Chapter Thirteen
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
E VE ’ S THOUGHTS AND emotions were all over the place. Part of her did want to turn this plane around and run home to where she was safe. She had married Dom Blackwood, essentially still a stranger to her. How had she thought this was a good idea?
Oh, right. He only needed to skim away her light jacket, fingertips grazing her bare shoulders and upper arms and she was suffused in heavenly vibrations. He slid the zip on her simple sheath down her spine and she shimmied to help him drop the navy crepe over her hips to drop it to the floor.
Turning to face him, she began working on the buttons of his shirt. He’d removed his tie and jacket when they had boarded and pulled the tails of his shirt free of his trousers.
“Evie.” He caught her urgently working fingers into a single, firm grip, halting her. His other hand found the side of her neck. “I’ve just realized.” He waited for her gaze to meet the glow in his. “You’re mine.”
Her stomach pitched at the magnitude of that statement.
“Are you mine?” she asked shakily.
“This ring says so, doesn’t it?” He tilted the hand that was gently crushing her tangled fingers, making his gold band wink. “We’re going to spend the rest of our lives doing this. Why don’t I show you I’m capable of seducing my virgin bride?”
After everything they’d done on the island?
“That look.” A rusty chuckle rattled from his chest, then his expression sobered. He cupped her face in two hands as though she was precious and worth gazing upon. “Every time we’ve come together, I’ve leapt on you like you were my last meal. I would have been so much more careful if I’d known.”
“It’s okay.” Her voice rasped from the bottom of her throat, cheeks stinging as she laid bare the truth. “I liked it.”
“I know you did,” he said throatily, making her want to pinch him. “I like that you match my appetite so closely, but let me have this.” He dropped a soft, soft kiss on her lips. A quest and a promise, one that made all the small defenses she managed to keep up against him shift and waver on their foundations.
I don’t know you , she wanted to say, but she was learning that he was capable of gentleness. He was almost tender in the way he reverently framed her face and brushed his lips across hers again and again, coaxing her to open for him. To cling and encourage and invite. To deepen the kiss by degrees until his kiss was all that she knew. All that she needed—to be held by him. Connected and suffused in these lovely, shimmering waves.
Her hands began to roam beneath his open shirt, exploring the warm planes and rough-smooth textures of his chest, his taut skin and the fine hairs and his pebbled nipples.
He sucked in a breath, abdomen contracting. He deepened their kiss, releasing her face to drag her into a more sensual embrace. The brush of his hot chest and crisp, open shirt against her mostly naked torso made her shiver.
Helplessness was stealing over her like the shadow of night. She would lose herself to him, she realized. When it came to enemies, he was the most insidious kind. He turned her against herself, weakening her from within.
She tried to take some measure of control by drifting her hands down to his belt.
He caught them and had them manacled behind her back before she’d realized how easily he could do it.
“I said slowly, Evie.”
A catch of alarm went through her, then her breasts felt the heat of his gaze. They swelled in her bra, hardening from only a look. Her nipples stung.
He watched his own finger slide under the navy blue strap, drawing it to fall off her shoulder.
Her breaths were uneven, her nervous system vibrating with excitement and anxiety as she tested the strength of his grip. Her movement shifted her against the ridge of his erection.
His gaze was molten gold as he flashed her a look.
She held his stare and pressed her hips harder into his.
“You’re the one who always breaks first,” he taunted as he ran his hand over her ribs and around to her spine, casual in his claiming of her exposed skin. Proprietary in the way he pushed his hand into the back of her cheekies and palmed a soft round globe.
“You like controlling me,” she accused.
“I like touching you,” he corrected and slid his hand around to the front of the midnight-blue lace that covered her mound. “I like seeing what my touch does to you. I like feeling it.”
She bit her lip, trying to keep her sob trapped in her throat, and closed her eyes as though she could hide from the fact that her folds were damp and swollen with yearning for the fingertip that delved and explored.
“Look at me,” he commanded quietly.
Her eyelids felt too heavy to lift, the exposure too raw. It hurt to let him see how much pleasure she derived from something so small as the light play of his touch against her most intimate flesh.
“Tell me when you’re close.” His voice had dropped into a low, hypnotic tone that centered her world on the glitter in his gaze and the lazy caress that drew her closer and closer to a dangerous precipice.
“Kiss me,” she begged in a whisper.
“Not yet. Keep looking at me.”
This was so flagrant! At least on the island, she’d had the dim light of the shadowy shack to hide behind. He was forcing her to let him see exactly how thoroughly he dismantled her with hardly any effort whatsoever. It was a show of dominance that was both disconcerting and a ferocious turn-on, making her squirm under the struggle.
Her heart was thundering, her skin burning. Her body grew taut with ever deepening arousal as he dipped and withdrew, caressed and circled and dipped again. She was caught in a slipstream of pleasure, arching ever tighter, breaths reduced to aching gasps of urgency.
“Please.” She licked her dry, panting lips, so close she wanted to scream. “Please, Dom.” She closed her eyes in bliss as the white-hot pleasure rose like the tide, about to consume her.
He withdrew his hand.
She snapped her eyes open to see the amused, gratified look on his face.
“You’re being cruel!” She struggled against his grip and he released her, only catching at her arms to steady her when she staggered drunkenly.
“It’s a game , Evie.”
“It’s our marriage .” She was shaking, wildly aroused and furious and reacting to the enormity of being tied to him when he was so arrogant and imperious. “If I can’t trust you here—” She waved at the bed.
She suddenly wanted to cry, which felt like the greatest humiliation of all. She pushed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets, devastated in a way she couldn’t articulate.
His clothing rustled. It sounded as though his belt hit the floor.
She dropped her hands to see him sprawl onto his elbow on the bed. He wore nothing but his wedding band. He was ridiculously beautiful, all lean muscle and tanned skin except for that pale strip across his hips, accentuating that he was unabashedly aroused.
A fresh wave of weakness attacked her along with a fresh flood of heat. She hugged herself, sliding her bra strap back onto her shoulder as she did.
“I said I’m yours, didn’t I?” He was wearing his most remote expression, but for some reason it caused a pang of empathy in her chest. “Take what you want. Or walk out if you’re that mad.”
She bit her lips together, fearful they were quivering like a child’s. “I don’t know how to handle this.” She threw that at him in a ragged accusation, as though it was his fault that she reacted like this. “The way you make me feel is too much, Dom.”
“I keep telling you, we do this to each other . We have to stop hating each other for that.” He held out his hand. “Come here.”
She hesitated, but if she walked out now, the nascent threads of trust between them really would break. She had made this bed and longed to lie in it. With him.
She skimmed away the last of her clothes and joined him on the bed. He was still rock-hard and it only took the brush of his hands on her to reignite her own passion, but she curled into him on instinct, seeking more than sex. Comfort. Shelter.
He closed his arms around her and pressed his lips to her hair. “You’re safe here, Evie. Always. I promise you that.”
Physically, yes. She believed him. Emotionally? Not yet. Maybe never, but that wasn’t his fault, either. He might play erotic games, but he didn’t play mind games. He wasn’t making empty promises to lead her on.
That was the part that really scared her, though. She didn’t know how to cope with the way he made her feel . She was afraid that she could fall in love with him. Maybe already was and she wasn’t even sure why. Because of the way he made her feel when he set adoring kisses on the side of her face? He was still a Blackwood. A stranger.
Yet he shattered her defenses with the warm crush of his mouth and the scintillating pleasure of his touch innocuously tracing the rim of her ear.
She abandoned her misgivings and turned her face into his throat, rubbing her cheeks against his skin like a cat sharing scent, marking him in her own way. She stretched out so she was long and lithe against his tensile strength and danced her fingertips down his spine then traced the line between his tight buttocks.
This time when he drew a sharp breath and caught her hand and pressed it to the mattress above her head, she only gave a moue of contrition and kissed the point of his chin.
“I’ll be good,” she promised.
“You’re always good.” He kissed her, once, twice, then shifted down to collar her neck with kisses. His lips trailed down, covering her breasts reverently, pausing to catch each of her distended nipples and rolling them with his tongue. He kissed her all over, down to her lurching abdomen and across her hips. He rubbed his lips against the inside of her thigh, breathing hotly, “So soft.”
The pinprick joy of his kisses moved to her center where he easily brought her back to the fever pitch of a moment ago. When her muscles were strung wire-tight, she clutched her fist in his hair and moaned, “Dom.”
He lifted his head.
“I’m not on the pill,” she told him.
“What does that mean?” He opened his mouth on her inner thigh and sucked. Hard. “Should I wear a condom?”
“Only if you want to. And why do you do that?” She jerked away from the suction of his mouth against the top of her thigh. It hadn’t really hurt, only threatened to, but she would have a small shadow of a love bite there tomorrow.
“If I get you pregnant, that’s it, Evie.” He rose to loom over her, hard knees pushing her legs apart so he could settle the hot thickness of his erection against her aching loins. “We’re in this forever. Do you understand that?”
She nodded, even though she didn’t think there was any way to fully comprehend the scope and magnitude of tying her life to this man.
In a single flex and surge of his body, the silken, aggressive shape of him forged into her. He was returned to her. Claiming her anew. The bleak emptiness she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge was doused. Eclipsed. She was bathed in a halo of fire.
He muttered something and spared a moment to catch some of her hair and wind it around his fist.
“Evie,” he said in a rasp of anguish right before he claimed her mouth with unrestrained hunger. As he began to thrust, she grasped at his shoulders and brought her knees up to cling her legs around him.
With each powerful thrust, he stole a little more of her. Possessed her a little more deeply.
This was what she had been afraid of, but in the throes of this pleasure, there was no fear, only glorious indulgence. He was driving her toward a wall. Driving them. The barrier might break when they hit it or they might be the ones to shatter. Either way, she was desperate to get there and urged him on with agonized gasps and the cut of her nails and the eager tilt of her hips.
“Evie,” he said again. This time it was almost a curse. His heartbeat pounded against her breast and his ragged breaths stirred the hair near her ear.
They weren’t going to survive it, but here they were. The world was fracturing and cracking and exploding. Perhaps they flew into the sun. Either way, she was nothing but white light. She and Dom were no longer physical or separate. They were made of the same, singular, eternal energy.
Then ecstasy crashed over her, ripping her breath from her body in a cry of sheer joy. His shout joined hers and the shock waves of his own culmination slammed up against hers.
They clung to each other, sweaty and groaning and lost to the maelstrom.
Eve only had one thought—that this would happen again and again for the rest of their lives.
Eve woke with a start, naked in the wide bed in the stateroom of Dom’s yacht. Sunshine and mahogany hit her eyes. A tropical breeze came through the open windows, dancing across her skin where it wasn’t covered by the sheet.
She was on her stomach and lifted her head to look for Dom.
He sat slouched against the headboard, also wearing only the corner of the sheet as he thumbed the screen of his phone.
This is my life now , she thought with sweet excitement.
She would fall asleep sated and wake to the sexy vision of his bare chest and sensual mouth, his stubbled jaw and the lazy, possessive gleam in his eye as he slid a look toward her.
“I thought we made vows,” she said with mock indignance.
Both of their phones had been blowing up by the time they’d landed in Miami. Eve had spoken briefly with her mother, who was concerned on many fronts.
“Your father is very upset with Nico,” her mother had said. “He didn’t want you to know about his doctor visits.”
“Can I talk to him?” Eve had asked with trepidation.
“He’s still in with Nico. Let him calm down first.”
She’d then exchanged a few texts with her other brothers, both of them asking if she “had” to marry Dom—implying they presumed she was pregnant.
After that, she and Dom had turned off notifications, promising not to check them until they were on dry land again.
“My purser informed me that my sister is in Jamaica, visiting her husband’s family,” Dom explained.
“You spoke to the purser like that?” She flicked her gaze to the naked, muscled thigh poking out from beneath the draped sheet.
“He used the intercom, so, yes. I did.”
She was falling in love with that laconic humor of his.
Wait. No, she wasn’t. She scrambled to catch her slipping heart. Evie, don’t .
Dom brought his phone to his ear. “I got your message. We’re in the Caymans, but we can fly over for the afternoon. Is Ingrid with you?”
The woman’s response was muted and puzzled. “No. Why would she be?”
“It was just a question. We’ll see you later.”
He ended the call, then looked to Eve with an unreadable expression. With a single fingertip, he guided her hair off her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. “And so it starts.”
She bunched the pillow under her chest, hugging it. “Who’s Ingrid?”
“My stepmother.”
“Why were you asking if she’d be there? Are you worried she’s going to hate me?”
“She already does.”
“Ouch.” She scowled at him.
He shrugged off his blunt words. “My father was extremely good at spreading his poison. She always sided with him, feeding into it. It was the only way she could be close to him. That led her to believe she had some influence or control over the family and WBE, but it was an illusion even before Dad died. My marriage forces her to accept that. She won’t take it out on you, though. I won’t allow it.”
Eve studied his dispassionate expression, thinking of his mother who had been near tears when she had zipped Eve’s gown.
“This gives me so much hope, Eve,” Kathleen had said with a misty smile. “He’s always been so opaque to me. He learned to keep to himself out of self-defense. I did the same, not realizing I was losing him until he was already gone. But this... I mean it when I say I want the absolute best for both of you.”
“What was your childhood like?” Eve asked him. “Did you spend most of your time with your mother or your father?”
A subtle stiffness came over him, one that made her think he was going to deflect without answering the question.
“Neither.” His offhand tone sounded forced. “Dad married Ingrid very quickly after his divorce from Mom. Ingrid didn’t like me underfoot, but she felt my father’s influence was threatened if I spent too much time with Mom so I mostly lived at boarding school.”
“Really? How old were you?” She frowned.
“School age.” He shrugged. “Seven?”
“That’s young to be away from home. Was the school in New York or...?”
“New York at first, then Eton so I can ‘talk like this.’” He put on a somber British accent. He leaned to set his phone aside and plumped the pillow behind him. “I didn’t mind. Being away was less drama and I made social connections that serve me to this day. I came back to America for high school, Andover, and spent summers abroad. Dad would send me to whichever property would teach me a new language and something about the business. Paris, Madrid, Athens, Tokyo.”
It sounded very alienating and lonely. Her brothers might have called her a pest, but she hadn’t been unwanted . She’d always known she was loved.
“You must have spent time in Sydney?” she joked lightly. “I heard you say, ‘Crikey, mate’ the day we were rescued. I was so grateful you could make our plight understood to the locals.”
His mouth twitched. “You’ve missed a career in stand-up.”
“There’s still time.” She rolled away, then pushed her pillows to the headboard. As she sat up beside him, she pulled the sheet across her naked breasts. “Tell me more about your relationship with Ingrid. Why didn’t she want you around?”
“Because I wasn’t hers,” he said as though it was obvious. “That’s why I have five sisters. She was trying to produce a contender for the throne.”
“Are any of them not?”
He snapped his head around to give her a frosty look.
“You were the one who gets offended at being called a sexist.”
“None want it,” he clarified. “Freda is a lawyer. I told you about her. Astrid and our middle sister married young, likely to get out from Dad and Ingrid’s thumbs, though they’ll deny that. They’re dedicated homemakers. The youngest is an artist. Glassblowing, mostly. She’s very talented. My second youngest is brilliant in some ways and struggles in others. She works directly for me, remotely from her apartment. She analyzes data and does other nerdy things that no one else will touch, but she thrives on it.”
“And the nephew who could be your successor?”
“Zeke. Freda’s son. He’s twelve, very focused and bright. A natural leader. To be honest, Ingrid had her heart set on his ascension, believing she put in enough years with my father that she has as much right to WBE as anyone else.”
“That tells me exactly how she’ll react to me and any children we might produce.”
Ingrid would channel her late husband’s antipathy against a Visconti, but she would also see a threat to the tentacles she had already wrapped around the Blackwood fortune.
Judging from the radio silence from Eve’s father, Romeo didn’t seem to be coming around, either.
“What have we done, Dom? Did we burn down our lives for the sake of a few orgasms?”
“They’re very good orgasms, Evie.” He floated a caress down her arm and tingles followed like stardust.
“I’m being serious. How is this marriage supposed to build bridges? Did you marry me just to throw me in your stepmother’s face?” she asked with a twinge of suspicion.
“You know why I married you.” He dropped his hand away.
“Sex.” She didn’t mean to spit the word out with such contempt, but it seemed such a paltry return for the challenge ahead of them. “At least Nonna married for love.”
“Don’t be na?ve. She married for sex. She didn’t want to sleep with my grandfather so she ran away with yours.” Dom left the bed and pulled on a pair of board shorts, which was the extent of clothing he’d worn since they’d cast off from Miami four days ago.
A chill settled over her chest.
“It was love, Dom,” she insisted. “Not the destructive kind, either.” She was still sore about those things he’d said about that. “She did one thing for herself and here I am still paying for it.”
“I’m the one who will be paying, Eve.” He turned to face her, armor up, battle-ready. “Your brother’s situation isn’t all due to the feud. Quit playing martyr to history and thank me for bailing him out.”
She curled her fist into the sheet, chest pierced by the lance he’d just plunged through her. She really had been traded for a bride price. Her eyes were hot, but she willed the tears not to well and pressed her quivering lips together, refusing to say anything at all.
After a long, charged moment, he muttered, “I need to arrange our flight,” and walked out.