“I know you will.”
Instantly at those words, I slap him across the face.
He smiles at me. “I can’t choke you before the wedding, Everly, but I sure as shit can spank you.”
I cross my arms over my chest, and he pulls off my dress, making it snap. I hear the buttons at the front pop off as he strips me down until all I have left on is my panties which he pulls off as well.
“Tell me, would it be me if you had picked? If the option were available to you, would you have chosen me?” He leans in, his lips touching the top of my bare breast. Then he reaches up with his hand, skimming my belly as he goes. “Tell me, Everly.”
“Fuck you,” I say, pushing away, but I don’t give it enough effort because he pulls me straight back to him.
“The things I will do to you once we are husband and wife are going to be remarkable,” he says in a soft voice.
I don’t understand. “Why can’t you do them now?”
Gunner pulls back looks at me. “You’re a tease, but no. That’s something we wait for. Otherwise, you might get too scared.”
I stand tall, pushing my body against his. “You don’t scare me,” I tell him.
Leaning in close, he speaks into my ear and kisses along my neck. “You should be scared of me… you’d be a fool not to be.” He holds me to him as he kisses down my neck then picks me up and carries me to the bed, where he places me down and then comes over me with his body. His lips never leaving me. I’m so angry at him, but I also want him. My need for him is strong. Too strong.
I’m so drunk on him.
I hate myself for it. As much as a drunk hates the drink.
It’s unfair to love someone so fast and so hard and not get it back in return.
“I shouldn’t want you,” I say with my fingers digging into his skin.
He lets me push in so hard so I make him bleed. “No, you shouldn’t.”
I pull his face back with my hand and stare at him. “Stop agreeing with me.”
He smirks, and I slap him. He smiles. And with that smile he pushes into me, hard, fast, unrelenting. I didn’t even feel him there, but I abso-fucking-lutely do now.
“Okay.” He moves, and I moan. Despite myself, I moan. He takes advantage of the moment and leans down and kisses me, his lips bruising mine with the intensity of the moment. I take every bit of it and steal his kisses right back. He pushes in, again and again, not stopping as he claims me.
He’s right, angry sex is the best sex.
My nails glide down his back, scratching and marking as they go, and he doesn’t seem to care. Actually, he seems to like all the pain I give him.
“Bunny.” I scratch harder at him for using that name. I’m not sweet and innocent. Fuck him! He smiles before he bites down on my nipple making it bleed. I bite my inner lip, stopping myself from screaming as he goes to bite the other one, marking them both as he fucks me. The pain, the pleasure all mixed into one, does things to me. Things it shouldn’t do to my body, and soon I’m coming. Hard. I can feel everything tighten, and so does he, because he releases my nipple and pushes faster and harder.
“You’ll be mine until the end of time, bunny. No one will take you from me. Ever.”
I don’t tell him what he’s saying is silly, because no words want to form in my mouth anyway. The only thing my mouth wants to do is scream in pleasure and release, and screaming is what I do.
“Perfect,” he says into my mouth.
I’m unable to close it, but that doesn’t stop him from kissing my lips as he finishes inside of me.
“I don’t want to want you,” I say once I come down, once I calm down, and he’s pulling out of me. He drags me to him, and I fit perfectly into his side with him wrapped around me.
“That’s the beauty of it, right? You don’t want me, but you also do. So, it’s me you will have forever.”
“There is such a thing as a divorce,” I utter the words, but he laughs at me.
“Not in our world.”
And he’s right.
Not in our world is divorce allowed—at all.
The men will cheat and the ladies sleep with the gardener. But they never separate, no matter how much they hate each other. It’s as the vows are stated, ‘till death us do part.’
We are two of the few families that still hold these traditions close.
Lucky for us?
Not.
16
“You aren’t doing it, aren’t you?” May follows me around the café the next day as I stock up the sugar on the tables. Granted, I have people to do this work, but I have to keep myself busy—or I’ll get lost inside my own mind. And that’s not a place I want to be right now. “Don’t ignore me, Ev. I need to know.”