8. Julia
8
JULIA
I should have been offended that he summoned me like a dog, but when I stood and walked on unsteady legs over to him, it seemed to come from a part of me I couldn’t control. I dragged my fingers across the table, hoping the cool tablecloth would ground me. When I got to Roman, he scooted the chair out from the table and spread his legs, leaning against the back as he looked up at me with big brown eyes.
“Well?” I asked, ignoring the steady pounding of my heart.
“Sit,” he said, gesturing to his thigh.
I normally didn’t like being ordered around, but his commanding voice made me feel strangely cared for, like all I had to do was what he told me and the world would be right. Which was ridiculous, of course. Only I could take care of me.
But still, I found myself stepping in between his legs and lowering onto the one farthest from the table. The smell of his soap and deodorant and natural male scent assaulted me, and I steeled myself against the trembling that echoed down my spine.
He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me closer to his body so we connected from my shoulder down to my hips, the entire length of my arm touching his firm chest. I’d been raised around powerful men who simply took what they wanted from the women in their lives. Being the president of the SRMC meant Roman would hardly be different. I’d bet he walked into rooms and women fawned over him. I’d seen how the hang-arounds threw themselves at him when he entered the clubhouse.
“Why are you shaking?” he murmured, gripping my hips, digging his fingers into the tight fabric of my dress.
“Being close to you annoys me,” I lied, knowing it was really my nerves. I hadn’t been kissed by anyone since Hugo died, hadn’t even wanted it. And not that I would ever admit it to him, but the thought of pressing my lips to his sent heat to places that made my thighs clench.
He grinned and ran his tongue over his canine, drawing my focus. “I thought we were pretending.”
“I’m trying.” Even my voice shook.
“Try harder.”
I scoffed and rolled my eyes, glancing away, but he grabbed my chin and forced my face back to him. He pressed his forehead to mine, ghosting his fingertips down my neck, over my pulse point, to the bare skin on my chest. I took a deep breath, preparing myself to kiss the enemy, the one who had spilled so much Caputi blood, he might as well bathe in it.
I shouldn’t want this.
Those strong, callused fingers brushed over the mounds of my breasts at the top of my neckline, tracing along the ridge of the fabric like he meant to duck them under. Heart pounding, I arched into the touch despite myself, praying he would just do it and save me the embarrassment of wanting it any longer.
Roman tilted his head forward and tentatively brushed his mouth over mine, delicate and sweet at first, shooting ripples of sensation through my blood. I melted against him, twisting my fingers in my lap to keep from tangling them in his hair. His lips were soft and warm and, when he opened them to lick over mine, I sighed into the contact. The noise turned into a moan when I reciprocated with my tongue, wrestling against his in a pathetic attempt for dominance. But I wanted to submit to him. I wanted him to win, to make me his, to show me how strong he was, how capable he was of protecting me and keeping me safe.
One hand snaked up my back to my neck, twisting in my hair to hold me in place. The fingers on my chest danced lower, rubbing over my dress to my nipples, which had pebbled from the kiss and the anticipation of what was to come.
A low masculine noise echoed from the back of his throat, and I sighed, my overheated skin suddenly too small to contain this rush of feeling inside my veins. I brought my hands to his jaw, cupping his face before moving to the back of his head, gripping, clawing, wanting more, desperate for all of him. His index finger twisted in the front of my dress and dragged it down, the rush of cool night air tightening the most sensitive parts of my breasts.
I wanted more. I wanted all of him. I wanted him to crack us both open to see if our insides matched.
Gasping into the kiss, I arched toward his touch when he grabbed one nipple between his fingers and pinched, tugging it in just the right way to send shocks of pure pleasure down my spine. In retaliation or perhaps in competition, I bit his bottom lip and pulled, and he groaned, leaning into it.
My pulse hammered against my ribs; he must have felt it, and my body whispered things I had no desire to investigate. I should have stopped this while I still had my wits, but he lifted me up and shifted me around so my knees were on either side of his hips, my feet dangling to the rungs of the chair. He grabbed my ass and yanked me closer, nudging my soft center up against the bulge in his sweatpants.
“There’s a good girl,” he murmured, dragging his hands up over my hips to continue tugging at my breasts.
I couldn’t stop myself, almost like I was compelled by some force greater than the two of us in this room. I rocked against him, lust combining with years of pent-up tension as I sank into this depravity. He was the enemy, and I was supposed to hate him.
I did hate him. But oh, it felt too good to stop it. The smell of him, pine and citrus and him, amped up my arousal, and when his cock flicked against my clit, a moan barreled out of my chest unwillingly. I coasted my hands up over his arms, so hard and strong under his shirt, and balanced them on his shoulders while he worked me. Panting, he broke away from my lips to pepper kisses over my jaw and down my throat. I leaned my head to the side, granting him more access, and when he licked over a tender spot near my pulse, I trembled. Chills skated down my spine and the back of my legs, pooling in the most ravenous part of my anatomy. My belly fluttered, clenching deep inside of me.
“You smell like heaven,” he murmured. “Perhaps this Rose isn’t completely brainless, huh?” He punctuated his taunt with a bite near my shoulder, and I quaked again.
“You’re a monster,” I said, rocking harder against him. The contrast of his sweats with my lace panties was simultaneously too rough and just the right amount of agony, and I knew the wet spot on his lap would only grow larger the more I let this go on, but my mind had long since lost control of my body. I was acting on instinct now, and my nerves were too ignited to stop. “It’s pretend. It’s only pretend.”
I didn’t know if I was mumbling that for his sake or mine…perhaps both.
“Uh-huh,” he said. “Such a good little wife, pretending for me.”
The praise knocked over a tumbler in my restraint, the rest of my reasons for resisting finally falling away. I bit my lip and ground down on him, swiveling my hips to make that pleasure echo through my entire body.
“There ya go,” he said. “Are you going to make yourself come? Huh? Are you such a good pretender that you can convince me you like this?”
I don’t. I don’t like it.
But it felt so tantalizing, and no one had ever handled me like this. The volcano building in my body inched closer to erupting with every heartbeat.
“Nothing to say?” He let out a sick, twisted laugh and bit my earlobe, the heat from his breath cascading over my bare skin and down to my breasts, which were tender from his ministrations. “Wow, who knew all I had to do to get you to shut up was ruck up your skirt?”
Frustrated, I snaked a hand into his hair and yanked, glaring down at him while I rode him, searching for my climax, desperate for release. He winced at first, his lips curling into a smirk as he let out a dark, sinful chuckle.
“Oh, so we do like it rough?” He dug his fingers into my hips to guide me, rocking me harder and faster. “Get yourself off, little wife, and then I’m going to bend you over this table, smash your face into that appalling excuse for dinner, and fuck you so hard you can’t stand tomorrow.”
That image sent me over the edge. It shouldn’t. I didn’t want him to fuck me. I didn’t want his body to do the things it was doing to me, but when my orgasm broke through my hesitation, I moaned and threw my head back and every muscle in my body tensed with the rush. My toes curled, my nails dug into his scalp, and I bit down on my bottom lip so hard I tasted blood.
For that one heart-shattering moment, the world ceased to exist. It was just me and him and the smell of wine on our breath. My overheated skin cooled, and when I looked at him, his cheeks were flushed with excitement, his eyes shimmering with desire and wanton possession.
But in the aftermath, reality set in. This was supposed to be pretend. This was supposed to be practice for us to convince his club the next time we were paraded in front of them. I had taken it too far. He’d let me take it too far. And I didn’t know if blaming him made me feel better or worse.
Suddenly coming to my senses, I jumped off him, backing away so fast I nearly tripped over my feet and had to steady myself with one hand on the table.
He sat there and stared at me, adjusting his hips as he grabbed his cock to seemingly relieve his own tension. The V of his legs enticed me, making me want to kneel in between them and finish him off with my mouth. But no.
No!
This was wrong…so terribly wrong. He was a Rose. He was evil and vile and wretched, and everything about him repulsed me.
“What’s wrong, wife?” he asked, raising an eyebrow and tilting his head to the side. “Too ashamed to admit you liked how hard you got off on my lap?”
I swallowed against a dry throat and took another step back, trying to reason with myself about the wickedness of my situation. He’d forced me into it. He goaded me. Lied to me. He told me it was pretend, but it wasn’t…and I liked it. I liked it so much.
“You disgust me.” I wanted to run away. I wanted to hide and act like this whole thing had never happened.
Roman shoved to his feet and stormed toward me, towering over me, making me seem small and insignificant in comparison. “Do I? I think you like that, too.”
I shoved at his shoulders, but he grabbed my wrists and twisted me around, ramming my hip bones into the table as he slammed me against it. He overpowered me, forcing me to bend over it, rattling the wineglasses and plates, spilling pinot on the tablecloth. The candle flames flickered, and my stomach twisted, churning with anticipation and longing and…something darker. Part of me was scared of him. He’d done so many awful things, only some of which I knew about. He was a powerful man, and he could so easily force me to do whatever he wanted. But the other part…the wretched little slut I kept deep down inside, she liked everything about it, and she wanted more.
The heat of his legs brushed against the back of my thighs, the thick ridge in his pants pushing against the curve of my ass as he leaned over me, holding my wrists at the base of my spine. His lips brushed against my ear when he whispered, “Tell me to stop, wife. Tell me to stop and go away and I will.”
I said nothing, just gasped for air to fill my lungs.
I wanted it to stop…didn’t I? This was pretend, only pretend, and I should have ended it before it even began. But wasn’t this what I set out to do by making him this meal? Wasn’t this what we were supposed to practice? This was how a husband and wife lived, and we were married. If I allowed anyone to treat me like this, if I allowed anyone inside my body, it should be him.
Just then, I ached to be filled…especially by him.
I opened my mouth, prepared to tell him to get off me, but that wasn’t what came out. Instead, I hissed, “Is this how the Roses treat their women? You depraved fiend. Some husband. ”
I arched into the feel of his cock on my backside, despite the harsh words pouring over my lips.
At that, he laughed again and wrapped one giant hand around my wrists, using the other to wrench up my dress. His heavy palm slid up the side of my leg to the holster where I kept my knife, and he yanked it free, leaning over me to stab it into the table next to my face. I jumped at the loud thunk but didn’t move to grab it. Then he shoved my panties down to my ankles, nearly ripping them off my legs as I lifted one foot, then the other, to step out of them.
Quivering against the cool air on my wet vulva, I took a deep breath to prepare myself for what was coming, but that did not stop me from sinking into the table when the tip of his cock brushed through my soaked skin.
“Last chance,” he whispered. “Say the word, and this ends.”
“Oh, c’mon, you Rose bastard,” I snarled. “Surely, you’re not this much of a coward.”
Why…oh, why…did I goad him? Perhaps I was tired of being the barely touched princess. Perhaps I longed to be fucked so hard I couldn’t remember my own name. Or perhaps I just wanted to rip off the weight of expectation between us. He’d had the most issue with this part of the marriage contract, and because of that, our sex would always mean more than it would to any other newlyweds.
He shoved into me so hard I surged up on my toes and sucked in air, my back curving into the contact. Once fully seated inside, he froze, shifting his weight behind me, using his feet to spread mine farther apart.
“Fucking hell, you’re tight,” he said. “So fucking hot and warm and…” He trailed off, murmuring soft perversions I couldn’t hear.
No, all I could focus on was how big he was, how much he stretched me in the most delightful ways. His fingers dug into my wrists, nearly painful in how hard he held me, and he grabbed my neck with the other hand, a sort of collar that both held me in place and labeled me as his possession. It should have been revolting, but the sensation of being claimed… by him… amped up my excitement.
His thrusts came slow at first. He eased out only to carefully push back in, and while that felt amazing, it frustrated me. He promised to smash my face into the table and fuck me so hard I couldn’t stand. How would he accomplish that with such a tedious pace?
After an eternity of fretful teasing, I growled and met his ruts with punishing ones of my own. His grip on me tightened.
“Is that all you’ve got?” I hissed, glancing over my shoulder at his clenched features. His eyes were wide and sparkling, his lips parted in exasperation, and his brows had pulled together to make an adorable scowl between them.
At my taunting, he held on to me harder and changed his angle, surging into me so rough and deep, I could swear I felt him in my bones. He hit my cervix, and it sent stinging anguish up my body and down my legs. I whined, shifting my hips to accommodate his length. But he wouldn’t let me.
“Oh, no,” he growled, moving his hand to my hair and gripping it to hold me in place. “You wanted this, you fucking take it.”
I struggled against him, trying to push myself up to no avail. He outweighed me by at least a hundred pounds of muscle, something that should have terrified me but only made me more aroused. Finally defeated, I relaxed into the pure debilitating bliss, the pressure of my carefully calculated control slipping from my chest. With him, I didn’t need to worry about it. He would take me how he wanted, and I liked it more than I should and there was nothing I could do about it.
In that submission, I found the purest form of ecstasy. My body tensed around him, my cunt turning to a vise grip the longer his savage pounding continued, every nerve lighting on fire. My toes curled at the sound of the table legs scraping across the floor. My fingers clamped into fists. Some deep-seated emotion in me snapped as my climax finally yanked me under. Moans poured out of my mouth, turning to sobs and eventually to screams when the sensations became too much.
Roman grunted and sank his nails into me, but I couldn’t feel any of it through the haze of my own explosion. The heavens parted to welcome me into their righteous kingdom. Had I died right there on that table? Was my heart still beating? I hung suspended between earth and purgatory for an eternity, and when I crashed back into my body, he had stopped moving.
His cock twitched inside me, indicating he had reached his release, and his hand rested in front of my face, bearing the weight of his body as he panted on top of me.
“Fuck, Julia,” he whispered. The scent of his cologne and sweat brought me back to my right mind, and I took a deep breath before wiping at an itch on my cheek. When my fingers came away wet, I realized I’d been crying, and tears stained the tablecloth under my face. “Are you all right?”
I shook with the fury of my suddenly released emotions, all the anger and frustration and sadness so callously wrenched from me by my new husband. He took a step back, sliding out of me, leaving the evidence of our combined orgasms to run down the insides of my legs.
“Fuck, come here.” He touched my shoulder, perhaps trying to help me stand, but I pushed away from him, holding myself up on the dining room table as I finally met his gaze. He genuinely seemed concerned, which contrasted with the wonderfully monstrous way he’d handled me only moments ago.
“I’m fine,” I said, my tone curt and cold. “Do you think that’s the first time I’ve been bent over a table and fucked like a wild beast?” It was. It definitely was . But my pride forced me to scoff, determined to make sure he couldn’t see my vulnerability or how he’d turned my insides to mush. “I think we’ve sufficiently practiced enough for one night.”
I grabbed my knife from the table, turned, and forced myself to walk toward the stairs, steeling myself against my wobbly knees as I gripped the railing for dear life. When I made it to my room, I let out a deep breath and headed to the bathroom to clean myself up.