Bartered Bride: The Billionaire's Wife, Part 3 Read online

  “No,” he said, his voice thick. “No, I don't think you do.”

  The bodice cinched me in tight, and by the time it was done I could barely breathe. Warm hands on my waist turned me around.

  “You may open your eyes,” he said.

  Oh, may I? I wanted to say, but I didn't. I wanted him to keep touching me, too, and those two desires were at odds.

  I opened my eyes. The smile had returned to his lips. “You look... romantic,” he told me.

  That... was probably not a good descriptor. “May I see?” I said, gesturing towards the door, and he obligingly moved out of my way. I exited and made my way up on the platform. Only then did I let myself look in the mirror.

  It was... well. It wasn't exactly a Telenova gown, but even so I suddenly realized why the assistant had made such a face.

  I was swathed—nay, swaddled—in white, frothy fabric. My chest, never my greatest asset, was completely lost in the riot of fiddly flowers and glitz. My shoulders, always narrow, couldn't hold the weight of the neckline, and my body, which had always been a little more boyish than I'd wanted, was lost inside the excessive skirts. I looked like a kid trying on her mother's wedding dress. I wasn't womanly enough to carry it off.

  Shouldn't have been a surprise, really. I still felt like a little girl, and never more so than now, with my whole life running away from me.

  I stood in the boutique and felt the weight of the situation press down on me suddenly. I was wearing my dream gown, and it looked awful on me. The universe couldn't even give me this one little thing.

  For some reason, that—not the fact that I was marrying a man I almost didn't even know, not the fact that my shithead father was getting a second chance after emotionally blackmailing me, not the fact that my mother was sick and she didn't even tell me—that was what made tears well in my eyes and my throat close. That was the last straw.

  I was just so stupid. Sadie was right.

  Swallowing my tears I turned and picked up the ridiculous skirt and hightailed it back into the dressing room.

  Anton stood there, his brows raised. “You don't like it?” he asked me. My disappointment must have shown more on my face than I'd thought.

  Bravely I shook my head. “You were right,” I said. “I should go for something more elegant.”

  To his credit, he didn't say anything about how he was always right, which is what I would have done, because I'm an asshole. Instead I shut the door and rubbed at my eyes while he stood there, looking faintly bewildered.

  “What is wrong?” he asked me.

  I looked at him. He seemed genuinely concerned. So. Maybe he didn't like tears. I'd have to file that away, maybe, but right now I didn't want him to see my weakness.

  “Nothing. I just...” My throat closed.

  So much for not showing weakness. Record time from resolution to collapse.

  I swallowed. “I just thought a dress like this would be great. And it's not. I've always wanted to wear one and look like a princess, but...” I shrugged helplessly. “Whatever. It's not important.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “I think I understand,” he said. “Perhaps it could be altered?”

  I shook my head. I didn't want to dwell on it. “No, it doesn't matter.” I started twisting and turning, trying to get at the zipper.

  “You've wanted to wear a dress like that since you were a little girl,” he said, like he wasn't willing to just let it go.

  I forced myself to laugh. “Yeah, but I'm not a little girl any more, even though I kind of look like one.”

  He spread his hands and appeared to think for a moment. “I am sorry. The gap between fantasy and reality grows larger with time,” he told me, which was some serious Buddha shit that I was not at all prepared to be all zen about. I just wanted him to shut up.

  “Whatever,” I said. Tears blurring my vision, I turned away and twisted, reaching around behind me to unfasten the dress. This wasn't what I wanted. I didn't want to wear his dumb elegant dress. I didn't want to do this without my mom and my girlfriends. And I definitely didn't want to marry Anton Waters.

  “Felicia,” he said. My name. The first time he had said it. For a moment, I caught genuine concern in his voice.

  A large, warm hand alighted on my shoulder. I wanted to shrug him off, but some pathetic need stopped me. Everything was so wrong. I just wanted someone to make it right again. Why wasn't I shopping for wedding dresses with my mother and Sadie? Why wasn't I getting married to a man I loved? Why did it have to be this way?

  The comforting hand on my shoulder tensed. I felt him begin to pull away.

  I reached up and grabbed his hand.

  I didn't really know what to do with it when I had caught it, so I stayed there, struggling to maintain my composure.

  I felt Anton's hesitance behind me. Then his fingers tightened, and again that incredible electric charge between us sparked.

  “You look beautiful in white,” he whispered, and then he tugged his hand away and was undoing the dress, unhooking the fastenings and slowly, tortuously tugging the zipper down. Bit by bit, my back was bared to him, and he covered every inch revealed with a heated kiss.

  Arousal heated in my belly. Sparks danced up and down my spine as my legs turned to jelly and I put my hands out to brace myself against the wall. My head was suddenly too heavy for my neck, and I bit my lip as his soft, warm lips teased sensations from my skin that I hadn't even known existed.

  “Oh,” I moaned softly. “Oh, please...”

  He drew back. “Please, what, Felicia?”

  I didn't even know. “Please, don't stop,” I said.

  “Don't stop... what?”

  There was an edge in his voice I'd heard before, when he cornered me in his office, when he'd sucked my clit beneath the table and made me come. He was going to do it again.

  “Don't stop kissing me,” I said. “Don't stop anything.”

  “You aren't in any position to give me demands,” he said. Then his hand closed over the back of my neck and he pulled me away from the wall.

  This was a dangerous game I was playing, and I didn't know any of the rules, but I found I didn't really care. He would teach them to me, and I would enjoy every minute of it. I sagged into him, but his hand was like iron, holding me up.

  “Spread your legs,” he whispered in my ear. His breath sent shivers raging over my neck and up my scalp, and I found myself doing as he bade without even thinking about it. I walked my feet outwards, until I stood in a wide stance.

  His hand crept up into my hair and caught it, not painfully, but firmly. I was in his control.

  “What are you doing?” I asked breathlessly.

  “I told you I'd let you live on your feet,” he said. Then he pushed, flipping me over, bending me at the waist.

  The sudden change disoriented me and I gasped and put my hands out to keep from falling. The rough carpet of the floor burned my palms and I hissed, but I had no time to dwell on that because he was gathering the endless layers of skirts in his hands and pushing them up over my back, until the upper half of my body was trapped in a tent of tulle and my ass was exposed for the world to see.

  Hot fingers slipped under the elastic of my panties. A cool draft of air hit my heated pussy lips as he pulled the crotch away. Then he released it and let it snap back against my cunt and I squeaked.

  “You should never wear panties around me,” he said. “It's so inconvenient.”

  I felt moisture gather inside me at those words. “All... all right.”

  “You understand?” he said. “No more panties. Ever.”

  His voice was hard. I gulped. “No,” I said. “Never.”

  “Good,” he said. His hand retreated, but I stayed where I was. The long stretch of my hamstrings at the back of my legs felt good and painful at the same time, and the knowledge that I was at his mercy made my knees weak.

  I heard a click, and then the air hit my slick folds again as he pulled the crotch of my panties away
once more. There was a pressure and a pulling, and then the fabric snapped, released.

  He had cut my panties.

  “Much better,” he purred. One fingertip parted my pussy lips and I gasped sharply. My breasts hung heavy and my legs were starting to ache, but all I could do was focus on what he was doing to me.

  Slowly he stroked my entrance. I felt the flesh there quiver and clench, hungry and alive at his touch, but he did nothing more, only stroked me softly, occasionally flicking my clit, and inside me desire mounted. Blood rushed to my cunt, and I ached with emptiness. I needed him to fill it.

  Whimpering, I squirmed, trying to catch his finger, but he wouldn't allow it.

  “Tell me what you want, Felicia,” he said. His voice was loud in the silence of the dressing room. My toes curled at the sound.

  “Please,” I said, and it came out as a breathless moan. “I want you inside me.”

  He stroked my pussy again, and I felt his gaze on it, admiring the way I quivered and quaked, aching for him.

  “No,” he said softly. “Not here.”

  Not here? You went down on me in a restaurant! I wanted to scream. What made this place any different? I pushed my hips back, trying to force him inside, but he moved away, teasing me.

  “Why won't you fuck me?” I whispered. I hated how plaintive my voice sounded.

  “You misunderstood.” His voice rumbled. “I will fuck you, but not...here,” he said, then plunged his finger inside my slick channel.

  I couldn't help it. I cried out softly, unable to hold back.

  But my relief was short-lived because he immediately withdrew and swiped his finger against my asshole.

  I stiffened all over. He couldn't mean to...

  But he did. One by one, I felt each finger invade my pussy, and my pussy clung to each one, coating it in my juices. And each time he withdrew and further lathered my tight, puckered entrance.

  “Are you a virgin here?” he wondered out loud. “Has anyone else taken this sweet little ass before me?”

  I bit my lip, praying the assistant had disappeared into the shop to give us privacy. What did he want to hear?

  His fingers departed and my ass and pussy quivered in anticipation.

  Then he spanked me. Hard.

  I gasped, tears springing to my eyes at the sharp, stinging sensation spreading over my ass cheeks and pussy lips.

  “Answer me,” he said, his voice low and dark, but before I had a chance to do so, he spanked me again, and I cried out.

  “Answer me.”

  Another spank, the crack of flesh on flesh echoing in the small dressing room. There was no way the shop assistant couldn't hear it.

  “Answer. Have you let another man fuck you in the ass?” Another spank, this one harder than any previous, and I sobbed, forcing myself to say the words.

  “Ah! God, no!”

  “Good,” he said, and I heard the rustle of fabric and the long, slow zip of his trousers unfastening.

  I wish I could say what I did next was because I wanted to retain a shred of dignity, but really, I just wanted him to be as humiliated and helpless to resist our chemistry as I was.

  In a smooth motion I stood up, letting the skirt fall back around my legs. I caught the barest glimpse of his face—shocked, as though no one had ever thought to defy him before—and then I was diving for his cock, my mouth wide open.

  I'd surprised him. He stumbled backwards into the wall as I grabbed his hips. His hands reached for my hair, perhaps to pull me away, but I won the race.

  In one fluid motion his cock was in my mouth—large and hot, the taste of sweet precum dripping onto my tongue, the smell of sweat and man going straight to my head—and I gave it a long, slow suck.

  And just like that, Anton's control shredded.

  His hips bucked, and I swallowed his cock down, reveling in his abandon. He thrust once, twice, then over and over, fucking my mouth. All I had needed was the courage to reach for him.

  I had power. He wanted me. Not just the way a man wants a woman he sees and casually might want to fuck, but the way I wanted him. In the back of my mind, in the tiny part not reveling in the feel of his hard cock sliding against my lips and the quivering muscles of his thighs beneath my hands, I wondered if we would have come this far if our first meeting hadn't gone the way it had. If he had found me only mildly attractive, would we still be getting married?

  Yes. He'd wanted a wife. That he actually wanted that wife must be a bonus.

  He wanted me.

  The knowledge was fuel on the fire. My pussy ached as I reached up and wrapped a hand around the base of his cock, squeezing as I withdrew, trying to milk his orgasm from him. Above me, he grunted, a strangled sound, and tangled his hands in my hair. “Felicia,” he hissed, and I cupped his balls in my other hand, the petal-soft sack full to bursting in my palm.

  I wanted to tell him to cum inside my mouth, but that would have required letting him go, and I just couldn't. All his power and wealth, all his tight self-control—it was nothing under the assault of my mouth on his hard shaft. Since we had first laid eyes on each other, he had tried to dominate me—emotionally, financially, physically, legally, sexually—but I wasn't going to go down that easy. He was going to have to fight for it.

  I moaned around the heavy shaft, swirling my tongue over the soft head as I withdrew and he let out a groan, loud and unrehearsed. I felt his balls tighten in my hand, and I gently closed my fingers around the top of his sack and gave it a soft tug.

  “Jesus!” His voice sounded nothing like the smooth, controlled purr I'd grown accustomed to, and it inflamed me. Suddenly I wanted him to cum so hard he screamed, just like I had. I wanted to swallow his load, keep it inside as a reminder that I had gotten the better of him for a change. He had no say in the matter. He would have to live knowing I had milked him dry, and he hadn't been able to resist.

  I jerked my head and tightened my grip on the base of his shaft, consuming him as I squeezed and released, squeezed and released, and each withdrawal of my mouth had my tongue curling around the head of his cock. I whimpered in the back of my throat, small, insistent, rhythmic cries, and he answered me with his own.

  Within moments his balls bounced and surged in my hand, and his body jerked and shuddered. A wordless cry wrenched from his throat, and then he was spilling his hot cum inside my mouth and down the back of my throat.

  I'd never liked swallowing cum, but it had never tasted so sweet. It tasted like victory.

  I gulped it all down, swallowing around his cock, sucking more and more as his hips jerked and he moaned, almost sobbing as I wrung him dry.

  At last he was done. He released my hair, his hands falling to his sides. I was woefully unsatisfied, but for a change I didn't really mind. I had finally turned the tables on Anton Waters and taken control of my destiny in some small way.

  I withdrew, giving the soft head of his cock one last lick, sending an aftershock through his body, and smiled. Delicately, I cleaned my face and smiled, watching the thick rod in front of me pulse with his heartbeat.

  Reaching out I placed a hand on his thigh and rubbed it, admiring the hard muscles there.

  Then I frowned.

  Beneath my hand he was shaking. Literally shaking. Not just from pleasure, but from something else. Frowning I looked up at him.

  The expression on his face sent a bolt of cold through my heart.

  He stared at me, unseeing, lost. Scared. His brows were drawn over his beautiful green eyes, and his full mouth was parted, but not in pleasure. He looked like a man devastated, struggling to catch his breath.

  Apprehension cut through my arousal. Unsure what to do, I reached for his hand.

  “Anton?” I whispered. The first time I'd ever called him by his name.

  With a physical jerk, he came crashing back to reality, his eyes focusing on my face.

  “Don't,” he said. “Don't do that again.”

  I backed away and stood while he ran a shaking hand
over his face.

  “I...” I had no idea what to say. “I didn't mean—”

  He turned, opened the door, and walked out of the dressing room.

  I stood inside, alone, suddenly feeling lost and adrift. I had only wanted to give him a taste of his own medicine. Instead, I had traumatized him. With a blow job.

  What just happened?

  My own fingers shook as I wiggled out of the wedding dress. I didn't bother to hang it up again, just left it on the floor as I stuffed myself back into my clothes and hurried out into the boutique, regret and anger warring for dominance in my chest, though why I was angry—or at whom—was a mystery.

  Anton wasn't in the boutique, and I rushed outside. A wave of relief hit me when I saw the car was still sitting at the curb, and Zachary stood waiting to let me in. He opened the door and I clambered in back.

  I found my groom-to-be sitting motionless and staring out the window at passing cars.

  I opened my mouth and started to babble. “Anton, I'm sorry, I... I didn't know...”

  He turned his head and regarded me coolly. There was none of the fear, none of the devastation that I had seen still on his face. He looked at me with a vague indifference that I found even more terrifying than anger.

  “We are going back to your apartment,” he said softly. “You will gather the necessities. A change of clothes. Your toiletries. Whatever else you need.”

  The blood drained from my face. “What?”

  He turned and looked out the window again. “We are going to Las Vegas to be married.”

  I stammered for a second. “But.. but I thought we would be married here. Aren't we going to have... you know... friends and family and stuff?” Did he even have any friends? It was like asking if God had friends. Sure, maybe Vishnu came around every once in a while, but it was probably just awkward shop chat...

  Okay, now my brain was babbling. That's how bad things were.

  He watched me. “I find I wish to marry you immediately,” he said. “I have a penthouse suite on the strip and there is no waiting period.”

  I stared at him as the car began to move. “Are you sure?” I said.

  He looked at me and said nothing. The same indifferent mask he had worn at our first meeting had fallen back into place, and I realized I had glimpsed, for a second, the man behind what had to be a carefully constructed facade. I had breached his defenses, and he was reasserting his control.