THIRTY-TWO
Cain
Coming downstairs after waking up alone in bed, half expecting Harper to be gone. The same thought he’d had for two days. Cain found her in the kitchen, meticulously working on a notepad.
Wearing only his gray t-shirt appeased something darker in Cain, and he smiled, eyeing her up from across the room.
He approached on bare feet. Harper didn’t even look up. Disappointed, she hadn’t flown across the room to plaster him in kisses, but he could rectify that. No problem.
Leaning over his wife, he pressed a kiss to her neck. She tipped her head back, giving better access, and he would have taken it had he not seen her little notepad. His name was scrawled on the top. There were two columns. One was very full with, he counted, twelve things.
Was his sexy, bratty wife making a pros and cons list?
That was too cute of her.
He gave his two brows a solid workout.
The pen was still in her hand when he directed her head around to reach her mouth. Her taste exploded on his tongue, and her shiver of pleasure urged him to kiss her deeper.
She moaned, and the noise went nonstop through his stomach lining and forced its heat down to his dick. He was hard in seconds.
But that was nothing new, having been in a state of constant arousal since they’d gotten home two nights ago. Harper, his crazy, beautiful wife, told him to keep his hands off while recuperating. That was crazy talk. He’d attacked her mouth, forced the groans out of her, and kissed her until she was a grasping mess pressed against his chest. And then, for two days, he’d made his wife come on his fingers over and over. If she wanted his body to recover, that was fine. He could wait ten minutes more to sink into her.
“You can add ‘handsome, disgustingly rich, has a big dick that can drive me wild, will burn the world for me, makes me come often, and can cook’ to that little list you’re working on, wife.” He told her, heading to the coffee machine. “But everything you’ve added to the other column is all synonyms of insane. That shouldn’t be fair.” He smirked. The dirty little girl was checking out his butt.
“This is my list. Mind your business.” She said with a bossy huff.
“Compile your pros and cons lists, Harper. But even if there are nine million cons, you’re still staying with me.”
“I know.” She agreed, surprising him. He couldn’t tell if his fight to win her back was over or if it was still going on. She started writing, and he was pleased she took his suggestions when the other side filled up quickly. “I like to know what I’m working with.”
“You’re working with a man fucking obsessed with you. A man who is your husband.”
“Are you sure we’re married?” she interrupted.
“Yes. It’s real.”
“Well, I don’t have a ring. Actually, it should be two rings.” She made a disgruntled noise. Side-eyeing him, like she knew it would stoke his possessiveness like nothing else could or ever would.
“We’ll go out shopping today. Put that on your little list, wife. Very agreeable husband.”
She did, and Cain smirked.
After placing a coffee before her, he kissed her lips. Once. Twice. And a third time.
He’d never aspired to be married and didn’t know it would feel this good. He’d never been a miserable man; he was too ambitious for that, but this bubbling happiness was new, and he let it fill his chest like air.
When he’d been patient enough watching Harper writing her pro list—he refused to believe any of his attributes were cons—and she’d had several sips of her hot creamy coffee, he spanned her waist and placed her on the table.
“Cain! You’ll hurt your ribs.”
“They’re fine. I’m not. I want my wife.”
Her eyes went opaque, and she smiled, stroking his jawline. “Bruised ribs don’t heal in two days. The doctor told you to take things easy.”
“I have. You’ve been taking care of me.” Cain made quick work, pushing the shirt up her smooth thighs. He scraped the chair across the floor and sat directly between her spread legs. His mouth flooded, seeing her deliciously bare. “And now I want my wife in my mouth.”
She was a mix of scandalized and turned on.
He was going to love corrupting his sweet baby.
“Cain! This table is a two-hundred-year-old antique. You can’t eat pussy on top of it.”
“The fuck I can’t. I’ll cover it in your juices, then varnish it over to preserve where I ate out my wife,” he growled and dived forward. Lapping Harper’s wet lips with the ravenousness a man felt coming off a hunger strike. She tasted of heaven, and he feasted like a savage. He was going at it so intensely in the beginning, flicking her little bud with his tongue, that he didn’t even mind when she yanked his hair out.
He cherished her. So fucking much, until he was mad with it. Nothing said love like a deranged man willing to burn the world for his sweet baby to dance in the ashes. He consumed her like a monster. Feverish love with every lick.
Her protests died with a languid moan, and she clasped onto his hair, moaning his name. That was his good girl.
Neither of them were attached to the furniture. It had been his grandfather’s tastes. In a few weeks, he had people coming in to price everything, and then his wife could furnish the mansion however she wanted. He didn’t give a shit if the entire house was covered in his wife’s pleasure.
He could split his time between Cali and Colorado.
But Cain knew one thing as he tumbled his wife into a flash orgasm, sucking on her needy clit. There was no way he’d spend a night away from her again. Here or there, they went together.
When she came on his tongue, her pussy so fucking hot, he licked and nibbled and sucked her right over the edge. Just gulped her sweetness through the trembling aftershocks. Every time he pleased her, it was as if he had been thrown into a wind tunnel.
Stroking a kiss along her trembling inner thigh, he listened to her rapid pants. Her eyes were so dreamy when he looked up. She was watching him, smiling.
“Mmm. You were hungry.”
“Still am. Put that on your important list.” He growled, pulling her hips to the edge of the table, and he whipped off her t-shirt, and then he enjoyed Harper’s gentle touch over his chest. She mapped his tattoos before she leaned in and kissed him, tasting herself.
His mouth left hers, wanting more to trail his tongue down her body, over the globes of her breasts and fluttering stomach while she grasped his hair.
“You want me?” he asked huskily.
“ Yes .”
“Where?”
His greedy wife tried answering by pulling his hair, but Cain wanted all of her words and pleas.
“ Where ? Tell me, Harper,” he demanded.
“Inside me.”
The second he rose to his feet and her hand fished out his too-eager cock, his neck corded, and they watched her leading the crown of him to her opening.
Sweet fucking heaven.
She was everything he didn’t know he’d crave in life.
Money meant nothing when he didn’t have a she-devil to lead him around by the dick, and he was happy about it.
When he was seated deep, he held Harper by her hips. She looped her arms around his neck, staring at him. He saw his future in her eyes, and that future was going to be wild as fuck, chaotic and perfect.
Her beautiful wide eyes were so warm and filled with the hunger for his fuck.
Cain nearly buckled at the knees. She made his deranged mind so fucking calm.
In her state, out of breath, scratching his shoulders, and all turned on, he’d say yes to anything she wanted. Harper had little idea how devoted he was. It was going to be a problem. For her . Cain had no issue being fucking ridiculous and out of order for how rabid he would turn for her. His eyes burned, holding hers as he started a slow fuck, getting her used to the fullness.
“You won’t know a day without me inside you, wife.” He promised or threatened . It was all the same love song to Cain. “This stretch, this burn,” he pushed forward and caught her gasp in his seeking lips. “You’ll crave it. You won’t be able to go a few hours without calling me home to give you a fuck.” His eyes blurred at the image of walking through the door and having Harper yank at his belt to get him inside her because she didn’t feel whole until they were connected. Fuuuuck . He pumped deeper, and she went wild in his mouth with her tongue.
“Tell me you’re mine, Harper.”
“I’m yours.”
“And who am I?”
With the devil on his back, he made love to her with a level of passion, as her insane husband. He was wide open to Harper. Never would he hide how he felt. What she made him feel. Because now he was one feeling motherfucker.
Her smile made his heart race.
Lost in a bubble of Harper’s euphoric cries.
On and on, he rode into her, sharing hot, wet kiss after hot, wet kiss. He positioned her leg on his thigh. He was large, while she was tiny, especially inside, and she took all of him.
“Mine. You’re my villain husband, my devil, my monster.”
“ Yours .” He punched his dick home, and they detonated.
She screamed his name, and colors exploded behind Cain’s eyelids as he joined her in the best climax poured into his wife’s clutching pussy.
He was a dirty man with a healthy libido for his wife, so his mind went nowhere good as he smirked and palmed her lush hip, holding her close.
Though spent, he was still hard, so he pulled out to the tip and then filled Harper once more in one bone-rattling thrust to hear how she hissed in pleasure, moaning his name, clawing up his back as they locked around each other.
“Tight and sweet as I remember.” He grunted. “I’ve craved you like a dying man, Harper, in every pore of me. I adore you, little girl. It’s agony and peace all rolled into one perfect moment.”
Picking her up, he ignored her protests that he’d hurt his ribs. Ask Cain if he gave a fuck about anything but Harper clinging to him. He placed her on the couch in the drawing room and was about to christen the furniture there, too, as he crawled over her, going nose to nose. She instantly latched on to him with arms and legs.
“Say more nice things. I’m not used to it from my big, scary husband.” She teased, brushing the hair from his forehead.
Cain was the luckiest prick on two legs holding his woman, cuddled naked and wet from her pleasure, with the privilege of lowering his hard body over hers to give her a filthy, unruly night of a satisfied fuck.
She was posed in such a way that sex automatically intruded his brain like a tornado with a map and only one destination. He’d never get enough of Harper, not for as long as his insignificant soul had a spark left in it.
“Your heart is chained to mine,” puffing air against her temple, he kissed as he went, addicted to touching her, having her soften under his monstrous hands. “Now and forever. Try to run away from me, little girl. I’d love to chase you. I’ll even wear a mask,” he warned with love staining his voice, and Harper laughed. She was the only one who truly grasped his twisted nature and how much control she had over him.
There wasn’t an ounce of guilt in Cain for the things he’d done.
How could there be? He had Harper at the end of it all.
He’d do it repeatedly if she were his end game.
His perfect prize. His most beautiful possession.
A traumatic past linked them both before they were even born. He’d say they were destined if he believed in that kind of thing.
But he’d always know how one day he saw a perfect woman and then stole her to keep for himself.
The villain sometimes got his sweet baby.
* * *
Harper
A month later
She didn’t know it was possible to love this deep, this devoted, or this insanely .
Some days, waking up with Cain felt like she was in an asylum, in the best way, because of how addicted she was looking at that villainous face of his. Watching him on work calls became her new hobby.
Seriously, she needed a medical intervention.
And he was impossible to deal with when he caught her at it.
She suddenly realized how utterly ridiculous that idea was.
Love would never make sense, not even if she had studied for decades.
She could never have predicted him, not in a month of Wednesdays and three Fridays.
What woman in her sane mind would fall hopelessly for her blackmailer? The villain of the story? Harper did. And she’d done it wholeheartedly, without reserve. And every day, she continued to fall in love with her husband.
Right after Cain brought her home and wouldn’t let her leave, he had her apartment packed up. They’d been in a bubble of bizarre happiness ever since. And that’s when her family streamed by. Two by two, and sometimes an entire pack of them, parked their vehicles outside and poured into the house. She was thrilled to see her parents and brothers on the other side of the door one night.
The old ladies brought dishes. The guys brought beers and burgers for grilling.
It started with Hawk and Juicy. Cain’s two half-uncles.
It was the cutest thing on earth to watch three clueless men, connected by blood, navigate to become relatives. It was up in the air if they’d get close, but she valued her family’s effort. And it was their way of giving Harper their support. They recognized what Cain had put himself through to make amends and earn the right for her.
It was a testament to how far they’d come when Cain had stood with her parents to watch her graduate. He’d whistled and winked, making her blush to see pride on her villain’s face.
Harper couldn’t be happier that her two worlds were merging, because it would suck if she had to keep Cain separate from everything else.
But for her, she knew he’d try.
Because Cain was Cain, and he couldn’t keep his hands off her, he sneaked under the long t-shirt and palmed her bare butt. She was deliciously sore from their morning sex. Waking up with a head between her thighs had taken some getting used to. But, oh, she was not complaining about the number of orgasms she was having.
Because of what few saw, he was wild for her. And that was a heady cocktail to know. And when Cain grabbed her into his arms for a spontaneous snuggle, she smiled touching his perfect lips.
“You need to put some clothes on, baby.” He said against her lips. She pulled back and looked at him like he’d grown horns.
“Is this my husband? You usually like me naked.”
“I do.” He gleamed monstrously. “But your sister and her man are downstairs.”
“Angie and Lawless? Yay.”
He groaned and buried his head in her neck. “When do all the drop-ins stop?”
She giggled and stroked his blond hair. “This is what you accepted when you stole me, villain. You take me, and you take my family. They’re intrusive and hands-on.”
“I want to be hands-on and intrusive.” He grunted, palming both breasts, and Harper leaned toward his magnetism, wanting him.
She’d known some powerful men, most of whom she was related to, and she loved them.
But she was biased when she thought he was the craziest.
And boy, did she love Cain’s unhinged qualities.
She’d once wished on her sixteenth birthday candles for a morally gray anti-hero who worshipped her to the point of madness and would love her in this life and the next.
Well, here he was.
In all of his gray-eyed glory, licking her all over with his loving stare.
Even with a morally questionable villain’s manipulations, wishes came true, bringing two people together.
She’d been fascinated by the younger version of Cain when they accidentally met in an ER waiting area.
She was even more fascinated by him today, and some might say she was crazy about him. But that couldn’t be. There couldn’t be two crazy people in the same relationship. That was begging for chaos.
She had to be sane to balance him out.
But her love for him was outrageous, never-ending.
“I have an idea.” She whispered like she thought the guests could hear. Their house was enormous, probably too big, but for now, she loved living there with him. In years to come, she’d ask him to downgrade them to something smaller when they wanted to start a family.
She must have caught some of his lunacy to want his villainous babies, but she did. All with gray eyes and eccentric imaginations.
“Tell me,” he growled, squeezing her ass cheeks.
“Making me come always makes you happier.”
His eyes burned with lust, and Harper caught her breath, rubbing on him, needing her husband in the worst way.
“But it’ll have to be quick.”
“Too fucking right, it’ll be quick.” He promised, and then he dragged her into the walk-in closet. Cain told her to brace her hands on a shelf, and he put a hand between her thighs and finger fucked her into delirium while she chose an outfit to wear.
It was called time management.
She came hard with his hand covering her mouth.
And Cain was happy for the next hour while they played host to her family.
She caught his eye from across the room. Always watching her, and her belly warmed. He winked, and she grinned in return.
Harper had never wanted a perfect man.
Just as well, really. Because she had Cain.
If a perfect man ever came along, that would match her, Cain would cut him up and mail the pieces across the world.
He was such a beautiful and loving lunatic.
And blissfully all hers.
Reckoning came in many forms.
It brought them together, so for Harper, it was the sweetest of all.
The Souls married for life.
And she wasn’t letting him go for anything.