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As if listening to her dreams—her darkest fantasies—weren’t enough, she scoots across the mattress until her back is pressed against my chest, and her ass is wiggling against my groin. It’s as if her subconscious is taking everything her conscious mind isn’t quite ready to admit.
The tension between us has been building like a storm front, dark and electric. I can see it in the way she looks at me when she thinks I’m not looking. She can’t hide the hunger in her eyes, no matter how hard she tries to mask it with contempt.
She’s been pushing her own limits even harder these past few days, as if she senses the dam is about to burst and she’s determined to be the one to crack it. Before bed this evening she accidentally brushed against me in the adjoining bathroom, her hand grazing my cock through my pajama bottoms. The wide-eyed, faux innocent look she gave me nearly snapped my restraint right then and there, a moment my cock has not forgotten as I lie beside her.
But I’m waiting, because I know. I’ve learned more about her these two weeks of our marriage than months of watching her could have ever taught me. My sweet angel likes to be cornered. She craves the fight and needs to feel her defiance being stripped away before she can accept the pleasure I intend to give her.
We’re almost there… That sharp, proud mind of hers is almost ready to admit she wants me. Once she does, there will be no going back.
For either of us.
Chapter Five
Roman
I look up from my bourbon to find Cora standing in the doorway of the kitchen, dressed in a cream-colored cashmere sweater set with gold buttons, paired with stonewashed Guess jeans, with the cuffs rolled to reveal her ankles. Her hair is pulled into a high ponytail secured with a velvet scrunchie, several curly golden tendrils having fallen free to frame her face. A single strand of pearls hang around her long, lean neck.
“The Whitmore gala begins in two hours,” I inform her, setting down my glass. “Your dress is laid out on the bed. We leave at seven.”
“I’m not going.” She crosses her arms, pursing her lips in a bratty gesture that makes me want to simultaneously throttle her and fuck her against the nearest wall. “I don’t feel like being paraded around like your new acquisition.”
“You’re my wife, not an acquisition.”
“I’m your prisoner.”
“You are being dramatic and childish. The Whitmores are expecting us. Your presence is nonnegotiable.”
Cora cocks her head to the side and sasses, “Then it seems like you are all going to be disappointed.”
“Go and get ready, Cora.”
“Make me,” she challenges, throwing down the gauntlet with a smirk.
I stand and stalk toward her slowly, her emerald eyes tracking my advance. When I finally stop, I’m mere inches from her, close enough to see the slight flutter of her pulse in her throat and smell her sweet floral scent that makes me giddy.
“Move, Roman,” she huffs, trying to push past me.
Blocking her path, I roughly exhale, “No.”
“Move, or I’ll—”
“Or you’ll what?” I lean down until we’re eye level and gruff, “What will you do, angel? Spit and claw, like you always do? Fight me until you’re breathless? Or maybe until you’re flushed and wondering why your panties are soaked?”
Heat creeps up her neck and over her cheeks until they burn the same beautiful crimson I enjoy turning her ass with my hand. “Fuck you.”
“Not yet. But soon.” I stand upright, take a step backward and point toward our bedroom. “Go. Get. Dressed.”
With a dangerous defiance sparkling in her eyes, she stares at me for a long moment before spinning on her heel. Succumbing to her fate, she storms toward the bedroom and slams the door hard enough to rattle the frame.
I let her stew while I take my time finishing my bourbon. When a little more than twenty minutes have passed, I down the final swig of amber liquid and head across the penthouse to check on her. My first real stirrings of anger—the kind that burns hot beneath my carefully cultivated control—simmer through my veins when I open the door. Cora is sitting on the edge of the bed, still in her jeans and sweater, aimlessly thumbing through a magazine, while the red silk gown I laid out remains untouched beside her.
“Stand up,” I command.
Even with my voice booming through the room she doesn’t look up. “No.”
“Cora!” My tone matches the same rough one that has preceded every punishment she has received. “I’m going to give you one last chance to put on that dress. If you don’t, I will put it on myself, and I assure you, you will not enjoy my method.”
“I don’t think it’s your color,” she sasses, with a sharp brittle laugh rattling from her. “You don’t scare me, Roman. Your little spanking routine is getting old. You might need to find a different way to teach me to be your good little doll.”
