absolute bottom, he knew he’d never be weak again.
His world was strength, power, domination. It was his one and only goal.
He wanted a family to prove that he’d overcome a dark past, and he had the means to ensure they’d be safe. They’d be comfortable, guarded, protected. His children would be able to go to the best schools. They’d have the best security. They’d never be exploited. But he needed a wife who would love them, because he didn’t love. He didn’t have normal emotions and feelings, and there was no room for feelings, just as there would be no romance.
Should he take Kassiani to his bed, it would be strictly business. Just like consummating the marriage was serious business. The moment he took her virginity, there would be no going back. The moment he claimed her, there would be no annulment.
Did he want to claim her?
He studied her from beneath heavy lids, his erection aching in her hands, the thick tip damp from her mouth.
Even though she was the wrong bride, she was still a Dukas and the marriage still gave him what he wanted—all of North America’s West Coast ports. All the Dukas ships. All the trade agreements.
Part of him wanted to punish the Dukas family for playing him, but that would be cutting off his nose to spite his face. Kassiani would meet his needs just as well as Elexis. Maybe even better because his children did need a mother who would feel and care and fight for them. They’d need one parent with a heart.
He should just take her to bed, and claim her. He wouldn’t be rough with her, even though he liked hot, hard sex. Sex without apology. He’d never made love to a woman and felt love. Sex—intercourse—was a release, and it felt good after he climaxed, but there wasn’t much else he felt in the bedroom, other than loathing. He’d never tell anyone but he could barely tolerate being touched. He could barely endure being inside his skin. It was always a fight, a battle, to not remember the past. To not let memories resurface.
It’s why he’d kept mistresses over the years, not girlfriends. It’s why he’d wanted an arranged marriage. It was clean, clear, undemanding. There would be no affection, no emotion, no demands.
He avoided drama at all costs. He avoided feelings, and he certainly avoided feeling anything that hurt. Damen couldn’t even remember the last time he felt tenderness. And yet, glancing down to his lap where Kassiani’s dark head bobbed over his thick shaft, he felt strangely undone. It crossed his mind that he didn’t deserve her. It crossed his mind that she shouldn’t have been the sacrificial lamb.
Elexis was so much better suited to him. Consummating the marriage with her would have been far easier because he could take her and leave her and there would be no guilt. No remorse.
Tonight, even if he managed not to physically hurt Kassiani by taking her virginity, he suspected she’d still be bruised by this new life. She’d be bruised by him. He knew she hadn’t been treated well by her family, and now she’d married a man who wouldn’t treat her much better. Worse, she’d be grateful for the crumbs thrown her way.
The thought made his skin crawl.
She deserved so much more. She might be a Dukas but she wasn’t shallow and hollow like the rest of them—
Kassiani’s head suddenly lifted and her eyes met his. Something in her expression made his body tighten all over again, his shaft pulsing against her full lips.
He couldn’t tear his gaze away from his head pressed to her mouth. It was hot and dirty and sexy all at the same time.
He shouldn’t have allowed his virginal bride to go down on her knees in his white robe with nothing else on. He shouldn’t have let her take him in her sweet, hot mouth, not when he was still trying to decide if he wanted to keep her. He was an ass. Selfish, ruthless, uncaring.
And desperately aroused.
So unusual for him and his numb body.
“You don’t have to do that,” he rasped, involuntarily reaching out to run the pad of his thumb across the sweep of her cheekbone. Her skin was soft, and warm. He wondered if she was as warm between her thighs. He wondered if she was wet.
“Why not?” she answered unsteadily. “Am I doing it wrong?”
Her question, in her low, throaty voice, made his body shudder. It didn’t help that she followed her question with a light lick up the side of his shaft. He felt her lick all the way to the base of his penis, his balls tightening with pleasure. “You are doing quite well,” he gritted.
The corner of her lips turned up, her long black lashes lowering over eyes that seemed to gleam with satisfaction. He’d never seen anything so erotic, this curvaceous little siren, his unexpected, swapped bride.
“I want to make you come,” she whispered, “but obviously I’m not doing something right because it hasn’t happened.”
“It hasn’t happened because I’m holding myself back.”
For a moment there was just silence as her eyes widened as she processed what he’d said.
And then she rose slightly on her knees, her face lifting, expression surprised. “You can do that?”
“I can do many things.”
Her expression shifted, increasingly curious and mind-blowingly sensual, reminding him of a courtesan rather than an untutored virgin. “Show me,” she said, her hands on his inner thighs, her fingertips against the base of his shaft.
He clamped his jaw tight, fighting to steady his breathing. He had no idea why she tested his control. At twenty-three she was thirteen years younger than he, but in that moment he felt as if she had all the power and experience. “Show you what, gataki?”
“How to do it. How to make you feel so good that you can’t...hold back.”
“I think you’re doing fine for a beginner.”
“Fine is my least favorite word in the English language. Fine indicates mediocrity. I hate mediocrity.”
He found himself almost smiling and then he clasped her face and kissed her deeply, claiming her mouth the way he should have in the beginning. She froze and stiffened, and then after a moment her lips softened, parting for him.
It was in that moment he stopped vacillating.
It was in that moment when she opened her mouth, giving herself to him, that he knew he would take her, claim her and make her his.
There would be no turning back. Not now, not anymore.
He took her mouth the way he intended to take her—with single-minded focus, his tongue sweeping the seam of her lips before thrusting into the warmth of her mouth and finding the hollows of her cheeks, the inside of her lips, the pressure and release so similar to what his body would do to hers, and how he’d find a rhythm and make her feel.
She whimpered softly, her hands reaching up to cover his, her fingers wrapping around his wrists. But she wasn’t pulling his hands away. No, she was pressing his hands against her jaw, pressing him to her for more sensation even as her fingertips stroked the inside of his wrists and the sensitive mound of his palms.
Blood
