Chapter 22
CHAPTER 22
LUCIAN
S he said yes.
She’d said it as a broken plea.
Actually, she screamed it and as I laid in bed next to her, taking in her satin skin, dark brows, and lush lips, it played on repeat in my mind—the whole night played again and again in my mind.
The way the one word released an explosion of relief I never wanted to acknowledge in my chest. Each number I’d counted, pushing for her answer, twisted a screw, tightening a band of anxious need around my chest.
Not need, I reminded myself. Want. I didn’t need her to say yes, but I could admit that I wanted her over Emily.
Not need, I repeated for good measure.
At least, I didn’t need her to agree to be my wife. However, I had needed her to give in so I could bury my face in her soaking cunt and be the first man to bury my tongue as deep inside her as I could get.
How anyone could have been with her and not taken every chance to taste her blew my mind. But knowing I was the first stirred something primal in me that demanded I beat my chest and do it again and again.
And I had.
I’d spent hours between her firm thighs. My hands had roamed to her breasts, her throat, and her ass, but my tongue, lips, and teeth sucked, bit, and tasted every inch of her until she was hoarse from screaming her pleasure.
“Beautiful, princess,” I said, lifting my head to stare up her trembling body, past the perfect mounds of her breasts with rosy peaked nipples, to her parted lips panting around lingering cries. “Your pleasure is music to my ears. Fucking perfect and beautiful.”
“Lucian,” she gasped. “I can’t. I can’t anymore. Please.”
Her voice roughened the plea, scratchy from her screams, only urging me to continue—to want more.
I bit one of her swollen lips before sucking hard.
Her hips thrust against my face, and she whimpered.
“You can because I say you can, princess.” I flicked my tongue against her center and soaked in the high-pitched shout. Keeping my eyes trained up her body to watch her heaving breasts, I moved my tongue to her opening to tease and build her back up while my hand drifted lower to tease between her cheeks.
“Oh, god,” she moaned. “Yes. Yes, Sir.”
Once she’d made a mess of my face and left a puddle on the table beneath her, I’d let her come.
But it wasn’t the last time for the night. I’d built her back up again as I slowly untied her, rubbing away the aches and tension from the rope, soothing the red indents with firm strokes that always led back to her core. I’d sucked her nipples as she lay back, her limbs falling limp as I released them. She’d lain there, her muscles beyond able to fight me when I pushed her legs wide one more time, lifting one over my shoulder as I kissed down her thigh and brought her to an easy orgasm one last time.
With a final kiss to her clit, I gently removed her leg from my shoulder and rested it on the table. I went back to the side table and grabbed two of my Tiffany & Co. napkins and a bottle of water.
I leaned over her sated body and waited for her to open her eyes. “I’ve never heard anything more stunning than your pleasure,” I said once she met my gaze. She watched me as I used my two-hundred-dollar dinner napkin to clean all her cum from my cheeks and chin. With a smirk, I slid back down her body and dampened the other napkin to gently clean her swollen pussy. I took my time caring for her, soaking in her soft sighs, pressing kisses along the fading indentations left behind from the rope.
I tossed the two napkins aside and stood, pulling her upright into my arms and helping her take small sips of water.
The most beautiful part of it all was that she let me.
She gripped my hands when I held hers. She leaned her head against my shoulder when I sat her up. She parted her lips and let me hold the bottle to her mouth. She gave in to my every whim despite being free of her bonds.
She let me take care of her and that satisfied a part of me I extinguished long ago. I’d provided after care for many submissives, but none had been as sweet—sweet enough to remind me of long buried wants.
Uncomfortable with the spreading bloom of warmth, I’d gathered her in my arms. She wrapped herself around me and relaxed into my hold.
“Where are we going? I should head home.”
I scoffed, hiding the moan that wanted to slip free when the soft puffs of her words grazed my neck. “You’re too tired to go anywhere. You’ll stay here tonight.”
“But I ? —”
“No, buts. We need to talk, but not tonight. With you staying, we can talk in the morning.”
Hot breath stroked my skin from a heavy sigh. “Fine.”
“Good girl.”
I’d placed her in my bed, stripped any remaining clothes from her loose limbs, and tucked her in. She’d fallen asleep before I was able to pull the comforter over her. Staring down at her, something large and bubbling crawled up my throat. I held it down, unwilling to face whatever might break free.
Forcing myself to turn away, I went to the shower instead of giving in to the whispered desire to lie down beside her and hold her close.
Fuck that.
I’d showered, finding release within moments of touching myself, before turning the water cold enough to calm me down. Calm enough to go to bed and not reach for her.
But that same urge to pull her into my arms greeted me when I woke, which led to me here and now, watching her sleep, wondering if she would still agree to marry me in the light of a new day.
She would.
She had to.
Despite my backhanded methods of coercion to get her to agree, she had agreed, and I’d make sure she kept her word.
First, though, I needed to get the fuck out of bed before I glued my mouth to her cunt all over again. We needed to talk, and I had some business to attend to. None of that would happen if I stayed here and gave in to my baser instincts.
With a grimace, I flipped the covers back and dragged on a pair of loose pants and headed downstairs to catch up on some work I’d been neglecting. Vic sent over a packet of acquisitions he’d found, and I’d ignored them in favor of spending more time at Quinn Music Group. Usually, I passed the work beyond making the deal to my employees. Yet, whenever Vic suggested having someone else sit in on the interviews with Aspen instead of me, I brushed it aside in favor of handling the transition myself.
I excused my negligence because of Aspen, as the challenge she presented consumed me. Then my focus turned to the pleasure. My last excuse centered around getting her to agree to my proposal. But now that I’d accomplished what I set out to do, I needed to get back to my company. Starting with Vic’s research.
Despite my conviction, my mind kept straying to the woman still lying in my bed and not the words blurring in front of me.
I’d managed processing all of one page and was on my second cup of coffee when I heard the bedroom door open.
I told myself I wouldn’t look as the soft pad of her feet down the hardwood steps begged me to. I would remain unaffected and ready to remind her of her agreement and ensure she knew she couldn’t back out.
But the light steps promised bare feet and bare legs, and I couldn’t wait until she stood before me to discover whatever else she left bare.
I looked, and all pre-planned speeches about promises and proposals fled my mind.
She descended the last two steps, and I tracked up the smooth lines of her calves to her firm but lush thighs to…
To one of my white dress shirts draped on her slight frame. The sleeves so long they hung past her fingers. She’d left the top two buttons undone, offering tempting views of her cleavage I hadn’t spent nearly enough devotion on. I almost groaned when I reached the stubborn tilt of her jaw that contrasted with the wide innocence of her eyes. She stood there gripping the railing, looking like the imperious Aspen I saw at work, but her grip tight like she wasn’t sure whether to run back upstairs or take another step.
She stood there…looking to me.
A heady wave of pride and satisfaction flooded my veins, sinking down to my cock. But we had things we needed to discuss and if I gave into the desire, talking would be the last thing we did.
“There’s coffee in the kitchen. I set a cup out for you.”
“Thank you,” she said.
The sway of my shirt along the backs of her thighs mesmerized me to the point of almost saying fuck talking.
Focus.
I needed to focus.
I snapped my gaze back to the papers and saw nothing but blurry lines as she got her cup and came to sit in the corner of the couch across from the chair I occupied. The morning sun worked against my efforts as it shined on the dark strands of her hair. I’d almost believe it was the smoothest silk if not for the fly aways created from where she slept against the pillow— my pillow.
My cock twitched again, and I crossed my ankle over my knee to hide the reaction.
No matter how hard I stared at the packet, my attention remained on her. The swish of her legs against the couch as she tucked her feet up to the side. The physical pull to glance up to discover if the position bared any more of her legs. The soft rush of air as she blew to cool off her coffee. The gentle slurp as she took a cautious sip of the hot drink. The quiet thud as she set her cup down on the side table.
Profit margin high. Risk low. Eight out of ten recommendation per our scale.
Blah, blah, blah.
I closed my eyes, inhaled as deep as I could through my nose, and held it.
“So…” she dragged out. “I guess we should discuss the details of our marriage.”
I released the breath in a rush and opened my eyes as I finally gave in and looked up at her, getting an answer to my earlier thought.
Yes, the shirt did bare more of her legs than before and the sight of the tails of my shirt spreading across her lap almost short-circuited my brain. It didn’t help that I caught her watching me as closely as I did her.
“What would you like to discuss first?”
A high-pitched laugh slipped free before she quickly got herself under control and shook her head. “I don’t even know. I guess…maybe…the basics of how we got here. The deal with Quinn.”
I nodded. “Okay. As I initially said, we will have a prenup that will contain a section that clearly outlines the details of our agreement.”
“And what do those details look like to you?” she asked, looking more like the businesswoman I saw every day—minus some clothing.
“Since the contract with your father gave you five years to acquire the funds to purchase the majority shares, I think it’s best we stick with that and after five years of marriage I will ensure you have the amount to procure the last five percent, whatever that may be. As for the rest of our assets—they would remain our own. We wouldn’t merge any of our personal or business accounts or belongings.”
“So, we would only have to be married for five years.”
The directness of her statement caught me off guard. I hesitated, unprepared for her to push for that kind of stipulation, and uncomfortable with the realization that I’d missed a possibility when I considered and planned for every outcome.
Rarely had I ever gone into negotiations without knowing the other party’s interests, goals, and intentions so thoroughly that I wasn’t prepared for every contingency. Yet somehow, I did not predict Aspen putting a time limit on our marriage.
It struck a nerve of discomfort, turning my surprise into irritation because when I imagined our marriage, I never considered divorce. So why would she? But why wouldn’t she want a divorce after five years? She’d only be thirty, leaving her plenty of time to move on with her life to find someone else. Meanwhile, I’d be back to square one, minus a godfather and the opportunity to gain control of Quinn Music Group.
Nothing about that situation sat right with me—especially the idea of Aspen moving on with someone else.
“I didn’t have a certain timeline in mind,” I stated. However, my pride forced me to add an out for her if she wanted to leave, removing the chance of having to try to convince her to stay beyond five years. Not that I would. I refused to put myself in a position that required me to convince anyone to stay with me. If they wanted to go, then they could fuck off. “However, if you would require a divorce after your acquisition, then we’d discuss that as any normal married couple would.”
Her brows slammed down, forming that simple groove I pushed to see. Usually, it spurred on a surge of victory to affect her enough, but this time I hadn’t been trying.
“Normal…couple…,” she said slowly. “You say that as if you aren’t blackmailing me into a marriage of five years with the promise of allowing me to own the company that should be mine in the first place.” She scoffed. “There’s nothing normal about us as a couple or our marriage.”
Her feistiness and the reminder that she already considered the company her own usually urged me to snap back, but the half-naked version of her softened any irritation, allowing me to simply smile. “As far as how we arrived at our marriage, yes, that is abnormal. However, the marriage itself with be as normal as any other couple.”
Aspen’s jaw dropped before opening and closing like a fish out of water. She blinked as if she’d open her eyes to something different. Finally, she squeezed them shut and shook her head before they snapped open again. “Wait. You want this to be an actual real marriage?”
Her tone implied I said something along the lines of wanting to show her my Care Bear collection in the basement of the building.
“Yes.”
She huffed a laugh and shook her head, looking around the room like she’d find hidden cameras and someone about to pop out to reveal we were on a game show. Slicking her tongue across her lips, she refocused her attention on me. “What does a real marriage even look like for you? Because I have a feeling, it’s very different from my expectations. Starting with how I didn’t imagine sitting across from my future husband, bartering back and forth about a contract for our future. I mean, how does that even translate into a real marriage when it’s starting as a business deal?”
“Like I said, just because we are starting differently doesn’t mean we have to go forward any differently than anyone else.”
“Of course, it does,” she shouted, throwing her hands wide. “Real marriage includes companionship, love, being each other’s partners. It’s two people who want to spend the rest of their lives together.”
I held up my hands and focused on the last statement. “You’re the one who’s trying to put a time limit on it.”
Again, her jaw fell open as she stared at me, utterly speechless.
Folding my hands on my lap, I waited her out and let her process what she wanted to say next. Although, the waiting took a hell of a lot longer than I thought. So long, I thought I might have sent her into a frozen shock.
Finally, her shoulders raised in a slight shrug. “I’m pretty sure I have a wildly different idea of marriage than you do, but you know what? Let’s just talk it out and see what we come up with. I have a feeling you might end up thinking five years is too long.”
I smirked.
If I had my way, after five years, she’d be enjoying our life my way, and I’d have her begging to stay.