Page 18 of Cruel Pawn (Cruel Duet #1)

Arden

I hated to wake my girl, but she needed to eat, and her food was going cold.

I laid a reverent path of kisses from her lips down her throat, across her collarbones, over the swell of her perfect tits, and down her stomach.

She woke with an adorable little sound when I mapped the shape of her hip bone with my lips, then sat back to look at my masterpiece.

Her legs were still splayed so I could fit between them, and the most delectable pussy I’d seen in my entire life was still slick with her desire, plump and just begging for my mouth.

But the sight of my cum dripping from her well-fucked cunt, a tantalising trail that spilled from her hole and down her tempting little asshole…

goddamn, it fucking ruined me. I bit my fist, my cock roaring back to life, but some of my cum was escaping onto the bed and I couldn’t have that.

“What are you doing?” she asked in a sexy, husky voice, rubbing her eyes as she looked down her body to where I knelt between her thighs.

“Putting this back where it belongs,” I answered, and guided my cum back inside her with two fingers.

Her sharp intake of breath made my cock jerk, and arousal tingled through me.

“One more, my opera,” I groaned, and sank down between her thighs, my mouth finding her clit and fucking hypnotised by the taste of her mixed with the taste of me. “Just one more,” I pleaded.

By the time I was done with her, she was a trembling, whimpering, beautiful mess, and the sheets were ruined but I didn’t care.

“I’ll heat this back up for you,” I said, kissing her clit one last time and having to physically drag myself away to reheat her food.

“I had to guess at some of your favourite things since you don’t keep a diary and everything you post online is so…

superficial. Like none of it is real and it’s just a cover. ”

She groaned from across the cottage; I assumed in agreement.

None of those profiles were really her. The real Priya was there in her watch history, the books she reread on her kindle—almost always non-fiction except for Alice in Wonderland—the delivery food she ordered, the articles she read, the websites she visited behind the safety of her firewalls, her weekly food shop, the apps she used most frequently, and the porn she watched when she thought no one would ever find out.

“You can’t keep me here forever, Arden,” she murmured.

I groaned, my cock jolting. “The sound of my name on your tongue should be illegal, pretty girl.”

“Arden.”

I moaned.

“I mean it. What are you planning to do—keep me chained up here until I die?”

“Nope.” I popped the bowl into the microwave and turned to face her as it roared to life. “Just until you don’t ever want to leave.”

“Never gonna happen.”

“Don’t fight me on this, Priya McFadyen.”

Her eyes narrowed. “That’s not my name.”

“Not yet.”

She tried to throw her arms up in exasperation and growled at the chains. “I tried to kill you. I would have killed you if you hadn’t stopped me.”

“I know,” I said dreamily, running my fingers over the raised scar on my neck, a pathway that had become familiar in the last three months. “Did you see the hearts?” I bared my throat, arching my head so she could see the pink and red hearts that now surrounded the partial slice.

“Yes, you psycho, I saw.”

I snorted. “Your psycho. All yours, now and forever.” I fussed at the chains keeping her locked up until a length of it pulled free, giving her enough freedom to lift her arms and little else.

I’d had a long, long time to plan how I’d keep my girl locked up, and I’d tested the chains over and over.

She wouldn’t get free, no matter how her eyes brightened at the extra slack.

When the microwave pinged, I delivered the hot food to my future wife and hovered, anticipating her reaction. Her eyes slid shut at the first bite, the tense line of her shoulders softening. When she opened her eyes again it was to slide a suspicious look my way.

“How did you know my favourite meal?”

I grinned, thrilled with her reaction. “Ways and means, my pretty opera. Ways and means.”

She scowled but focused on her food. I made a throaty sound and placed a pillow on her bare thighs, lest she burn her perfect skin. The constant nakedness would probably become a problem, but fuck it was a pretty picture just for me.

“What is that?” she hissed, letting the spoon clink into the bowl as her eyes laser-focused on my leg. I glanced down and sighed when I saw the black fabric darker in a path at my thigh.

I waved a hand, dismissing it. “Nothing. Do you want dessert? I noticed you always buy halva in your monthly shop, so I made sure to stock up a lot of it.”

“Arden,” she said in a cold, iron tone that made my heart skip and my stomach get all squirmy. “You’re bleeding. What—oh, I stabbed you,” she remembered with a soft laugh.

Was it weird that it turned me on to hear her laugh at stabbing me? She was so cruel and a little mean and fuck, I wanted to be inside her again. I reached into my sweatpants to adjust my cock, my balls aching.

“You need to bandage it,” she pointed out.

“It’s already bandaged.” The back of my neck heated.

This always happened when someone showed even an iota of concern for me.

Even years later, even after a decade of being part of the Marshall Family with all their exuberant, defiant love and obsessive care, it was still jarring when someone gave a fuck.

And Priya could fight me all she liked, but the way her voice hardened and how she now glared at my thigh told me she didn’t like seeing me bleed. She cared.

We had all the time in the world for that care to bloom into love.

“You need to change the bandage then. And I need the bathroom, so you’d better unchain me.”

A laugh began low in my chest, growing in volume. “My sweet, sweet, pretty little opera. I’m never going to unchain you.”

“Well, I guess I’ll just piss myself,” she said, almost as a threat.

As much as I wanted to call her bluff, Priya was so stubborn and so resistant to even the suggestion of defeat, that she’d probably go through with it.

I crossed to the shelf above the fridge where she couldn’t reach and slid the small key into my palm.

The chain keeping my future wife confined to the bed was looped around and secured with several padlocks—the strongest, most indestructible, tamper-resistant padlocks on the market.

The key was a tiny thing, so small but powerful.

Two clicks of the lock and she could cross to the bathroom just beyond the door to her left.

She could even reach the sofas, and another padlock could open to give her kitchen access, but the one thing my future wife could not do, and would never be able to do, was reach the door. She would never escape from me.

She was mine, from now until eternity.