Arranged(35)

I thought that was his answer, and we lapsed back into silence for a time.

“I never slept with Millie or Veronica,” he said suddenly. “As for the rest, we were all dumb, horny teenagers together. What can I say?” He saw the look on my face. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to. And need I remind you? This is not a love match. Where I’ve put my dick is not your business. So I think it’s fair to say this whole discussion is less than productive.”

It was only the brutal truth. I’d walked into this knowing I’d have no ownership of him.

The thing was, I hadn’t been fascinated with him then. There was no obsession in my bloodstream when I’d put ink to that paper. I wasn’t sure how or why, but a lot had changed since then.

I tried not to show how much I was appalled by what he’d just revealed. A part of me had been expecting and hoping he’d deny it, but this was not going to go my way. “I don’t suppose it is. Making me hang out with them is also less than productive.”

He had the grace to at least look somewhat uncomfortable. “I didn’t know Millie was bringing the entire messy crew,” he said stiffly. “But it is what it is. This is your social circle now. It’s what you signed on for.”

“Understood,” I said smoothly.

We lapsed back into silence, and I could feel him staring at me. I kept my gaze trained down at my hands.

“You’re very composed,” he remarked after a time. I couldn’t tell if it was a compliment, insult, or simple observation. “Are you always so quiet?”

I chewed on my lip, stealing a look at him. I couldn’t seem to get a word out. I could feel the blush staining my cheeks. My mind was stuck firmly on what he’d done to me earlier. I hadn’t been quiet earlier when he was making out with my cunt and making me scream.

He smirked. It wasn’t friendly. It was some mean mix between self-loathing, irony, and utter disdain. “Well, I guess not always, huh?”





CHAPTER





FIFTEEN





CALDER


I could still taste her, still feel her on the bed of my tongue. I hated her guts, but she tasted like paradise.

It was a mistake to come here, to go anywhere near her. I’d known it was a bad idea from the start. I didn’t want to do it, but I was still fully culpable. I had let my friends talk me into it with barely a struggle.

The second I saw her, I regretted coming. Two hours later, I was regretting it even more. I wanted nothing to do with her, had in fact vowed to neglect her as much as it was possible for a husband to neglect an unwanted wife, but that didn’t seem to matter exactly the second she got close enough for me to touch her.

Eating her out and getting addicted to the taste of her in the process had not been in the plans. Training her to melt at my touch, to ignite when my lips made contact with her were counterproductive to my intentions. All of my actions were at odds with my goals for the evening and in general: to drive her away through humiliation, estrangement, or flat out cruelty. In other words, by any means necessary. I despised this sham marriage, and I wanted her to know it, feel it, resent it as much as I did.

I wanted her to hate me more than she loved the millions she’d sold herself for. Hate me enough to call the whole thing off. I couldn’t do it, but if she did, I knew that would prove a very important point to my father: this scheme of his was doomed from the start.

I’d left her sitting alone some time ago. I couldn’t be that close to her. Across the room was too close.

I’d set up camp at the private club room’s small bar, downing one drink after another to erase the honey sweet flavor of her. So far it wasn’t working.

She was looking down at her phone, and I couldn’t stop watching her for more than short stretches of time. As I stared, a few of my friends joined her. She looked up and responded to a question, her lush lips shaping the words attractively, her flawless face somber and serious. I could see the little dimple in her lush bottom lip from across the room. That fucking dimple.

My balls hurt. My dick was still hard as a rock. I’d had to drape my jacket in front of my raging erection after the incident behind the curtains in the main club. If she so much as brushed up against me again tonight, I was going to come in my pants. Another solid reason to resent her. She made me lose the control I’d come to take for granted at this stage of my life.

I wasn’t used to denying myself like this, but I’d made a resolute decision not to let her get me off tonight. I didn’t need more memories of her enthusiastic, artless mouth locked around my cock, her elegant fingers wrapped around it. She’d sucked me off like she loved it. After watching her fall apart tonight, I was starting to suspect that she might.

Hell, maybe I’d bought myself a slutty little virgin.

Or perhaps she was just a very good liar. I liked to think so. She didn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. Not by a long shot.

She’d sold herself into marriage. That was fucking calculated. But just how calculated was she?

Calculated enough to fake an orgasm that made her lose her fucking mind? Yes, of course. But was she talented enough to pull it off so well? Who the fuck knew? Not me.

She laughed at something my friend Bradley said. She threw back her head when she did it, her gorgeous tawny blonde locks flowing back like she was a fucking Disney princess. Her laugh tinkled like a bell. It grated on my ears. Her teeth were white and perfectly straight, her big aquamarine eyes tilted up like a cat’s. And her soft, lush pink lips were every wet dream I’d ever had as a teenager. Hell. As an adult.