Blackmailing the Virgin (Alexa Riley Promises #2)(19)

I’ve just been pushing my food around my plate for the last five minutes. This was not how I thought my wedding night would go. I guess this isn’t how I’d seen any of this going—rushing down the aisle to marry a man who was blackmailing me into it. For the sake of our child. Not because he loved me. I’d tried to tell him we could raise this baby together but we didn’t have to be together. That had set him off.

I just shake my head and turning my head back to my food. I feel like the last forty-eight hours have been at hyper speed. Now I’m back in New York in Calder’s penthouse. Married. Calder wasted no time getting us back to New York and getting us a marriage license. I’m shocked he had the patience to wait the required twenty-four hours. He’d even thought about just flying us to Vegas, but I’d talked him out of it, telling him I was worn out and just wanted to sleep.

“We can plan something bigger if you like. Do a second wedding,” he tries again. He is the most confusing man I’ve ever meet in my entire life.

He can go from sweet to boiling with anger in the blink of an eye. I’m starting to notice it only happens with me. With most everyone else, he seems to be calm. Put together. Like he’s in total control. But with me, I make one mention of us not being together and it’s like the world is ending.

He’d lost it the one and only time I’d tried to reason with him on the plane back to New York. It had then exploded into a fight, with him reminding me he would never let me go. Then he made me tell him every detail there was to know about my friend Mark. Every. Single. Detail.

It was clear Calder was not one to share his toys. Ever. I couldn’t find the will to asking him about Sidney. I didn’t think my stomach could handle it. So I didn’t even try. What would be the point? No matter what he said, I couldn’t leave.

My father had taken the news well, and I didn’t want to throw another log on the fire I’d already made, one that would end the career he’d worked so hard for.

“I don’t like to be the center of attention. A small wedding with just us and my father was perfect.” I turn to look at him again. “See, you don’t even know me. If you knew even a little about me, you would have known that.”

He smiles, leaning in and placing a chaste kiss on my lips. “Oh, I know. Everyone says you’re shy, but you don’t seem to be that way around me. In fact, you seem to be full of fire.”

I can’t even fashion a retort because it’s true. I’m all kinds of out of sorts when I’m around him. What’s even stranger is, I like it.

“But trust me, Felicity. I pay attention to everything you do. Like when you get nervous, like you did walking across the stage at graduation, you tap your index finger against your palm. Or when you get turned on, you push your hair behind your ear and let your finger trail down you neck.” He leans in again like he’s going to kiss me “Or just when you’re about to cum, you let out these little puffs of air. I’m already addicted to the sounds. I’m not even sure I could cum without hearing them now.”

He turns, going back to cutting up his steak and puts a piece in his mouth. I just stare at him, shocked by what he said.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong? Let’s not start this marriage off on the wrong note. We can make this work. We could be perfect together.”

I look back down at my food. I want to laugh. Start out on the wrong note? This whole relationship seems to be one wrong note after another. We’re a freaking mess. He blackmailed me. How is this marriage not starting on anything but a wrong note? To top it off, he only married me because I’m knocked up. It’s the only reason he even came for me.

I hadn’t heard from him in months. Not a call or anything. It’s not like it would be hard for him to have found me, even less so after I saw the stupid file he had on Mark, which he got himself in under an hour!

But as pissy as that all makes me, he’s right. I don’t want to fight with him. Hell, a giant, pathetic part of me is happy he forced us together, because he was right that night in his hotel room when he made me tell him I loved him. Because I do. I have from that very first kiss. He flutters into my every thought, whether I want him to or not. Even if I make a conscious effort not to think about him, it still proves that I’m thinking about him.

“I just didn’t see my marriage starting this way. I wanted…” I trail off, my emotions getting the best of me. Calder stands abruptly, the chair hitting the floor. He picks me up, making me squeal, and sits me on the kitchen’s breakfast bar so we are at eye level with each other. His hands land on either side of me, caging me in.

His movements are abrupt and fast, but his eyes are soft. Filled with concern.

“Tell me. Tell me what you wanted. What were your plans?” His voice is just as soft as the look on his face.

“I thought you made our plans already. What does it matter now?”

“You want me.”

I narrow my eyes at his cocky words.

“Hell. I wanted you, too. Why else would I come crawling into your bed?”

“Because the word is I’m easy.” There I go again, not holding anything back.

“I was a dick. I was pissed and jealous. Mad at myself for not finding you sooner. I hated the thought that there could have been men before me who had the chance to steal you from me. I was even more pissed because I thought you might move on to someone else. I’m f*cking sorry for that. I should have known. I could taste your innocence that first night I kissed you on the balcony. There was no faking that. I felt it deep, but it just seemed too good to be true. I hadn’t had anything sweet in my life in years and there it was again. I was f*cking shit-scared it would be taken from me.”