Chapter Three
“Vag cuisine king. Oh my god. He’s the one.”
Sharon’s breathless and stunned voice echoed in her head when the man finally reached them. Louise’s shocked gasp and then involuntary whimper cradled her on the other side.
“He’s so hot,” Louise whispered but it wasn’t soft enough that he couldn’t hear her. She then dug her fingers into Arabelle’s arm before she whispered loudly again, “He is the one. Virginity-taker uno. No one in the bar… in the world comes close.”
Under normal circumstances, Arabelle would have laughed at their display of awe, and that they had ironically cast him as the man to take her virginity, but this was a different time. The man was her enemy.
Or her husband, who she now believed equated to the same thing.
“Arabelle Davenport?” he asked, looking her straight in the eye. His green eyes had taken on a darker hue the instant his gaze perused her face. His perfectly sculpted jawline clearly revealed his irritation and the powerful set of his shoulders commanded that all the lesser mortals obey his wishes.
He was even more… disturbingly handsome in person than he was from the image she had glanced at for a moment in her bedroom earlier that afternoon. The shock of seeing the gorgeous face of the man who had instantly become her husband had caused her to fling her phone aside.
She forced herself to react, but her mind came up blank.
“Holy donkeys on a fuck stick,” Sharon muttered beside her as all eyes zoomed in on her.
She cleared her throat and then searched her brain for what he had asked her. Or right if she was Arabelle Davenport.
“I am.”
“Come with me,” he said in a tone that at once rubbed her completely the wrong way. As if she were a puppet installed to do nothing but his bidding. Well no. She had agreed to marry him, so his family name could be tied with hers, and of course, for the sum of money he had offered her father, but she did not agree to be agreeable.
He made it plenty clear when he decided there would be no wedding, no guests, and certainly no wedding gown, that this was a marriage of convenience, a legally binding contract sans the stuff that made a marriage a marriage. There wasn’t even a ring for fuck’s sake.
The whole set-up had been such a clinical endeavor, that she wasn’t even expected to be there, as per Silas Knight’s instruction. She signed the papers and her father and Uncle Harvey had taken care of the rest. So no. She wasn’t going to go with him just because he ordered her to do so.
She had made no vows and promises because there hadn’t been a wedding, but she could match his demands with her own since that was the type of marriage he wanted.
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
The music in the booth area was a bit more tapered so they didn’t have to raise their voices much to be heard.
“I said no. I just graduated, and this is my graduation celebration. So no, I won’t be going anywhere with you… right now.”
“I think perhaps you misunderstood me, Arabelle.”
The sound of her name, falling from the lips of a stranger who happened to be her husband, set her skin alight and forced her to acknowledge that the biting pain in her nipples was because they had pebbled so hard under her top, the soft fabric felt like abraded paper. She couldn’t ignore that her panties, the prettiest pair she owned, skimpy black lace and silk had become wet. And her clit seemed to pulse to a beat she didn’t authorize.
She shook her head as if she could mentally shake off the strange, aroused sensations sailing through her body. Sensations that had been blissfully absent until Silas Knight came to stand before her.
“Perhaps you misunderstood me?” she replied boldly. “I’m not going anywhere with you.” What on earth was she doing taunting a man who by the looks of him could crush her between two of his fingers. Not because he was overly huge like a bodybuilder or something. No. He was more potent. His power was more understated. In that instance, she knew without a moment of doubt that Silas Knight was a dangerous man who was capable of doing dangerous things. Who had her father signed her off to?
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to dance.”
It didn’t help her cause that she trembled tellingly as she rose from her seat.
“You can either come with me peacefully. Or I’ll carry you out. Your choice.”
He leaned in and somehow made himself look taller, more threatening, and annoyingly hotter at the same time. His cologne settled in the air around her, as he closed the distance between them. Her breath caught in her throat, and her body started to hum, again without her permission.
“Now just wait a minute,” Louise said standing up alongside Sharon and Monique and her. The stupor her friends had been under seemed to have lifted now that they realized Arabelle might be in trouble. If they only knew exactly how much trouble she was in, they probably wouldn’t believe her.
“Who do you think you are? You can’t just come in here in order my friend around—” Monique didn’t get any further before he cut in.