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“Wait.” The word escapes my lips before I can stop it.
He pauses at the door, looking back at me.
“The… The rules,” I stammer, hating myself for asking and him for making me need to know. “What… What are they? Exactly?”
Crossing the room in a few quick strides, he returns to me and kneels at my feet, bringing us eye to eye. With his deep chestnut eyes searching mine, and his voice low, he says, “First, when we are in private, you will call me Daddy.”
I recoil. “I’m not a child.”
“No,” he agrees. “You’ve been running wild, Cora. Spending money, attending parties, and playing at being an adult, because you’ve had no one to guide you. No one to set boundaries. You need what a Daddy provides—structure, protection, and someone to hold you accountable.”
I want to argue, but the current state of my ass quickly reminds me it will fall on deaf ears.
“Second,” he goes on, “you will obey me without question in matters of your safety, your health, and your behavior. You will be respectful, honest, and you will not lie to me, ever, for any reason.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then you’ll be punished.” He reaches out and lightly wraps his large hands over my knees. “Like tonight. Or more severely, if warranted. I have no interest in causing you real harm, but I will discipline you when you need correcting. And you will learn to accept it.”
I should be outraged as I listen to my new husband outline the lifetime of abuse I have before me. Instead, I find myself nodding.
His palms are warm against my skin as they slide to my mid-thigh. “Third, after tonight, you will sleep in my bed, and we will begin learning each other.”
“Learning each other,” I repeat, my voice hollow.
“Your body is mine now,” he states matter-of-factly. “I intend to know it intimately. Every inch. Every secret. Every place that makes you gasp.” His hands tighten around my legs as I recoil into myself. “But first, I want your mind. Your trust. Your submission.”
“And if I refuse to follow your rules?”
He stands, looking down at me with an expression I can’t quite read. “Then you’ll be very lonely, angel. And very unhappy. You may not have had a choice about our marriage, but you do get to choose how much you enjoy it.”
Chapter Four
Roman
The past two weeks have been a masterclass in restraint. Mine, not hers. I’ve maintained the structure I promised: giving corrections when she pushes boundaries, setting consistent expectations, and remaining unwaveringly calm in the face of her brattiness. And bratty she has been—spectacularly, magnificently, and infuriatingly bratty.
She forgets to eat breakfast until I remind her, then sulks through the meal, pushing eggs around her plate with the sullen precision of a petulant child. She wears the outfits I select, only after I stand in the doorway to watch her dress, my presence a silent threat she both resents and craves. She tests me at every turn—speaking over me at dinner, rolling her eyes when I give instructions, or accidentally knocking her water glass onto the floor with a too-casual sweep of her arm.
Each evening, I dole out her spankings. They aren’t the same heated punishment of our wedding night, but calculated, disciplinary sessions where I bend her over my knee, pull down whatever flimsy barrier separates my palm from her skin, and redden her backside until she sobs apologies into the leather of the armchair.
I vary the intensity, the duration, and the positions: bent over my knee, standing with her hands pressed against the wall, or on all fours on our bed, with her face buried in the mattress to muffle her cries. I study her reactions with the focus of a scholar, learning exactly how she sounds when she’s truly contrite versus when she’s simply enduring the correction, cataloging the precise shade of crimson that spreads across her cheeks when she’s nearing her limit. And when she has, I cradle her trembling body until the defiance has leaked out of her, leaving her limp and compliant in my arms, with her tears dampening my shirt and her breath hot against my neck.
She thinks this is about control and breaking her spirit, but she is oblivious to the fact that I am actually breaking myself. She doesn’t see that I’m barely holding it together. I handle myself nightly in the bathroom with angry, efficient strokes, imagining her wrapped around me, but I still wake up hard as a rock, my body demanding the satisfaction that only she can provide me. My hands shake as I lie beside her tonight, fighting the urge to reach across the mattress and touch her.
It’s a circle of hell I’m willing to endure, because I meant what I said: I want her desperate, willing, and begging. But God help me, beside her in the darkness of our bedroom—a hellish prison I created for myself when I insisted Cora share my bed—this might be the night I break.
Staring at the ceiling, I listen to the soft rhythm of my sweet angel’s breathing. She lies turned away from me, as always, curled into a tight ball on the edge of the mattress, as if proximity to me might burn her alive. And fuck… she might be right, because I’m on fucking fire.
I roll onto my side and breathe in the sweet floral scent of her. It clings to the pillows, sheets and my nostrils with every breath I take. I inhale her essence until I’m drunk on it, and my hands ache with the need to touch what is irrevocably mine.
She shifts in her sleep, and a sweet whimper escapes from between her parted lips “Roman…” Yes, Angel? Her hips roll beneath the sheets, and she arches toward where I lie, rigid and throbbing. “Please, Daddy… Your hands…”
Fuck…
I close my eyes and force myself to swallow down my need as my cock throbs against my thigh, tenting the fabric of my pajamas with an urge I refuse to satisfy.
Tonight is no different from any others this week. Cora spends them dreaming of my rough hands on her soft body, only to wake in the morning with venom on her tongue and defiance in her eyes. The dichotomy is slowly driving me insane. I know what she wants—what she needs—because that perfect body of hers betrays her repeatedly.
