Ruin

by Laurelin Paige

  What I hadn’t expected was Edward’s response. “You should see her when she comes.”

  I could feel the heat spread down my neck. I was mortified.

  “Does she come on command?” a thin, pale-skinned man asked, the woman accompanying him turning her head, but not before I caught her frown.

  Yeah, lady, I know how you feel.

  “She’s more work than that.” He pulled me tighter to him with one hand, the other reaching down to stroke my pussy through my dress. “Aren’t you, my dragon?”

  I gasped from the contact as well as the conversation. “Edward,” I whispered. “I’m really uncomfortable right now.”

  “But she’s worth it,” he went on, not hearing me, perhaps. “The taste of her pussy alone is worth it.”

  Despite myself, I got wet. My pussy liked being talked about. Liked being talked about by Edward, anyway, even in shady company.

  “That’s not fair to taunt like that unless you’re willing to share.” The accent was South African, but I’d missed who said it.

  “I could be willing,” Edward said, and my stomach dropped. “What’s your offer?”

  “What are you doing?” I hissed. Was he drunk? Did he think this was fun?

  “Ten large to lick her cunt,” the South African replied.

  A wave of nausea roiled through me. I was going to be sick. This was too much like that night at Ron’s. I couldn’t do this again.

  I tugged at Edward’s jacket sleeve. “We need to go.”

  He pulled my hand from his arm and held it tightly in his grasp, his eyes remaining on the man who’d spoken. “Ten thousand? That’s all you have to offer for the taste of the divine?”

  “I’d give you twenty to let me come on her tits,” said someone else.

  “I’m not even going to respond to that. I’m insulted.”

  This was his response, I realized. This was his way of replacing what Ron had done. But this didn’t feel good. It felt just as wrong, just as dirty. It made me feel as much like a whore as my uncle had ever made me feel.

  “Edward,” I pleaded. “Whatever you think you’re doing, this isn’t helping. Okay? It’s not helping. Please, stop.”

  “A brick then,” the last negotiator countered. “Still insulted?”

  Edward glanced at me and for a moment I thought he’d heard me—finally heard me.

  But then he turned back to the man. “Look at her, really look at her. A brick for these?” He let go of my wrist so he could once again slip his hand inside my dress. He lifted my breast up and squeezed. “Her tits are perfection.”

  A tear slid down my cheek behind the mask. “Is this all staged?” I asked, with sudden optimism. He’d been alone down here for so long. Maybe this was all a setup. Maybe these men weren’t really bidding for me. “Did you tell them to say these things?”

  “Don’t be ludicrous,” he said.

  “You’re genuinely worth paying to touch, sweetheart.” The oil man winked as he rubbed the crotch of his pants.

  I turned my body so I couldn’t see him, but Edward, seeming to think I meant to leave, tightened his grasp at my waist, drawing me back into him. My panic escalated with being pinned, and I struggled to get free, only to be overpowered when he brought his other arm into the battle.

  “One million to fuck her.” This from the arms dealer.

  Edward perked up. “One million?”

  “I’d want her all night.”

  “I’ve seen what you do to women,” Edward scoffed. “She’s no good to me broken.”

  The tears started in earnest. This wasn’t staged. This was real, and I realized with dread that I didn’t really know the man I’d married. How had I been so drawn in to him? I’d let him pull the wool over my eyes. Let myself believe he cared for me, when he was really just as vile as anyone else in the room.

  He’d never professed to being a good man. He’d been clear he was a sadist, turned on by the discomfort of others. Just as I’d feared, he’d taken my past and was using it against me. He was really doing this, not for the money, but for fun.

  “Two million,” someone else offered now. “All night, comes back the way she came. Except happier.” Laughter scattered throughout the room, a menacing contrast to the terror happening inside me.

  “Fucking let me go, right now.” I yanked harder, determined to run.

  With an annoyed grunt, Edward twisted his body around mine to get a better hold.

  “She doesn’t seem to be interested in you, Juri,” a man with a French accent laughed.

  Juri harrumphed. “She doesn’t seem to be interested in being shared at all.”

  “Half the fun, right?” Edward said with a sneer.

  “Please, stop this,” I sobbed. “Please. Why are you doing this?” My knees had lost all ability to hold me up. The only reason I wasn’t in a pile on the floor was because Edward had me constrained.

  And no one would help me! Everyone sat and watched, amused by the entertainment, not caring that my husband was offering to sell my body against my will. They had to know I was upset, despite my covered face. My entire being shook from the force of my crying.

  “Has she been fucked in the ass?” a voice came from the back.

  “Virgin,” Edward responded, and I gasped in horror.

  The bids came out faster and higher after that.

  “Four million.”

  “Five.”

  “Ten and you can watch. All of you can watch.”

  The world went dark at the edges, my heartbeat whooshing in my ears. The sounds around me became muffled and I retreated into myself. I’d managed to live through what happened in my past, but I wouldn’t live through this. I couldn’t survive a night forced in a stranger’s bed. Edward’s betrayal alone was enough to kill me.

  But what if it wasn’t betrayal? He’d always seen me as I was, even when I couldn’t. Maybe he saw what my uncle had seen in me because that was what I really was—nothing. Useless. Only worth my physical appearance and my body. What could be done with my body.

  Only honesty between us, he’d said. Then his honest message was that I had no value, and as hard as it was to accept it, it didn’t make it any less the truth.

  Then, through the din and darkness, Edward let go of me. My knees buckled, taking me to the floor as he exploded with a roar. “She’s not for sale! Do you hear me? No one here can have her.”

  The room went abruptly quiet, stunned into silence, and I lifted my head, blinking away tears to look at my husband.

  His expression was furious and intense, his face red, his teeth bared. He scanned the room, making sure everyone saw his anger. “There's not enough money to let any one of you come near her let alone touch her. A single breath from her body is worth more than any of your entire lives.”

  I couldn’t move. I couldn’t get air into my lungs. My jaw hung open. I felt dizzy and cold.

  “Fuck, Edward that was a good one. Next time I’ll kill you for it, so enjoy this one for a while.”

  Vaguely, I was aware of similar chattering amongst the crowd before people returned to their former conversations. Then Edward was kneeling in front of me, peeling off my mask so he could dab at my eyes with his handkerchief.

  “Do you hear me?” he said, tenderly. “Your value cannot be named. You are priceless.”

  I didn’t realize I was shaking my head until he spoke again.

  “Listen to me, Celia. You are worth more than anything. There is no amount that would be enough to let anyone use you. No amount in the world.”

  Another tear slipped down my face. “But I’m nothing.”

  He gripped my chin between his fingers and held me tight, but not to the point of pain. “You are not nothing,” he rasped, sternly. “If you were nothing, my world would not be completely changed by your existence. If you were nothing, I could give you up, I could walk away. If you were nothing, I would not have been moved from the trajectory that I’ve been on since my father took his own life. You are
a planet of an obstacle, and, as hard as I’ve tried to fight it, I am in your orbit now. You are not nothing. You are everything.”

  There was no refuting him. His tone was adamant and final, and I believed him, not just because I wanted to, but because his constant insistence on honesty made it impossible to believe he’d tell this lie.

  But this truth was so enormous, so overwhelming that I was left speechless. With my lip quivering, I could only respond with a single nod.

  Then he stood and lifted me into his arms, and I clung to him as he carried me out of the hedonistic den and into the light of the dark black night.

  Twenty-Seven

  Outside, Edward put me on my feet and escorted me on a path back to the airstrip that bypassed the welcome arena where we’d met Esteban. We walked in silence, my hand clutched in his, my head too dazed to do anything but follow.

  Once we reached the plane, however, I found myself. It was like coming out of a fog how one minute I was content to be led and the next, I wanted the reins for myself. I was in love with this man, so deeply and recklessly in love, and he’d said some pretty noble things to me back at The Base, things that were planted in me like little seeds that I intended to help grow.

  But he’d also been one-hundred percent a dick.

  I came to a halt at the foot of the stairs, snatching my hand away from his. When Edward turned back in question, I pressed my palms against his chest and pushed, catching him off guard.

  “You fucking asshole,” I spit. “How could you do that to me?”

  He put his hands up in surrender. “Hold on, now. Let’s not overreact.”

  I pushed at him again, putting more of my body into it. “Overreact? Are you kidding me? You fucking tried to sell me!”

  “I would never have really sold you, and you know that.”

  “I don’t know that! I definitely didn’t know it when it was happening. And after my past…! Do you know how traumatic that was for me? Do you? Do you?” I pressed forward, twisting to shove him with my shoulder.

  This time he caught me at the upper arms, his eyes meeting mine with a stern gaze, but when he opened his mouth to speak, I lunged forward and kissed him.

  His grip on me loosened in surprise. Then, when I threw my arms around his neck, he pulled me in closer, meeting the thrust of my tongue with a slide of his own. There was still anger in the way my mouth worked his, but also gratitude. A lot of gratitude.

  We were both breathless when we drifted apart. He rested his forehead on mine. “Ah, bird,” he sighed into me. “I do know how traumatic it was. That was the point. If it was unremarkable, the new ending wouldn’t be remembered. It had to be significant enough to replace the old.”

  A tear slid down my cheek. All the years of never crying, and lately I’d been doing it a lot.

  “Why are you doing this for me?” My voice was a whimper. His motives were beyond my grasp, and the confusion left me as raw as his kindness.

  Edward swiped my tear away with the pad of his thumb. “You’re a smart girl. Can’t you figure it out?”

  I wanted to make a guess, but I wasn’t brave enough. I wanted him to say it.

  This wouldn’t be the moment for those words, however. Instead of a declaration, he let his hands fall and took a step back, away from me.

  “Celia.” His tone was formal, only a hint of the affection he’d shown only a second before. “I need you to listen to me, now.”

  I frowned, afraid of what he would say next. “I’m listening.”

  “The plane is fully fueled. Igritte and Marco are prepared for a longer flight, if…” He trailed off, seemingly unsure how to proceed. “They’ll go anywhere you want them to. You can board right now and tell them where you want to go, and they’ll take you.”

  Confusion transformed to disbelief. “You mean, go without you?”

  “I can easily get back to the island later. Don’t concern yourself with that. Your passport is in the cabinet inside, where I’d had your mask. You shouldn’t have any problem at customs.”

  The tears were back. The anger fueled. The hurt, unbearable. “After all that? After what you just did to me, what you said to me, you’re going to leave me?” I rushed at him again, ready to beat him to a pulp, never mind the fact that he could easily overpower me. “Fuck you, Edward! How can you do this to me? How can you be such a monster? After everything, how can you expect me to live without you?”

  I pummeled him with my fists, getting a few good hits in before he seized my wrists. “Shh. Shh.” When I met his hushing with a string of curse words, he changed tactics. “Hold on, now. Listen to me. I am not leaving you, do you hear me?”

  I paused my wriggling, waiting for him to expand.

  “I’m not leaving you,” he said again. “I’m giving you a chance to leave me.”

  He let that sink in.

  He was giving me the option to walk away, unharmed. No longer his captive. It had been weeks since I’d considered myself a prisoner. I’d somehow forgotten that I still technically was.

  Edward released one of my hands so he could sweep my hair behind my ear. “I’m giving you a chance to go, even though it is absolutely ruining me to say those words, and every second we continue to stand here, my resolve to let you do so slips away. So, hear me—take this chance. Get on that plane. I won’t bear to be able to give you this opportunity again.”

  My breath shuddered through my lungs. “You’ve given me this option before. I already made this choice that night in your bedroom on Amelie.”

  “It wasn’t fair to force that decision from you in the midst of sex. Right here, right now. This is the real choice.”

  I didn’t hesitate. “I don’t want to get on that plane alone. The only place I want to be is with you.”

  A spark of light flashed in his eyes. “If we board together, you understand what that means? You understand that you’re accepting that you’re mine?”

  Mine.

  He’d said it so many times and in such cruel ways that I hadn’t ever really heard it for what it was. Possessiveness, yes. A claiming. But with the whole heart.

  A kind of euphoria winded its way through my body, twining around my limbs, coiling in my chest, pressing against the steady beat of my heart. Our wedding had been a sham, our vows spoken under false pretenses.

  Here, in this moment, this was where our marriage really began, and as the script is for all brides, I gave him an earnest answer. “I do.”

  The kiss that followed was rushed, both of us eager to get on the plane and off the island. Edward insisted that we buckle up for take-off, and somehow we managed to sit in our seats until we reached cruising altitude, our hands clasped together, a lightning storm of energy between us.

  As soon as the pilot gave the indication that we'd reached altitude, Edward was on the ground, kneeling in front of me. I hadn’t even undone my belt before he’d pushed my dress up my thighs, pulling me to the edge of the seat. He threw a leg over his shoulder, spread me wide and then his mouth found my pussy, greedy and weeping for him.

  He easily drew two wicked orgasms from me before abruptly standing and yanking me to my feet. With our lips wrapped around one another, we stumbled to the bedroom where I eagerly worked his jacket off. Then his tie. Then began on his shirt buttons, my mouth never leaving his. He tasted like me and cognac and secrets and desire, and I wanted to lick every flavor out of him, until it was mine as well. Until our taste was the same.

  His hands were busy as well, one wrapped around me to keep me steady while the other thrust two wicked fingers inside me, rubbing at my G-spot and coaxing another climax to take me over. When I was gasping his name, lost in another reeling whirlwind of pleasure, he pushed me backward to the bed. He found the top of the slit in my dress, now pushed up around my waist, and with an impressive show of determination, he split the material up the seam, all the way to where it dipped at my cleavage.

  I wrestled out of the sleeves, leaving the tattered gown beneath me. He star
ed down at me with heated intensity, his gaze taking in every inch of my bare skin. I flushed from the warmth, and I distinctly thought that I would never get used to the way he looked at me. The way he opened me up and really saw me.

  “Spread your legs,” he said as he furiously stripped his shirt.

  I did, bending my knees and resting the heel of my shoes on the edge of the bed so he could really see me. His eyes grew dark and hooded, and even next to a man with such fierce command, I felt powerful.

  “Pinch those pretty nipples,” he ordered next. “Pretend they’re my fingers, and make them hurt.”

  I pinched hard, digging my nails in until I winced, and by the time he was naked and crawling over me, I was ready for his mouth to take over the work. He licked one steepled nipple, soothing the sensitive skin before his teeth nipped sharply.

  My cry was lost to the jagged moan that erupted from my mouth as his cock plunged into me. His thrusts were deep and savage, each stab winding me tighter and tighter. He bent me in half, draping my heels over his shoulders and moving his knees to the outside of my hips, hitting me at an angle that found places inside me I’d never known. We were an orchestra of sound, my gasps and whimpers harmonizing with his primal grunts, the slap of his thighs against the back of my legs, a driving percussive beat.

  And when we came, it was nearly together, his climax only a half-step behind mine, and I spiraled somewhere higher than I’d ever been, higher than the number displayed on the altimeter in the cockpit, and for the first time in my life, I found I wasn’t afraid of flying.

  Afterward, he collapsed at my side, only the edge of his body touching mine, but when his breathing returned to normal, he turned to his side and gathered me close to him, his legs twining with mine.

  And then my heel dug into his calf, and he untangled himself only long enough to remove the dangerous items before wrapping back around me.

  We lay quiet and content, me stroking the length of his torso while he caressed the side of my face. There was nothing awkward about the silence, but words bubbled inside me, loosened by the events of the night, and for once, I wasn’t too intimidated to let them be said.