The Billionaire's Wife (20 page)

"Sure," I said.
"Fine. Cream with pink."

My mother beamed at me. "It
will go lovely with your coloring," she said.

I sighed. "I know."

My mother turned to Anton.
"Cream with pink, yes?"

He shrugged. "Whatever my
lovely wife wants."

I cringed inwardly, but I shot him
a glare. He merely watched me as, next to him, my mother flitted and fluttered
between choices. Invitations, favors, flowers, decorations—all flowed past me,
out of my control.

All of it was out of my control.

*

For the tenth time in fifteen
minutes my mother checked her watch. The service at the bistro Anton had
brought us to was far too slow for her liking.

"Do you have to be somewhere?"
Anton asked her, all politeness and courtesy.

She started, but recovered quickly.
She looked tired. "Yes," she said. "I have an appointment to go
to."

"Please, don't let us keep you
waiting."

As if she were afraid of leaving me
alone with him, my mother glanced at me, a guarded look on her face.
"Well," she said, dragging the word out, "I suppose. If it's all
right with you, Felicia?"

God, please,
I thought.
"It's not a problem," I said. Then, because it was getting too much
for me, I said, "What appointment do you have?"

For a moment she was flustered.
"Oh!" she said, waving a hand. "Just a doctor's
appointment."

I raised my eyebrows. "In the
city? Is something wrong?"
Just tell me. Christ.

But she just shook her head.
"No, it's nothing." Standing up, she gathered her purse and coat,
then leaned over and gave me a kiss. The cloying scent of her perfume clogged
my nostrils, but I held my breath and hugged her back. "I'll see you later
today. Don't forget to go dress shopping."

I nodded. Like hell I was going
dress shopping. It hadn't ended very well the last time I'd gone. Maybe Sadie
wanted to go drinking with me...

The moment my mother was gone,
Anton turned to me. "Are you hungry, Felicia?" he asked.

I looked at him in surprise, mostly
because I hadn't expected him to be so perceptive. "Actually, I'm
not," I confessed. Who knew getting run over all roughshod could wreck an
appetite?

"Then perhaps I should take
you home."

I gave him a grateful smile.
"Thank you."

"I have to get back to
work," he said, "so I will drop you off."

Oh.
Oh,
that's
why.
Oh
well. I knew it was going to be like this when I married him. No big deal.

We rode home in silence, but when
the car stopped in front of the house—my house, it was
my
house now—he
got out of the car with me and held the door as I dragged myself inside.

A note on the kitchen table from my
father informed me that we were alone in the house—no doubt he'd run off to do
some kind of work as well, or perhaps was going to meet my mother at her
appointment—and for the first time since the night before I felt as though I
could relax.

Except for the fact that Anton
lingered in the doorway of the kitchen, leaning against the doorframe and
watching me.

"What?" I said. I was too
tired to even try to be polite with him. "Don't you have to go back to
work?"

"That can wait for a
bit," he said.

I stared at him, not really
understanding. "Okay," I said finally. "So... what? You want a
quickie before you go back?"

"Well, yes," he admitted,
"but that's not what I wanted to talk to you about."

At least he was honest. I arched a
brow at him, encouraging him to continue.

For the first time, I saw him truly
hesitate, as though he were about to jump into water with depth unknown.

"Do your parents always walk
all over you like that?" he asked me at last.

I laughed. "Oh, you
noticed?" I said. I gave him a shrug. "I'm their only kid. My dad
thinks I'm an asset and my mom thinks I'm a doll she can dress up."

He frowned faintly. "And you
let them?"

I sighed and began to unbutton my
coat. "I was doing pretty well keeping them off my back until you came
into the picture," I said, then realized what I'd said. I put a hand over
my mouth. "Oh, sorry," I said. "I didn't really mean it like
that."

"Oh? Then how did you mean
it?"

To my relief, he didn't seem angry.
I rubbed my forehead and tried to think through the sleep-deprived fog
shrouding my brain. "I mean that my life got very complicated. I didn't
really talk to my dad before he showed up on my doorstep telling me I needed to
marry you. And I hadn't seen my mother in a while. I talked to her on the phone
once a week, but she lived in California and I lived here. There was
distance." And I had liked that distance. Yeah, working long hours at the
bar sucked and eating ramen five nights a week was terrible for me, but it was
my
shitty life and I'd been mostly free of their drama and control. But all
that progress was turned back now, and I was back in the same place I had been
in before I'd left home.

I shook my head. "It's not
like they beat me or abused me or something," I said. "They just
weren't great to have around. And now they're around again. I can't get
away."

Anton pushed away from the door and
came to stand in front of me as I shucked my coat from my shoulders and laid it
over the nearest chair. "I don't think that's true," he said.

I tried not to roll my eyes at him
and failed. "Oh yeah?" I said. "Well, you aren't me. I'm not
you. I can't just command everyone to do my bidding with a word and a glance of
those come-hither eyes."

"You think I have come-hither
eyes?" he said, amused.

"Don't push it," I told
him.

Anton smiled, real and genuine, not
his Zen smile. He was amazing when he smiled. "You do have power,
Felicia," he said. "You only have to learn to use it."

I shook my head. "I don't know
how."

His face softened. Without warning,
he reached out and pulled me to him. I stumbled, startled, against his chest,
my hands coming up to brace myself, but the sensation of his hard body against
the palms of my hands had me pausing, lingering, savoring.

His fingers trailed over my back,
up my arms, and I listed into him, tilting my head back.

He gazed down at me with intense,
green eyes, fixated on my lips. His hands slid up and up, until he cradled my
head in his hands. A thumb alighted on my lips.

"Your voice," he said.
"You must use your voice. Speak and make yourself be heard."

His other hand abandoned my face,
slipping down my arm and coming up to cover my fingers where they lay against
his chest. "And if people will not listen to you, you must do what you
must. Use these hands. I've seen your art—there is power in you. Build your own
life, Felicia."

Tears stung my eyes. How could he
say such things to me? I had been coerced into marrying him. Nothing was mine
any longer.

He seemed to read my mind, or
perhaps my thoughts were plain on my face. Leaning in, he rested his forehead
against mine.

"I am not the enemy, Felicia.
I am your companion, as you are mine. I may have... acquired you in an
unconventional way, but I wanted a wife. And you acquired me in the
bargain."

I closed my eyes. My heart hurt in
my chest, as though it had been rubbed raw.

Anton drew me closer, and I felt
the stirrings of his arousal against my belly. I inhaled sharply.

"You can say no," he
said. His voice vibrated in my skin, in my bones. "You always have the
last say. I'll not be a rapist."

I swallowed, hard. "I don't
want to say no," I said. "Please, just make me come."
Wipe it
away. Make me forget for a little while.

"Gladly," he breathed.

He kissed me then, and I flung myself
into him, into the feeling of his arms around me, his lips on mine. For the
first time, there was a tenderness to his possession, a sweetness to his
dominance. It reached deep inside me and touched my heart. So much kept us
apart, but his strength buoyed me up, kept me afloat. If I could keep my head
above water, we could become something.

But for now, I was content to be
his.

Slowly, deliberately, he broke away
from my mouth and placed a kiss on my chin, over my jaw. His hands turned me in
his embrace, his lips trailing down over my throat to top of my spine. Reaching
up, he swept my hair to the side and planted a kiss in the hollow of my neck
and I shivered, my sex melting in anticipation.

With gentle hands he guided me to
the stairs, and with each step I mounted my thighs rubbed against my aching
pussy, sending tremors of pleasure through my body. He touched me as we climbed
the narrow stairway, his hand slipping over my ass, between my legs, and by the
time we reached his room I was breathless with anticipation.

He undressed me, slowly, standing
back to admire me as, one by one, my clothes gathered on the floor. I stood
there and let him, my desire building with every sweep of his eyes over my
body. At last, when I was fully nude, he stepped away and surveyed me.

"You are lovely," he
said.

I closed my eyes.

His footsteps echoed on the floor,
and a drawer scraped open. Then he returned to my side and soft cloth whispered
over my skin as he tied a blindfold over my eyes.

In the darkness inside my head, I
trembled with want. My whole body, sore still from last night's fucking, stood
at attention, and my ears strained to hear his movements.

Warm hands alighted on my
shoulders, and he moved me backwards until the backs of my legs hit the bed. I
sat, and he tipped me over until I was fully supine. His hands slid over my
breasts, catching my waist, slipping against my stomach, and I arched into him.
One finger ran down my slit, then retreated.

Something cool and smooth pressed
against my tender entrance, and I forced myself to relax. It slipped past my
pussy lips and snuggled against my g-spot, curving up and over my mound. A
double vibrator. Ridges rubbed against my clit.

Anton turned it on. I came alive.

His hands traveled over my skin as
the toy between my legs ruthlessly teased pleasure from my body. His mouth
suckled at my breasts, the cotton of his shirt and trousers scraping erotically
over my flesh as he covered my body with his. Mindlessly I thrust against him,
needing him inside me, and he turned me over, pulling my hips back until I was
kneeling on the bed, my face in the blankets, my pussy dancing with vibration.

Hot breath gathered in the crack of
my ass. I stiffened for a moment, but when his tongue, hot and probing, laved
my asshole, I moaned. With practiced hands, he carefully prepared me, pushing
in and retreating, relaxing the tight ring of muscle until I couldn't take it
any more.

"Fuck my ass," I begged.
"Fuck me, please."

"Always, Felicia," he
said, and then his whole mouth was devouring my ass, hot and wet, until
abruptly it retreated, only to be replaced by the soft head of his cock
nestling against my tight hole.

He pushed forward and I moaned.
Slowly, inexorably he filled my ass, until I was plugged in both holes, his hot
cock stretching me until I thought I would break. Almost sweetly, he began to
move inside me, his hips nudging my ass, first in small thrusts, then deeper
and deeper until I cried out. Reaching around between my legs, he massaged the
vibe over my clit and g-spot, quickly, smoothly, until I didn't even know my
name any more. All I knew was Anton's body, Anton's lips on my back, Anton's
hands on my breasts, Anton's cock in my ass, Anton, Anton,
Anton—

"Anton!"

"Felicia," he growled,
and then I was coming, coming undone, and he caught me in his iron control, and
I spasmed around his thick shaft as he pumped in and out of my ass, my limbs
jerking, my pussy contracting, until he grunted and pulled out, shooting warm
spurts of his seed over my back.

When my body was finally spent, he
removed the vibrator from my pussy and cleaned me as I lay on the bed, the
blindfold still around my eyes. Then he tucked me into bed, kissed me on the
cheek, and tiptoed from the room.

I let myself sleep, swaddled in his
care.

Chapter Seven:

Bartered Pain

The Delegate's Dining Room at the
United Nations. That's where I was standing.

Floor to ceiling windows surrounded
us. The sun had come out from behind the clouds this morning, cascading warmth
through the glass and filling the room with light.

“This place is huge,” I said.

Next to me, Anton pursed his lips.
“I suppose,” he mused. “Perhaps we'll be able to fit everyone in here. I still
think Gotham Hall would be better. It has more capacity.”

“I agree,” my mother said.
“Absolutely all our friends and acquaintances will be invited. We want to make
it the social event of the holiday season, and that means we need the most room
possible. Right, Jonathan?” She turned to my father expectantly.

My father nodded. His face looked a
little gray at the thought of spending all the money he probably didn't even
have yet on a wedding. The freeing up of his credit would happen at the end of
the month, presumably, but until then he was betting on my mother's infamous
inability to make a decision and stick with it. It's why she had at least two
hundred pairs of shoes with 'back-ups' in a different color.

I sighed. Already I was longing for
the intense intimacy of our Las Vegas elopement. It had been frantic and
unplanned and I had been utterly alone with Anton and two paid witnesses, but
at least I hadn't had to make ten thousand decisions I couldn't possibly care
about. Now we were scoping out reception and wedding areas, and I just wanted
to throw myself through a window.