Chapter 30 THE FINE ḶINE
I freeze, trepidation burying me like an avalanche.
But poise and calm—all ingredients of an excellent head of PR—are second nature to me. And so I curve my lips into a generous smile and turn.
A heavyset man with dark eyes and a buzz cut leers, his gaze roving lazily down my body.
Lingering at my breasts.
Repulsed, I fight the urge to cover myself. “I’m sorry. I definitely lost my way.”
I bat my eyelashes for good measure.
His attention snaps back to my face. The man frowns, and I inwardly groan.
“Well, what’s this? The infamous Lana Anderson?” He drags his chubby finger up my arm. “Beautiful. I can see why the devil himself married you.”
“I-I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.” Acid rushes up my esophagus.
“Shkelzen Berisha.” His grin turns obscene. “You’ve met my cousin, Agron. He said you looked fetching wearing only a man’s dress shirt.”
The bastard shackles my wrist in his grip.
Fury sparks at the base of my spine, licking up. Memories flash—being dragged by the hair into a room and finding out I’m to be married.
“Let go of me.” My voice is steel now.
No more nice princess.
“Or what?” he mocks, thumb circling my pulse. “You’ll scream? Run to Daddy?”
Shkelzen steps up, his whiskey breath assaulting my senses. I grit my teeth.
“Oh right,” he murmurs. “You can’t. You want to protect them.”
I grab his meaty wrist with my free hand and dig in my nails.
He winces, his face mottling.
“You need me as much as I need you.” I twist his wrist sharply toward the thumb joint. “Let go of me. Or you’ll regret it.”
“You bitch!” He raises his hand and—
Click.
“Drop her hand, or you won’t have one.”
A lethal whisper. Vetiver. Smoke. The lighter.
Elias.
Relief crashes through me. I snap my gaze to the man ascending the staircase, stepping into view.
Elias is a vision of wrath and power—dark hair, all-black suit aside from a flash of green—his handkerchief. His eyes glitter with unholy intentions and his jaw is tight.
He flicks open his lighter. A flame appears. The flash of light clashes against the severe scar carving up his face.
“Now,” he commands.
He snaps the lighter shut.
Shkelzen drops me and staggers back. Sweat beads on his forehead.
“The frigid bitch, you can have—”
Elias arches his brow, unhurried. In a split second, he unholsters his gun and points it at the man’s face.
“You sure you want to finish that sentence?” he rasps. He cocks his weapon.
There’s a lethal calmness to him, the violence promised in his words sparking a fire between my legs, licking, swirling up my body.
Madness. This is madness.
Blood drains from Shkelzen’s face. His eyes dart to me. What a coward.
I think about the men nearby, what I overheard. If Elias killed him, everything would go to hell.
“Last words?” Elias murmurs.
I grab his arm. “Don’t. He’s not worth it.”
He ignores me, his deadly gaze still leveled at the man.
“Not worth it,” I repeat, softer. “Assholes are a dime a dozen. I’m fine. Please, Elias.”
After a long beat, Elias slowly lowers his weapon. He still doesn’t address me but steps up to the slimeball.
A hiss cuts through the air.
He grips Shkelzen’s hand—the one he used to touch me—and burns it with his lighter. The asshole emits a strangled howl.
A charred smell reaches my nostrils. My stomach roils.
“No second chances.” He tosses the man back, who’s clutching his injured hand as if he were permanently maimed. “Tell your cousins if they’ve got a problem with me, they can find me themselves. Don’t gossip like high school girls.”
Without another word, he grabs my hand and drags me down the stairs.
“Slow down.” I stagger down the steps. “Elias, seriously. I was fine. I could’ve handled him. You think he was the first asshole to touch me that way?”
He stops dead in his tracks and spins around. I slam into him.
“Names,” he seethes, his eyes murderous, “give me their names.”
“What?”
“Who touched you that way? They won’t live to see another day.”
I gasp, a deep pulse throbbing in my core. My senses finally register the six-plus-feet of powerful, muscular male in front of me, anger rolling off him—a thunderstorm threatening to wreck anything in its path.
“Why do you care?” I whisper. “You loathe me. That’s what you said. You shot my brother. Pointed a gun at me. I’m a means to an end.”
My ribs tighten, fury singeing my insides. I jab his chest, angry at the situation just now, the marriage I’m in, the dreams lost. “Why do you care, Elias?”
His eyes flash and nostrils twitch. Without answering, he hauls me down the rest of the stairs at breakneck speed, yanks open the first door he finds, pushes me inside, and closes it behind us.
Our breaths tangle in the dark room, an office of some sort. Only a sliver of light seeps under the door.
But I feel him—all of him—crowding me in.
He shackles my wrist above my head against the door.
Unlike the revulsion I felt earlier when the asshole assaulted me, Elias’s touch only sparks heat.
“I don’t care,” he seethes, venom dripping from his words. “Remember, I hate you.”
His poisonous words sound like love sonnets to my twisted heart.
Elias tightens his hold and presses his body against me, letting me feel all of him.
Rock-hard muscles, barely tethered control, fire and brimstone.
I should shove him away. I hate his guts.
But instead, I moan. My body sings, my mind going dark. “Yes.”
Elias’s breath hitches. He buries his nose in my neck, just like he did in the office.
Another guttural groan. A desperate inhale.
“Roses,” he mutters, “sweet motherfucking roses.”
He lets out a masculine growl of satisfaction. My thighs clench, my pussy aching. I want to wrap my legs around him and dig my heels into his back.
Wetness slicks from my core and I arch my back, needing friction and his touch, needing more angry words and frenzied grunts.
I moan again.
“Fuck!” He smashes his fist against the door. It rattles. I flinch.
Elias’s face is inches away from mine. I drag my gaze down the dim silhouette of his strong nose, over his raised scar, resting on his full lips.
Everything aches.
Another needy whimper slips out of me.
“Lana,” he growls, and bears down, finally giving me all his delicious weight and heat, letting me feel his coiled muscles and the weapon between his legs.
“I thought you hated me,” I whisper.
I need more. Pressure builds inside my core, frustration climbing inside my chest.
I lose my battle and rub my tits against him, my eyelashes fluttering from the sharp pleasure zinging my nipples. Yes. My body begins a soft rhythm, a feminine twist, chasing the sparks to an inevitable ending.
Too many clothes.
My nipples are so hard, they hurt. I want to claw off my top and bare them to him so I can rub my naked body over this virile, dangerous man.
Slowly, I drag one heel up his leg.
He freezes and does the thing where he remains still as a statue, not even breathing.
Emboldened, I drag my heel up, up, up, until I curl it around his buttocks.
Then I cinch it tight against him, pressing my pussy against his cock.
His thick, throbbing cock.
“It doesn’t seem like you hate me that much.” My words come out slurred, the pressure sharpening in my core. I’m drunk on everything that’s Elias Kent.
With a growl, he hefts me up with one hand, drags up my skirt, and clamps his fingers hard into my ass.
He sinks his teeth into my throat, and I scream, the sting morphing into sharp pleasure.
“My wife is a slut, isn’t she? You want pain? Pleasure?” He laps at his bite mark, his hips grinding a tortuous rhythm against me. “Want to come all over my cock like a good fucking girl?”
White light sears behind my eyelids. I twitch and tremble, my body entirely held up by his firm grip on my wrists and his weight pinning me against the door.
He moves harder, digging his pants-covered cock into my soaked thong, letting the rigid outline saw through my pussy before pressing against my clit.
My heart thunders, an electrical storm building between my legs. Lightning prickles my nipples as he grinds and grinds.
“Elias.” I don’t recognize my lust-filled, throaty voice.
The turbulent storm grows, lashing my core that suddenly feels too empty, pulsing, needing him inside me, filling me up, ripping me apart.
A whine tears out of my throat as we move faster and harder against each other, our bodies simulating the most erotic sex I’ve ever had. The pressure condenses into a tight, tight point.
“Yes, yes, yes,” I moan.
Let me fall over the cliff, fall into the flames of hell with him.
“My zemer,” he grits out, his tall frame trembling, his lips still sucking my tender neck. “Let me hear those sounds. Let me hear you coming for a man you hate.”
He bites me again.
I explode, my cry echoing in the dark room. A gush of wetness streams out of me as ecstasy I’ve never felt before blinds my senses until all I can see, smell, and hear are him.
Elias Kent, the Shadow King, my unwanted husband.
He drags one hard grind of his cock between my legs.
Then he drops me.
I slide to the ground, boneless.
“No one disrespects me or anything I own.” Fabric rustles and shoes squeak against the floor.
He opens the door, the club music bellowing in my ears.
Holding my gaze, he slowly cups his groin, gripping his hard-on through the confines of his pants. He hasn’t come.
He tugs it, and I whimper, remembering how good it felt against me.
“And you’re mine, wife. Whether I like you or not.”
He shrugs off his jacket and tosses it to me. “Cover yourself up and tell your friends goodbye. We’re going home.”
He stalks off.
My heart pounds as I sit on the ground, my body deliciously thrumming yet unsated, wondering what the heck just happened.
It’s twisted. So damn wrong.
And yet, why does it feel so right?