Page 25 of Poisoned Vows

But two nights before the wedding, I end up standing in front of her door again, even though I know better. Even though I know this is only going to end up leaving me both angry and unsatisfied.

I knock heavily on the door, and for a moment, I think she’s already asleep. It doesn’t matter; I have the key. But a few seconds pass, and I hear her sharp voice through the wood.

“You know it’s fucking locked, right? If you want to come in, you have to open it.”

I slip the key into the lock and push the door open. “I was trying to be a gentleman, little rabbit. But I can come in unannounced if you like.” I don’t bother hiding the innuendo in my words, and I see her flinch from where she’s sitting, curled up in a chair by the window with a book in her lap. “I see someone brought you something to do.”

“Marika was nice enough to bring me something to read. She asked me what I like, even.”

“I’ve tried asking what you like.” I glance at the book. It’s a romance novel. I try to summon some kind of disdain for it, but all I feel is a sort of vague curiosity about why she’d choose that for her reading material.Is she trying to get an idea of what’s coming in a few days? Imagining a different kind of future for herself, one where she ends up with a hero instead of a villain?I’d gotten the impression from her that she had no interest in romance at all.

“Not because you really care.” She sets the book down, looking up at me with a flat, bored expression on her face.

“And you think Marika does?”

She shrugs. “She does seem to actually give a shit, yes. I think she likes having me around. She seems—lonely.”

“Maybe I like having you around.”

Lilliana snorts. “I piss you off. You think I can’t tell? You don’t want me here. You don’t want to marry me. And I can’t for the life of me understand why you are.”

Something dark and heavy spirals through me, filling my veins like smoke. She’s been driving me insane for going on two weeks now, making me angry and aroused and driving me up the fucking wall. I’ve kept a hard, tight grip on it—and myself—but now, just on the wrong side of too many expensive whiskies and with the knowledge that in two more nights, I’ll be showing her a different use for her smart mouth, I feel my control wavering.

I stalk towards the chair, and I see the brief moment where her defiance wavers too, a flicker of uncertainty on her face. I grab onto that as I loom over her, hands on the arms of the chair as I look down into her lovely, delicate face, illuminated by the light from the lamp next to her.

“Let’s get this straight, Lilliana,” I growl, trying my best to keep the words from blurring together, the whisky swimming in my head. “Iam the one in control here. You can fight me all you like, but in two days, youwillbe my wife. Nothing is going to change that.Youcan’t change that. And once you are mine, I won’t have to feel bad any longer about what I’m going to do to you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I swear I feel a quiver go through her at that, vibrating in the air between us. I swear I can see her breath catch in her throat, like she fucking wants it, like saying that turns her on. I wonder if I slid my hand down her tight leggings and under her panties right now, if she’d be wet.

The thought makes my cock twitch and swell, a throb of need pulsing through me.

She tilts her chin up, her bright blue eyes glaring into mine. “Do you want to hear whatIknow, Nikolai?” she asks, her voice soft and sharp, and I smirk, looking at her soft, plush lips as she speaks.

“Sure,” I tell her, half-mockingly. “Tell me what you think you know, littlekrolik. Say what you want to now, because in two days, those pretty lips will be around my cock.”

She tries not to flinch at that, and fails. “You can force me to marry you,” she hisses sharply. “You can make me be your wife. But you can’t make me love you. And I willneverbelong to you.”

I laugh at that, a short, sharp bark of a sound. I can’t help it. “I don’t want you to love me, pretty little rabbit,” I tell her, reaching up to touch her cheek lightly. I can feel her stiffen, trying not to flinch away. “I don’t care if you do. But youwillbelong to me. You can do what you like with your heart; I don’t give a shit about it. But the rest of you—”

I drag my gaze slowly down her body—down her pretty face, her pert breasts in the tight tank top she’s wearing, noticing that she’s not wearing a bra. I can see the soft, small shapes beneath the thin fabric, her nipples pressing softly against it, and my fingers itch with the desire to touch her, to pluck the sensitive flesh until it’s taut and stiff, until she’s begging me for more.

My eyes flick lower, to the apex of her thighs, where I suspect she’s warm and wet right now, no matter how much she’d deny it. “I’m going to show you all the ways that a man like me can use a girl like you,” I tell her, my voice rasping as I look back up at her face. “You will be mine, in every way that matters. You and I will say our vows, and sit at our reception, and dance and cut a cake and eat our wedding meal, and then I will whisk you away for the night, and I—”

The words stick in my throat, a fierce arousal throbbing through me at the thought of it. I want itnow, to yank her out of the chair and bend her over, my fist wrapping in her hair as I drag that tight fabric down her hips and thighs and thrust my aching cock into her. It would feel so fucking good. I’ve never denied myself anything I wanted like this before, not in my entire life. I’ve never had to.

But if I do this now, if I take her before our wedding night, I’ll cross the line that I’ve determined separates man from monster. I’ll hurt her in an unforgivable way.

Somehow, I leash that desire again. I look down into her delicate, defiant face, and I let go of the chair, stepping back an inch, and another, until I feel like I can breathe again.

I see her gaze flick down to the front of my trousers, the way her eyes widen briefly, seeing the force of my arousal. I doubt she’s ever seen a cock before in person, let alone one of my size.

“I’m going to fuck you,” I tell her, low and rough, and I see her eyes widen a little more. She’s afraid.Good. She needs to be. She needs to understand that whatever her father taught her when it came to men like me, he should have taught her how to keep a better leash on her tongue. “On our wedding night, and as many nights as I want to, afterward.However,I please. And you will not tell me no. You willenjoyit.”

She laughs. I can’t fucking believe it. She tilts her head back a little and laughs.

“Of course, that’s what you’re going to do,” she tells me, her tone the one that’s almost mocking now. “But you can’t make me enjoy it, Nikolai. You can’t make me want it. That’s the one thing you can’t do.”

I wonder if she knows how wrong she is. She must, after what happened in the study—after how wet she was on my fingertips, even though I know a girl like her would never have wanted that to happen. She must know that I control more than just whether or not she agrees to marry me.

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