by LJ Shen
That was when I lost it.
I bit down on his lower lip, hard, raking my fingernails through his hair and tugging at the same time he tore the front of my dress by the cleavage, ruining the designer number completely. My skin burned, and my back arched. I kicked out of the dress, crushed silk mounting under my heels, pulling him to me, wrapping myself around him like a deadly octopus. I was a black widow swallowing him whole. We wrestled each other furiously, stumbling toward the staircase and bumping into a hanging picture, a console table, and a statue. He hoisted me up and carried me upstairs, drowning my moans with kisses, suffocating his own groans of pleasure by biting my chin and lips and earlobes. Bruising me with punishing lust. Marking me with his envy.
Ms. Sterling was in the hallway, watering the huge plants on the marble stands against the grand crème walls. When she saw us biting and groaning at each other, me in his arms mostly-naked, she gasped, rushing toward the west wing.
He bit my upper lip and drew it into his mouth, carrying me to my bedroom. Angelo seemed a lifetime away, out of reach and as far away as the moon. Wolfe was here, in the flesh, burning me like the sun. Deadly and infuriating and—I knew, I just knew, as lost as I was in his touch. I had no idea how he was going to deal with the aftermath of what was about to happen. But I did know that he was going to be humbled when this was all over.
I was not a liar.
I was not a cheater.
I was his future wife.
I tried to warn him, but he didn’t believe me.
When we reached my room, he kicked the door open and threw me on the bed.
I laid there, staring at him with raised chin and what I hoped was confidence. I wanted to be arrogant and cold even as he took me. Even as I submitted to him. Even when I gave him my most precious and only possession. A possession he most assuredly did not earn tonight.
My virginity.
He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his cigar pants and regarded me with disdain, assessing me now that we were completely alone. I was wearing nothing but my white bra and matching panties. I knew he liked what he saw because he had that darkened look in his eyes. The one that made the room hotter, the air dense like fur.
“Take everything off but the heels,” he demanded.
“I’m not a stripper,” I hissed, narrowing my stinging eyes at him. “I’m your future wife. Strip me like you take your vows—like you mean it, Senator Keaton.”
“Vows that obviously mean nothing to you,” he said again, even more aloof. He barely looked at me as he did, making a point. “Off, Francesca.”
I grinned, gathering my courage. When my arm moved to my back, unclasping my bra, I could almost see his pulse quickening on the side of his neck. His face remained cool even when I removed my underwear, remaining in nothing but my heels in my bed.
He leaned down, still fully clothed, stared into my eyes, and brought his arm between us. He pressed the heel of his palm against my private area. I felt my wetness pushed against the dusting of hair there, damp and cool on the outside but hot from within.
“I will say this one time, Francesca, then consider my conscience clean. If you don’t tell me to leave right this minute, you will be devoured, wrecked, possessed, and owned for the entire night. I will fuck Angelo out of you, and then the rest of the idiots who were unfortunate enough to touch you and think there’d be a second time. I will not be considerate. I will not be compassionate. So if you’re used to gentle lovers and hour-long spooning, say the word, and our verbal contract will be terminated.”
“And you will still marry me?” I asked.
His nostrils flared. “I will marry you, but you’d wish I wouldn’t.”
He thought I’d been with other men. I told him I was someone else—and he took my word for it. Who I really was didn’t matter to him. Wolfe went to extreme lengths to prove that to me. What struck me as peculiar, though, wasn’t his words, but the situation. He was willing to forgive me, to honor our verbal agreement I allegedly broke, even though in his eyes, I’d slept with my former flame not once, but twice since we’d gotten engaged. He said he did not negotiate, yet he absolutely did. With me.
“Are you afraid to actually feel something if you touch me?” I taunted. “Your walls of icebergs are thawing, Senator.”
“Ten seconds to decide, Nemesis.”
“You already know the answer.”
“Say it. Eight.”
I smiled, though inside, I was crumbling. He was going to take my virginity and by force. He thought I was already compromised, and to prove how wrong he was, I needed to let him hurt me the way it hurt him to see me with another man. I knew what it looked like. Angelo did touch me. He did lean against me. He did trace my hair with his fingers. Moved his thumb across my lips. And then he snuck out of a room after having sex with someone else while I was MIA.
The evidence was there, stacked against me.
“Five.”
“Try not to fall in love with me.” I opened my thighs.
“Francesca. Three.”
“It will be a terrible inconvenience, il mio amore. To love the wife you took in vengeance.”
“One.”
“Stay,” I snapped, loud and clear.
He advanced toward me and pulled me down by my waist so I was lying underneath him. I sucked in a breath as he put his hand on my neck and scooted up, caging me with his knees locking my thighs, still fully dressed.
“Open my zipper.”
I couldn’t breathe, let alone work his zipper. So I just stared at him, hoping he would not misread my shock as defiance. But he did. Of course, he did. With a growl, he unzipped himself and pushed down his pants. I didn’t dare glance down and see what was waiting for me. My heart pounded so fast and hard I thought I was going to puke. I quickly assembled all the information I had on lovemaking and decided that I’d be okay. I was aroused, wet where I needed to be, and in the hands of the most desirable man in Chicago.
With his pants around his knees, he slid one finger into me, his face void of emotion.
I inhaled and tried to look calm even when the tears slammed into the back of my eyeballs again. It hurt. I wasn’t sure what hurt more, the physical discomfort or the way he looked past me as though I was nothing but a body.
The same way he had stared at Kristen.
He popped his finger into his mouth and sucked on it, expressionless, then dipped his finger into me again, retrieved my arousal, and pushed it between my own lips. I was forced to taste myself. Musky and sweet. I flushed red, my nipples puckering, so sensitive I wanted to rub them against his hard chest.
“He used a condom?” He wiped the remainder of my wetness on my cheek. I wanted to cry until there was nothing left of me but held back.
He was about to find out the truth in a few short moments that I was telling the truth the first three times, so I told him what he wanted to hear.
“Yes.”
“At least you had the decency to do that. I will not be using one, but a morning-after pill will be waiting on your nightstand first thing. See, having children with a leg-spreading whore is low on my to-do list. You will take the pill, no questions asked. Am I understood?”
I closed my eyes, shame dripping down my body like sweat. I was agreeing to this. To all of this. Consenting to his words, his actions, and his cruelty. I had, after all, gone down on my knees, begging for this moment to happen.
“Understood.”
“I would play with you a little, but you’ve been prepped by another, and I’m not in a generous mood.” He smirked darkly, and then, with one sudden thrust, he pressed his cock home, slamming into me with such force, my back arched, my chest meeting his, and stars exploded behind my eyelids as pain pierced through me. He tore past the natural barrier of my body and was buried so deep inside me, it felt like he was ripping me apart. The sting was so profound, I had to bite my lower lip to suppress a scream of sheer agony. My whole life, Clara and Mom warned me off tampons, bike riding, and
I even had to wear thick breeches for my horse rides, to preserve that which was so sacrosanct, so holy. Only to be met with this.
Motionless, soundless, and tense under his body, the only clue that I was still conscious was the tears that began streaming down my face. I bit my lip hard so as not to make a sound.
I am a rusty barbwire, twisted together, knotted into a ball of fear.
“Tight as a fist,” he groaned, his feral voice meeting my complete silence as he thrust so hard, so fast, and so rough, I thought he was going to slash me apart into miniscule shreds. My tears slid from my cheeks down to my pillow as he pushed deeper and deeper, and I could feel the walls of my virginity coming down and bleeding out of me. But I didn’t tell him to stop, and I didn’t confess my virginity.
I lay there and let him have me. He took my innocence with force, but I couldn’t give him any part of my pride. Not even a small piece of it. Not after what occurred in the foyer.
After a few thrusts, I forced myself to open my eyes and blurrily watched his impassive, angry face. Something seeped between us, covering my thighs, and I knew what it was. I prayed with everything I had in me that he didn’t notice it yet.
But he did. He noticed. His eyebrows snapped together, and he registered my face, my tears, my agony for the first time.
“Period?”
I didn’t answer.
He pulled back from me carefully, his gaze dropping between us. There was blood on the inside of my thighs and on my white linen. I grabbed the collar of his shirt, drawing him back to me. I was desperate for his body to hide mine.
“Finish what you started,” I rustled, exposing my teeth. I could feel the pulse of his heart against his chest, he was so close.
“Francesca.” His voice was gruff and drenched with guilt. He brought his hand to my face to rub my cheek, but I slapped it away. I couldn’t bear his new, tender tenor. I didn’t want him to be gentle with me. I wanted him to treat me as his equal. With the same anger and lust and hatred I felt for him right now.
“Now do you believe me?” I smiled bitterly through the tears that just kept coming down like rain, desperate to wash away the last few minutes. His frown smoothed, and he raised himself up from me, about to draw away, but I pulled him back to my body harder.
“It’s done.” I looked him in the eye and saw so much misery in them. I locked my ankles behind his back, caging him inside me. “I decide how I want my first time to be. Finish this. Now.”
To my horror, more tears came through, and he licked them as he lowered himself back to me. His tongue rolled from my neck to the pillows of my cheeks, catching all the tears parachuting from my eyes. “Nem,” he tried reasoning with me.
“Shut up,” I buried my face in his shoulder as our bodies connected, him driving into me again.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
His thrusts were gentle now, easing into me while brushing the tips of his fingers back and forth over my outer thigh, a leisured, intimate gesture that was nothing more than a sweet lie. The heel of my foot rubbed the fabric of the pants he never bothered to remove. I knew that he wanted to try and finish to get it out of the way. I also knew that it was too late to minimize the damage.
After a few minutes of dull pain, he began to up the pace. His face grew tight and his eyes darkened, and that was when I could bear to look at his features again without feeling like he shoved a knife into my chest every time he pushed into me. He finished deep inside me, the warmth of his lust conquering every part inside me. I clung to his shoulders, feeling frayed and tattered beneath him, my lower body so wounded it almost felt numb.
He levered up so he could look at me, staring at my face without meeting my eyes.
We stayed silent for a few moments, him still on top of me. He didn’t ask me why I didn’t tell him I was a virgin earlier. He knew. Finally, he rolled off me. I scooted away and stood up, covering myself in a lavender satin nightgown I retrieved from the back of my desk chair.
He sat on my bed behind my back, bent forward, looking a little stunned. His face blank, his shoulders hunched. A far cry from the brash asshole, future husband I knew who always oozed of overconfidence. I didn’t blame him for his silence. Words seem too insignificant for what happened here tonight.
I took my cigarette pack from my nightstand and lit one up right inside his house. It was the least he owed me.
He knew and I knew that if he tried to give me affection, I wouldn’t be able to live it down.
“I have an early day tomorrow. My final dress fitting, then shopping for college,” I said, taking a seat at my desk overlooking the garden I’d loved the way I’d wished I could love my future husband. Wholly and without expecting much back.
“Nem.” His voice was so gentle, I couldn’t bear it. I propped my chin on my knuckles. His hands were on my shoulders now as he stood behind me, lowering his forehead to meet the crown of my head. He released a rugged breath that made my hair fly everywhere on my face. The room smelled of sex and metallic blood and desperation that wasn’t there before.
“Leave,” I said coldly.
He kissed the top of my head.
“I will never doubt you again, Francesca.”
“Leave!” I screamed, pushing off the desk. The wheels of the chair hit his feet, but he didn’t seem to care about the pain. He left after that, but what happened between us stayed in my room.
When I woke up the next morning, two Advils, a morning-after pill, a bottle of water, and a warm, wet washcloth waited on my nightstand. I instantly knew that Ms. Sterling was privy to what happened during the night.
I took the Advils and the pill, drinking all the water. Then I spent the rest of the day crying in my bed.
I paced the east wing.
Back, forth.
Back, forth.
Walking had never been so excruciatingly maddening. I wanted to kick down the door and barge inside. I barely had it in me to send Kristen a letter from my lawyer, threatening to sue her for every penny she ever earned if she published the piece on me. I also knew I couldn’t hold her back from dishing out the dirt for much longer, but again—did I care?
Not. One. Bit.
“Give her time.” Sterling was shadowing my every movement like a fucking tail. As if I was going to force my way in.
Done quite enough of that for a lifetime, Sterling.
“How much time?” I barked. I was not well versed in the whole relationship gig.
I was even less familiar with the world and feelings of teenage girls. Even as a teenager myself, I opted for more mature women. They didn’t take me seriously, and there were no expectations to be met.
“Until she feels well enough to leave her bedroom.”
“That could take weeks,” I spat out. Francesca already proved to be able not to eat for long periods of time. If disobedience was a competitive sport, my future wife would make it to the Olympics. And medal.
“Then that’s what you’ll give her,” Sterling said with conviction, signaling me with her head to leave Francesca’s wing and come down to the kitchen with her.
I couldn’t unsee the bloodbath between her legs, or the way her thighs shook, twitched, and tensed under mine.
I’d always had a talent for reading people. That was how I’d become a star politician, impeccable prosecutor, and one of the most formidable men in Chicago. Which was at odds with the fact that I failed to notice my young, very sheltered, nervous fiancée was a virgin. I was so blinded with rage thinking she’d slept with Angelo that I didn’t take her word for it. And she—the smart, sensitive, gorgeous vixen that she was—served me with a healthy slice of humble pie, making me finish every bite of what I’d started.
I should’ve seen it from miles away. She came from a strict Italian family and went to church every Sunday. She simply wanted me to see her as more worldly and less of a naïve little mouse. Unfortunately, it worked. Too well for her liking.
The weight of my guilt sat squarely on my shoulder
s. I shredded her savagely, and she met me, thrust for thrust, her eyes on mine, her tears fierce but silent. I thought she was guilty and angry with emotion. I hadn’t realized I was bulldozing through walls I had no right bringing down.
Traditionally, in Italian weddings in The Outfit, the bridegroom was supposed to present the bloodied sheets to his peers. I had no doubt Arthur Rossi was going to die a slow, painful, internal death if I sent her sheets his way six days before the wedding. There was no mistaking what happened here. And there was no confounding Francesca suffered every moment of it. But somehow, and despite my worst intentions, I couldn’t bring myself to do that to her.
I retired to my study, resisting the urge to check in on her. I wasn’t entirely sure I should give her time, but I no longer trusted my instincts when it came to her. Typically a cruel and calculated creature, I’d lost control several times in the past month, all of them because of my young bride-to-be. Maybe it was best to take my housekeeper’s advice and let her be.
I opted to work at home that day on the off chance she’d leave her room. She’d missed her appointments, and when her mother came to pick her up to shop for her upcoming school year, Sterling sent her away, albeit with a carrot cake, explaining that Francesca was suffering from a terrible migraine. Mrs. Rossi looked distraught as her driver pulled away from the curb. Through the window of my study, I caught her trying desperately to call her daughter. Still, I didn’t have it in me to feel sorry about what happened to anyone who was not my future wife.
The day passed, as bad days do, significantly slow. All the meetings I’d summoned to my house turned beneficial and productive, however. I’d even managed to squeeze in a conference call with my public relations manager and his assistant, something I’d postponed for weeks. When I finally left my office, it was well past dinnertime.
I ate in the kitchen, not meeting Sterling’s judgmental gaze. She sat across from me, her hands in her lap, staring at me as though I just mauled a baby. In a sense, that was exactly what I had done.
“Any more great ideas? Maybe I should send her back to her parents?” I snarled when it became apparent she was not going to stop looking at me.