Chapter 18 - Vince #3
Her head found my shoulder, weight settling there like she belonged in that exact space.
She did. The Crow part of me—bred for ownership, oaths, and territorial instinct—gloated at the fit.
For a moment, it felt like the day might let us stay in that bubble—her in my shirt, my arms around her, my cock content with the view I had of her breasts and the weight of her on me.
So fucking content I was willing to suffer through whatever chaotic, badly written reality show she put on the television if it meant she stayed pressed there.
Then her phone buzzed on the bedside table.
Of course it did.
She frowned, shifting just enough to reach for it. My first instinct was violence: grab it, throw it, let it learn to swim in the Villain traffic. Tell her to leave it. Let it go to hell. But dynasty daughters didn’t get that luxury, and she’d already swiped to answer before I could open my mouth.
“Hello?”
The voice that answered was male. I couldn’t make out the actual words. I hated that another man’s voice was in our bed In my girl’s ear while she wore my shirt and my marks and still full of my come.
“No, I’m fine. I—what? Today?”
My shoulders tensed. Today meant they’d decided her body was for display. I gently run my knuckles down her side, grounding her.
“I thought that was next week.” Silence from the other end. “Yes, of course. If he’s flying in, then I understand.”
Another pause. Her jaw clenched.
“Uncle, I’m not—” She cut herself off, eyes flicking to me like she pulled away from my side, and stood up. “No. I can make it. Just text me the schedule.”
She ended the call and lowered the phone. I already hated whoever was on the other end more than was rational for a man I hadn’t met.
“Who was that?” My voice came out flat, that thin, controlled edge I got when I was two seconds from putting my fist through a wall.
“My uncle. There’s a contract being negotiated. I’m needed at a gala. And a silent auction. And a ballroom reception.”
Of course. Pageantry. The dynasty’s favorite sport. Parade the bloodline.
I stared at her. Deep inhale. Slow exhale. I could feel the old Crow lessons whispering at the back of my mind—control your tone. Do not scare her, crow.
“No.” I stood before the word finished forming. “No, you’re not.”
“Vince.”
“Don’t Vince me. You’re in pain. You can barely walk.
” My gaze dragged down her body, cataloguing every tiny stiffness, every guarded movement, every place I’d made her soft and sore because she’d begged me to.
“And now you’re going to put on heels and a dress and smile for six hours straight because your uncle needs a walking contract brochure? ”
Her arms crossed automatically, that same defensive posture she took when dynasty men started dictating terms. Then she winced and let them drop when the motion pulled on sore muscles.
“I’ll be fine.”
Bullshit. I could feel my pulse in my teeth.
“You’ll be miserable.”
She shrugged. That indifferent little lift that wasn’t indifferent at all. “Not the first time.”
That sentence landed like a punch. It said more about her life than any file Luca had compiled on Thorne habits. Not the first time meant they’d been doing this for years—propping her up, painting her, sending her out, no matter what state she crawled in from.
“How long?” I needed numbers. Data. Something I could dismantle. “Give me numbers.”
“Afternoon arrivals.” She was already drifting toward the dresser with that careful not-limp I hated, like she thought if she pretended hard enough I wouldn’t notice. “Auction at six. Dinner at seven. Dancing starts at nine.”
“Dancing.” The word tasted like poison in my mouth. Imagining her in some overlit ballroom, wincing while some dynasty idiot spun her around, pretending she wasn’t sore and exhausted, made my hands curl into fists. “Tell me I’m wrong for being horrified.”
Her expression softened for half a second. The part of her that was falling for me peeked through the dynasty training. “You want me to tell my family I can’t go because I lost my virginity last night?”
My jaw clenched so hard it hurt. No, I didn’t want her to tell them anything.
I wanted them to vanish. I wanted every dynasty man who thought she was an accessory to choke on their own expectations.
I wanted to pull her back into bed and bar the door and let the world burn while she healed in my shirt.
Instead, I walked over and caught her elbow, forcing my voice back down from lethal.
“You’re not fine,” I said, softer than my blood pressure deserved. Then my rage allowed.
“I will be.” Her hand rose, grabbed mine, turned it palm-up. She pressed a kiss to my knuckles like it was a promise she could keep just by being sweet. “I’ll take something before I leave.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
She leaned into me like she’d learned my nervous system the way I’d learned hers. “I know.”
Helping her dress felt like participating in a crime. Co-conspirator with the dynasty I’d been raised to coexist with, not trust. I hated it. I also hated how the dress looked on her, hiding the marks I’d left and framed her body for others to look stare at her.
My fingers brushed her spine, tracing the places I’d had my hands the night before, where she’d arched for me, trembled for me, trusted me.
“Last night, you didn’t just tell me you loved me and let me fuck you.”
My cock twitched, uselessly interested even now. I kept going, because this part was more important. “You agreed to something bigger. Remember?”
“Yes.”
“What did you agree to?”
She hesitated. Old fear of saying what she wanted out loud. “To the dynamic.”
I lifted a brow. I wasn’t going to let her half-name it.
“To be your submissive,” she added, a little stronger.
There it was. The word sank into my bones like ink.
My thumb traced along her inner knee, just under the hem of that dynasty dress. I liked my hand there a hell of a lot more than the idea of anyone else’s.
“Right. So I’m not going to walk you to that door like I’m just your boyfriend. I’m sending you out there as my girl. My responsibility. Mine to worry about.”
Her eyes flicked up. “I thought you already gave me all your expectations.”
“Now I’m reminding you.” I needed this in her blood before she stepped outside. “I want you to hear it again, before you step out that door.”
Her thighs pressed fractionally closer to my hips, like her body understood before her mind caught up.
I dragged my gaze back to her face. “Tell me the basics. What happens with my messages?”
“I answer them. All of them. Even if it’s just… something small so you know I’m okay.”
Good. My chest loosened a notch.
“No disappearing acts,”
She swallowed. I watched the movement, the way it dragged her necklace against her throat. “You get an answer.”
“And tonight? When all of this is over?”
“I call you when I’m home.”
Good girl. She remembered more than she thought. I needed her voice in my ear at the end of nights like this, or I’d be tempted to go find her and drag her out mid-speech.
“And on that call?”
Her shoulders dropped a notch. “I give you the rundown. The parts that mattered. Who pushed too hard. What hurt. What felt… wrong. Anything that stuck.”
“Full debrief, I don’t care if it takes five minutes or an hour, I want the truth. That’s how this works.”
She nodded, fingers tracing lightly up my neck. That small touch could’ve grounded a hurricane.
“You remember the rest?” My voice dropped. “I’m not interested in dressing you like a doll. But the first thing you put on?” My hand slid lower, thumb brushing her hip through the dress where the line of her underwear sat. “That’s mine.”
A flush hit her cheeks instantly. My favorite color on her. “You still want to do that?”
I huffed out a quiet breath. “I don’t change my mind overnight.
Tomorrow morning you put on what I’ve chosen for you and send me that picture.
However much you feel comfortable showing.
I don’t need the world’s dirtiest shot.” My thumb pressed a little firmer into her. “I just need to know you listened.”
Her throat worked. “Every morning?”
“Yes.” My gaze stayed locked on hers, daring her to flinch.
She breathed out slowly, the surrender slipping through that exhale. “Okay.”
“Use my name.”
“Yes, Vince.”
Control slipped a little under my skin, just from that. Her soft yes. My name. The knowledge that under all the dynasty noise, she’d chosen me.
“Last pieces,” I murmured. “You owe me honesty. If you’re scared, embarrassed, turned on—especially turned on—you don’t hide it because you think it’s silly or inconvenient. We already set that rule. You don’t protect me from your feelings. That’s not your job.”
Her hands flattened over my chest, right over the crest ink. “I’ll try.”
“You’ll practice. And I’ll correct you when you fall back into old habits. Not punish. Correct. You get the difference?”
“Yeah. I do.”
“If you’re not sure, you say so. If you need to slow down, you say so. That doesn’t make you a bad sub. It makes you a smart one.”
The corner of her mouth twitched up. “You’re very intense, you know. So, tonight, what does being yours look like while I’m out there?”
I tipped my head back enough to really take her in—the dress, the hair, the faint bruising at her throat where I’d marked my territory.
“You remember I’m there, even when I’m not in the room.
You answer when I check in. You tell me what you eat.
You call when you’re home. If at any point the pain or the pressure gets too much, you use the word we agreed on, and I come get you.
I don’t care if it’s in the middle of the first speech. You pull that trigger and I’m moving.”
“That wasn’t supposed to be literal,” she said, half horrified, half something else.
“With me, it is.” My fingers tightened on her thighs. “You don’t have to use it. You just have to know you can.”