Chapter Nineteen
In which we learn about the joke The Aristocrats. Yes, this is relevant.
Luna…
What the hell was that?
Kai’s been so cool and composed with this ridiculous proposal that the thought he’d ever be attracted to me never factored into what I thought this insane plan would entail. My cheeks flush as I remember his sardonic comment on the island.
I’m not going to fuck you. Don’t take this personally, but you’re not looking that good right now.
I assumed that meant he didn’t expect anything physical in this sham of a marriage. “Well, not happening,” I mumble, pacing my room, “you’re not getting pussy on demand just because you can make me marry you.”
Would he try to push me into sex? The look on his face when he leaned over to kiss me was hungry. I’ve never had anyone kiss me like that. Like they’d die if they couldn’t have me. Touching my swollen lower lip, I can still feel his sharp teeth pulling on it. Like a wolf.
The memory of him in that wolf mask, shirtless and wielding a baseball bat feels different this time, less terror and more… filthy, making me wonder what would happen if he ran me to earth, climbing over me this time, pushing that aggressively large cock against me while I gasped and heaved for air.
My skin is too sensitive, too itchy, or too small to fit everything I’m feeling and I yank off my borrowed jeans and sweater, hurrying into the bathroom to turn the shower on. Turning the lever to ‘cold,’ I grit my teeth.
Don’t make this more complicated than it already is, you idiot.
I stay in the shower until my teeth chatter, but my lower half still feels swollen. I do some sit-ups. Some planks. It doesn’t help. By the time I get into bed, my fingers are sliding into my underwear, picturing his enormous hands on me, squeezing my breasts, tugging on my nipples and I’m coming before I can even imagine what he’d feel like inside me.
The next day…
There’s a white dress on my bed.
Well, cream-colored which is good because white washes out my pale skin. Why is it here? The dress is a Dior, I can’t imagine what it cost. Some ridiculous amount of money for what is really, just a nice piece of pale silk, sleeveless, and when I put it up against me, it looks like it hits a couple of inches above the knee.
Looking back at the mirror, I see Kai lurking in the doorway like a well-dressed vampire. He’s eyeing me like he’s going to sprout fangs and sink them into my neck.
“Why is this dress here?”
His greener than green eyes roam up and down my borrowed sweatshirt and leggings. “Well, ya can get married in that, I suppose. You’ll stand out at the Registrar’s office, but it’s up to you.”
Dropping the dress back on the bed like it bit me, I back away. “There must be something else we can do. This is ridiculous.”
Putting his hands in his suit pockets, he strolls into the room in his fancy suit and his shiny dress shoes that are probably made from something endangered, like blue whales.
“Would ya like me to show ya a video?”
“What?”
“I can show you a video we pulled off the dark web. It was their initial field test for this new nerve gas formula before they went into production.” His expression is glacial, back to the cruelly indifferent man I met on the island. “Would ya like to see what happens to humans when-”
“You’ve made your point,” I say sharply. “I get it. Please shut the door and I’ll change.”
Because Kai is nothing but thorough, there’s also a lovely pair of Louboutin’s that perfectly match the color of the dress. Pulling my hair up in a French twist, I examine all the cosmetics Sloan and Catriona brought over for me. Swiping most of the collection back into the drawer, I put on some mascara and a nude shade of lipstick. I’m going to be sheet-white from stress during this ordeal and anything else will stand out on my face like clown makeup.
“This is insane,” I tell my reflection. She has nothing helpful to offer, so I trudge down the stairs, feeling more like I’m heading to an IRS audit than my wedding.
“Look at ya! A vision, ya are.” Another expensively suited man who looks a lot like Kai is waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
“Which MacTavish are you?”
“I’m the best MacTavish,” he grins, puffing up his chest. “I’m also Kai’s brother Logan. I’ll be escorting the two of you to the Registrar’s office.”
“This is nuts,” I say bluntly.
Logan finds this hilarious. “In our clan? It’s tradition.”
“Please don’t expand on that,” I say, about to rub my eyes before I remember I’m wearing mascara. Actually, that would be sort of hilarious to have mascara tears streaming down my face and ringing my eyes like a raccoon. That’s a wedding picture for the history books.
“Where’s my happy bride?” Kai comes up behind his brother.
It’s like he can read my mind. Happy, my ass.
“She couldn’t make it. You’re stuck with me."
After our SUV leaves the garage, two more pull out following behind us.
“Is the whole stately procession necessary?” I’m being peevish, I know it. But people are turning to look at the three Maserati SUVs taking over the street. I don’t like attention. It’s never gone well for me in the past.
Kai ignores me, rapidly typing out text after text.
“Your security is extremely important,” Duncan says, leaning in with a grin. I bet he gets a lot of girls with that reckless, pirate-like attitude. “When the clan is under a threat as serious as this, we pull all the soldiers back into home base. No one goes out on their own.”
Pulling up behind a large government building, the driver scans the area around us as four more men in dark suits get out of the chase vehicles and surround the car.
“Ya ready?” Kai asks me.
“Not in the slightest.”
A blue-suited assistant type guides us through darkened hallways, empty like they cleared out the building for us.
“Know what this reminds me of?” I say it without looking at anyone.
It’s Logan who politely asks, “What does this remind ya of?”
“That scene in The Sound of Music where the nuns are hustling the Von Trapp family through the catacombs, fleeing the Nazis.” Of course, that movie had a happy ending where they were frolicking to freedom over the Alps in Switzerland. I have a feeling I’m getting locked back up in Kai’s palatial townhouse after this.
“Well, I can see those blue-bloods… wait. Uncle Lachlan has decided on a name for these wankstains . We’re calling them the Aristocrats. I can see the Aristocrats being white supremacists,” Logan answers after some thought, “so the Nazi reference isn’t far off.”
“Why is your Uncle Lachlan calling the rich white boys the Aristocrats?”
Logan’s laugh echoes down the long hallway. “Ya dinna know the joke about The Aristocrats?”
“Do you mean The AristoCats, the movie from Disney?”
“No, it’s definitely nothing Disney cooked up. It’s from the filthiest joke ever spoken and the punchline is, “We’re the Aristocrats!” He’s got his phone out and looking up a comedian on YouTube. “Here, this is the entire joke in all its fecked-up glory. I’ll turn up the volume and-”
Kai stops texting. “Ya will not show her that video. We’re not in a pub, ya arsehole!”
Logan sadly puts his phone away, mouthing “I’ll show ya later,” to me behind his brother’s back.
Stopping abruptly, Kai eyes my empty hands. “I should have bought you a bouquet.”
“That’s okay,” I shrug. Please, let’s not make this more of a sham than it already is. That’s what I really want to say but he’s got that cold, humorless thing going again so I walk past him and into my IRS audit- I mean, my wedding.
The Registrar is a very nice older woman named Moira Baird with silver hair and a sensible dress. I like how her eyes twinkle as she examines the two of us. “Ah, the happy couple then? Stand before me, if ya please.” I have a feeling she knows exactly what’s going on here, but she opens her book and begins.
There’s a bunch of words spoken, though her Scottish accent is so thick that I’m not quite following along. So, it comes as a shock when she says, “Repeat after me, Miss Jones?”
“Oh! Yeah, sure.”
“State your name, please.” Ms. Baird nods at me.
“I, Luna Jones…”
“I sincerely solemnly declare that I accept you, Kai uh…” I go up on tiptoe to whisper, “Do you have a middle name?”
“Robert.” He’s less icy now, probably enjoying my existential dread.
“I accept you, Kai Robert MacTavish, as my lawful wedded husband for life…” I choke on that part and Ms. Baird waits for me to recover. “To the exclusion of all others.”
He slides a plain platinum wedding band on top of my “engagement” ring.
“I accept you, Luna…” Now the corner of his mouth curls up a bit. “I’m sorry, little fox. Do ya have a middle name?”
“No,” I babble, “Mom told me that we couldn’t afford a middle name. It’s funnier the way she said it though.”
They all politely wait for me to finish losing my mind (and my dignity) before Kai continues to the last part of his vows and Logan hands me a thick onyx band to slide onto Kai’s ring finger.
“By the power vested in me, I now pronounce ya husband and wife,” Ms. Baird finishes triumphantly, as if she wasn’t sure we’d get to the finish line.
To be honest, neither was I.
“You may now kiss the bride.”
Kai’s hands come up to cup my face, his thumb idly stroking over my cheekbone.
“Hold up,” I whisper.
He raises one elegant eyebrow.
“I want another lesson for this kiss.”
“What lesson,” he whispers back.
“I want to learn how to drive a boat.”
“You mean, pilot a boat?” he says, no longer bothering to whisper.
“Yes. That.” I nod firmly.
“As you wish,” he murmurs, then closes in on a kiss far too intense to be witnessed by his brother and a civil servant. A kiss that feels like it’s sucking my soul out of my body. His firm lips and minty-tasting tongue play with me until I crack, just a bit, just one tiny whimper, but it’s enough. He growls like the animal I know he is and his arm comes around my waist, lifting me off my feet and kissing me and kissing me again and the only thing I hear is the clatter of those Louboutins dropping off my suddenly limp feet.
***
Author’s note: The Aristocrats is the most appalling, genuinely offensive joke in the history of jokes. I will not tell it to you, but you can look it up on YouTube and you will understand why Lachlan, the most extra of the MacTavishes, came up with it.