny teenager. I haven’t used my own hand so much in years—there’s no point, when a willing woman is a phone call or a short drive away. But I find myself waking up every morning for the two weeks between signing that contract and our wedding day with a hard, aching cock that refuses to deflate until I wrap my hand around it, stroking myself almost resentfully until I come in my fist. And it’s not just the mornings, either.

I’ve kept a steady routine for years. I get up, grab breakfast to go, and go to the gym. Afterward, I address whatever business my father has for me, whatever meetings I need to attend, or people that I need to pay a visit to. Later, sometimes there are business dinners, and sometimes there’s time to relax—which means a night out with a good dinner, good drinks, and a woman to warm my bed by the end of the night…or a visit to a place where I can indulge my darker tastes.

Now, it feels disrupted. The gym is a good distraction from the constant, low-level burn of arousal that Lilliana seems to have sparked in me. I find myself pushing harder than ever—but by the end of it, I find myself in the shower, hand fisted around my cock again as I imagine her pressed against the tiles, her smooth pale skin under my hands as I fuck her hard and fast, her undoubtedly musical cries of pleasure filling the air.

I’ll be past this soon enough,I tell myself as I finish with a groan, cum splashing over the tiles as I think of the night I slipped into her room, the way I left a little of the taste of me on her lips.I’ll marry her and fuck her, and then I’ll put her out of my head.

I’ll exorcise whatever the fuck this is, and things will go back to normal.

The most infuriating thing about her is how she throws every single thing I do to try to make this easier on her back in my face. I said I’d marry her because I knew I couldn’t refuse my father’s ‘reward,’ and I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off of her once I took her away. It didn’t matter where I stashed her. I could have sent her to fucking Antarctica, and I’d be on a plane the next day to fuck her. There was nowhere far enough away.

There was only one way to keep myself from violating her in an unforgivable way and keep from being on the wrong end of my father’s wrath. I’d known he would be angry about the offer of marriage, but refusing the reward and appearing ungrateful, especially in front of a nothing piece of shit like Narokov, would have been worse. It was the only solution, so far as I could see.

But Lilliana can’t seem to grasp that. That sharp-tongued conversation at our first dinner together wasn’t the end of it. Since then, I’ve tried a few different ways to get her to open up. To realize that my intent in all of this, is to prevent her being hurt as much as possible.

I’ve arranged a few more private dinners. Tried to set up a night for the two of us in the private theater in the mansion with a movie. Attempted to do things that I’ve never even fucking considered doing for a woman before, just to soften the blow of this for her. To soothe it, until we can consummate the marriage, I can fuck her out of my system, and then she can settle into the life of being the pampered and ignored wife of the Vasilev heir.

It seems like a good bet for her. She’ll want for nothing. She’ll have everything she desires, without having to indulge my company or my cock, once I’m sick of her. I don’t understand why she’s so fucking pissed about it all.

For the last week, I mostly leave her alone. She both makes me want to fly into a rage and fuck her senseless every time I see her, and I decide it’s better for us both if we have some space before the wedding day. I planned to ignore her entirely until I see her walking down the aisle.

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