by Stasia Black
Wide shoulders, strong chest tapering to lean hips, powerful thighs. Either he worked out every morning or performed some magic to make his muscles strong and sleek, even and well formed. He could’ve been a statue carved by a master, but at the sight of him a sculptor would lay down his tools and weep at the perfection that defied reality.
Yet for all his otherworldly beauty, he looked like a man, coarse hair dusting his hard thighs and chest. He looked like a ruler of old. He only needed a crown. If the people wouldn’t give him one, he’d take it.
And he was hers. He said she belonged to him, but it went both ways, right? He could’ve handed her over to an underling, or made Sharo punish her. But he would never allow another man to touch her. He wanted her for himself. She’d wanted a sign that she meant something to him—was it here all along, inherent in his possessive nature?
She could only hope. Because she was becoming lost to him.
“Lie back and spread your legs.”
She wanted him inside her now. She wanted to throw her arms and legs around him and grind their bodies together. She wanted him frantic with need for her, to know for certain that he was as lost as she was.
But instead she did as he said, laying back on the bed and opening eagerly to him.
He took his time arranging her, pulling her to the edge of the bed, angling her legs just right. Gods damn his control. But it was all worth it when he finally climbed over her.
“Hands above your head.”
She lifted her hands. Anything to move him along. But she should have known that nothing could hurry Marcus. That was the point, wasn’t it? For her to give in to him completely. His way. In his time.
And when he finally, finally entered her, the first slow drag of his cock had her right at the edge again, her previously denied orgasm revving right back up.
He pushed into her and she held her breath, her body tightening. Everything in her focused on the slow, fluid glide of his cock entering her, easing the ache and stoking it at the same time. She lay there quivering, an empty vessel waiting to be filled.
Her legs and back tensed, nipples hardening and toes curling as Marcus's thrusts drove her towards orgasm. He moved over her, the snap of his hips driving her further up the bed. She caught his shoulders, gripping and petting the bunching muscle, such magnificent power under her palms.
He paused and slipped his hands under her bottom, large palms cupping her back cheeks and drawing her close. The new angle made his pubic bone graze her clit and she bit back a moan. Fuck, she was close, her climax like a freight train, rushing towards her, an inexorable force about to hit—
He stopped. Pulled out. Stepped back and surveyed her heaving flesh like a piece of furniture.
“Marcus. Please.”
He took himself in hand, fisting his cock with her own slick as lubricant. He watched her with hooded eyes. “Touch yourself. Pull your nipples.”
She plucked at her breasts, obeying instantly. Anything to bring him back. Anything.
Pleasure surged through her, but it wasn’t enough. Without Marcus, it would never be enough.
“Punishment,” he reminded her, and horror bloomed over her. He was taunting her, touching her, teasing her. He’d fuck her forever and never let her cum. He knew her body and mastered it.
“Please,” she whispered. “I need it.” He didn’t chastise her so she continued. “I need you. Marcus, please.”
“All fours.”
He’d barely given the command before she scrambled into place. Head up, back arched, bottom upturned, just like he’d taught her. The bed creaked under his weight and then—
He slammed into her.
Yes!
His hips drove into her in delicious rhythm. A tug on her throat told her he’d taken hold of her leash. He was being gentle, but reminding her she was owned.
“My beautiful darling, how well you beg.” Another beautiful stroke. And another.
Her orgasm blew up like a bomb, a silent explosion, a billowing mushroom cloud against a sunset. Her limbs weakened, body wracked with aftershocks of the orgasm she’d been dying for.
She ended up bowed, head resting on her forearms and bottom in the air as he battered her from behind. At last he growled and finished.
When he tugged her up and led her to the bathroom, she clung to him with her arms around his waist. She stood as if in a dream. A trance, a reality that mirrored the life she wanted, as if her world had turned upside down but she found she could live in the reflection. In fact in this moment, she wanted to live there forever.
Marcus took her into the shower and turned on the heated spray that soothed every part of her.
“You did so well, goddess,” he murmured as he washed her body, slowly, inch by glistening inch. His own cock jutted out from his body, hard again, but he didn’t make a move to satisfy himself, or make her do it. He cleaned every inch of her, even shaved her legs and mons. Meanwhile she felt like she was floating, like she’d never step foot back on the ground while he cared for her like she was a precious treasure. Precious to him.
When he dried her off and propelled her towards the bedroom, she felt drowsy. Her body was languid, her thoughts sluggish. He’d put her under a trance and she didn’t want to wake. So it was good when he took her back to bed and tucked her in. He sat beside her and then leaned down, pressing the sweetest kiss to her forehead. He lingered there long moments, his head bowed over hers like he was in prayer.
As she sank off to sleep, the image remained in her head, him bowing like a supplicant even though she was the one who’d just given her submission.
Nineteen
So this was...different.
Cora sat at the table with Marcus for breakfast later that week. Yes, at the table, not under or beside the table at Marcus’s feet.
She shook her head and took another bite of her eggs.
Marcus was reading the paper, apparently completely oblivious to her. He hadn’t said a word to her this morning, not even when he’d set her plate on the table opposite his instead of on the floor.
It was a first. The last few days, even after he’d put away the chain, the plate had still gone on the ground.
She hadn’t known how to feel about that. Was he rewarding her for her submission in the bedroom? Or had he just finally realized that, duh, there was no point in chaining her if she’d be scooped up if she tried to leave the penthouse anyway?
But that would’ve been true all along, so the chain had been more about humiliation and subjugation than actually keeping her trapped. So, did he consider her appropriately cowed after the police station and the…the crawling?
Her face heated even at the memory.
Or maybe this was the fucking point, to have her constantly questioning and second-guessing, and even third-guessing herself so she never knew which way was up. Because while every time he took her to bed, dominant and demanding, so often he took her to that place of ecstasy beyond thoughts, just feeling…in the morning she woke to find her brain firmly in command again.
And her brain didn’t know how to deal with what her body so welcomed. Marcus. In control. His will ruling every single minute of her life.
She dropped her fork to her plate with a loud clatter and sat back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest.
Marcus finally dipped his paper to look at her, but only for the shortest moment.
“We are going out tonight. So shower and shave.”
What?
“What?”
He lowered the paper enough to look at her again, his expression unreadable. “If you don’t, I’ll do it for you.”
“Fine,” she snapped.
“A stylist will be here at four. Be ready by then.”
“I don’t have anything to wear.”
“She’ll bring the dress.”
“Where are we—”
“Enough,” he cut her off impatiently.
She clenched her teeth mutinously. But if he was telling the t
ruth… And he was actually going to take her out of the penthouse… Well, it wouldn’t kill her to play by his rules for another day.
She showered. She shaved. And at 4 o’clock, a knock sounded on the door. Marcus opened it to a thin, fashionable man pulling a suitcase and a rack of what Cora assumed were dresses in black hanging garment bags.
“Don’t speak to her,” Marcus ordered abruptly. “I’ll choose the dress.”
Cora glared at him, feeling her cheeks heat. Was this what it would be like all night? Him humiliating her in front of whoever it was they might see, wherever it was they were going?
She took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. It didn’t matter. Her pride didn’t matter. She could behave. And she wouldn’t be stupid like last time.
She wouldn’t run down the street on her first opportunity out of the penthouse crying for help. No, she had to play this game smart. If Marcus wanted her to be a puppet on a string, she had to pretend to dance.
But that didn’t mean that she couldn’t still use tonight to learn all she could and to seek allies and opportunity.
So later, she smiled sweetly at the stylist who nodded at Marcus, obviously intimidated if not outright afraid, and gestured toward the master bathroom. “If you come this way, we can get started.”
Three hours later, she was made up, her hair teased and curled and sprayed into a sleek updo with curls cascading over one shoulder.
Marcus had chosen a red dress, far more daring than anything she would have ever chosen for herself. The front was modest, but it draped daringly over her shoulder, exposing her back so that the stylist had to use tape to make sure none of her derrière would be exposed.
She stared at herself in the full-length mirror, even more bewildered feeling than when she’d looked at herself on her wedding day.
She looked sophisticated and worldly. Far more than she felt. She was a farm girl from Kansas.
She shook her head. No, that wasn’t true. Not anymore. She wasn’t the wide-eyed girl who’d first ridden the bus into the city three months ago. Not after Marcus.
Still, she wasn’t… She turned and looked at the daring dip of the back of the dress in the mirror, and saw Marcus coming up behind her.
Her breath caught at the sight of him.
Marcus in a tux was… Terrifying. Formidable. Drop dead gorgeous.
He came right up behind her. She gasped when his hands came swiftly to her neck and watched with bated breath in the mirror as he used the small, oddly shaped key to unlock the collar around her neck.
She could only guess at what the stylist had thought of it. The clunky stainless steel had obviously not gone with the elegant look but as per Marcus’s instructions, the stylist hadn’t said a word.
Marcus tossed the collar to the bed behind him and produced a large, square velvet box from his suit coat jacket. He sat it on the dresser beside the mirror and opened it, still silent.
What was he—?
“Are those dia—”
“Yes.”
Cora’s eyes went wide as he lifted the delicate diamond studded choker to her neck. Chill bumps raced down her body as he lifted her hair. His fingertips graced her skin as he fastened it at the back of her neck.
The one-inch thick interlaced diamond necklace sparkled, even in the dim light of the room. It was made of what looked like hundreds of smaller diamonds along with larger diamond studded in a central pattern.
It must cost a fortune.
Cora couldn’t help her hand lifting to touch the spectacular piece of jewelry but she stopped herself at the last second from actually making contact, dropping her hand again. She swallowed hard and the diamonds glittered with the movement.
“Why?”
“So everyone will know you are mine.”
Cora nodded. Finally an answer that made sense.
“What if I lose it somehow? Or the clasp breaks and I don’t notice it fall off, or—”
“It won’t fall off. Now, I trust you won’t manage to lose this again, either.”
He pulled out another box, this one smaller and familiar, and opened it.
It was her engagement ring and her wedding ring that she’d thrown across the room that first night. Had it only been two weeks ago? It felt like a century.
Her eyes flew to Marcus’s in the mirror but his face was stone. Impassive.
She took the rings out of the box and slid them on the fourth finger of her left hand.
After she had, Marcus put his large, cool hands on her bare shoulders, eyes meeting hers in the mirror.
“You will not embarrass me tonight. You will act like a proper wife.”
“Because gods forbid anything sully your sterling reputation?” The barb was out of her mouth before she could help it.
Marcus was not amused.
He slid his hand from her bare shoulder over to her throat and for the first time all day, she saw a fire stoked in his eyes.
He put no pressure on her throat around the choker, but kept his hand there.
And in demonstration of how much Cora was not the simple farm girl from Kansas anymore, the sight in the mirror and the feel of his commanding hand there had her tingling in all sorts of ways, none of which were fearful.
She might not be an innocent anymore, but she was assuredly just as foolish. Because her heart squeezed at his touch, too.
She turned away from the mirror and strode for the door. “I assume our chariot awaits.”
So yes, the stylist and the dress and the necklace should have tipped her off. But Cora still wasn’t prepared when Sharo let them off in front of a red carpet. It was a gala with an Actual. Red. Carpet.
It was a charity gala, Cora would learn over the course of the next hour as Marcus took her arm and she was blinded by camera flashes as they walked the aforementioned red carpet into the Elysium hotel ballroom, the only hotel in New Olympus fancier than the Crown.
Cora tried to keep her eyes from bugging out of her head when she saw famous actors, actresses, musicians, and politicians mingling all around them.
Marcus strode through the crowd without batting an eye and Cora did her best to keep up with him. He’d stop occasionally and make small talk. And he was charming. Charismatic even. He introduced her around, his hand always at the small of her back.
Cora had officially entered the twilight zone. Marcus was smiling. It was obviously a show he could put on at will, but still, she’d forgotten what his full smile looked like. The dimple. She’d forgotten about the devastating dimple.
Was this what he had been like when they were ‘dating’? But no, after twenty minutes of watching him, she realized it wasn’t. She didn’t know if she felt better or worse that he hadn’t taken the energy to be this full, false self to draw her in, or if it meant she’d been able to see slightly more of the real him from the beginning.
Or maybe she still had no idea who the hell the real him truly was.
After he’d met whatever quota of social engagement he felt was appropriate, he led her to view the auction items that had been donated for the charity gala. All sorts of things were up for bid: Paintings. Box seats for popular sports teams. Dinner with the mayor. A helicopter tour of the city. Theater tickets.
The theater tickets were the only thing to tempt Cora. She promised herself as soon as she had any disposable income, she’d go see a show.
“Anything catching your eye?” Marcus asked. “Maybe a handbag or two?”
She rolled her eyes and set the flyer down about the hottest show on Theater Row. “Nobody’s around now. You don’t have to keep up the act.”
“Did you just roll your eyes at me?” The question was quiet and slightly incredulous.
Cora gulped as she looked up at him and her tongue snuck out to lick her lips. That zinging sensation was back in her belly at the intensity she saw on his face. Stupid girl. Stupid girl.
A gong sounded and everyone around them started to move out of the auction area but Marcus kept staring at
her.
Cora’s hand went to the necklace around her throat, stroking the glittering gems. She pointed her chin at the retreating crowd. “I think that means dinner is about to begin.”
Marcus stood unmoving for another long moment before giving a sharp nod, taking her arm, and walking so stridently to join the flow of people that she had to lift her skirts in order not to trip as she followed him.
They were seated at a large round table with ten other people. Marcus glanced at their seating cards and at those beside them. His face went dark, and he promptly switched them with two from another table.
Cora wasn’t sure he was allowed to do that but who was going to stop Marcus Ubeli?
Cora sat down and smiled awkwardly at those already seated at the table but Marcus didn’t sit beside her.
“I’ll be right back,” he murmured before stalking off to the side of the room to talk to someone. Cora watched him go and get into a discussion with a man. That man called over another man. Marcus pulled out his phone and quickly texted someone.
Why was she staring at Marcus? She had her own agenda.
She looked around the table and smiled at the two other couples seated there. “Hi, I’m Cora. It’s so nice to meet you.”
The two women at the table exchanged a glance before looking back to her. “You’re married to Marcus Ubeli?” asked the one a couple of seats away from her, a pretty redhead whose male companion had to be at least forty years older than her.
Cora tried to keep her smile genuine. “Yes, two weeks now. Still in the honeymoon stage.”
“How nice,” said the redhead in a tone so patronizing, Cora gritted her teeth.
She glanced back at Marcus and saw that he was now talking with three people. Two men and a woman, a blonde who had her hand possessively on his arm, her body angled into his in a way that brought Cora’s breath up short.
It was an intimate touch. An invasion of space unless… Unless you knew the person very well. Intimately so.