The Marriage Debt: Chapter 13

Heat washes over my body as he closes the door and stalks toward me, licking his lips achingly slow. I don’t know why I focus on it as much as I do.

But I have to keep my thoughts from swaying. He left me hanging here just to go and hurt Nick. But Nick is innocent and doesn’t deserve his wrath. It’s all my fault.

“Please tell me you didn’t hurt him,” I say.

Luca smiles wickedly. “Shouldn’t have sent me to that fucker if you were that worried about him.” He tips up my chin. “But don’t worry, bunny. I kept Nick alive.”

The adrenaline surging through my body becomes a little less volatile, but I’m not any less worried. “Where is he?”

“Back where he belongs,” Luca answers.

My eyes widen. “You let him go?”

“Of course.” The smile on his face deepens. “I keep enemies like Easton Van Buren close.”

I swallow. So he knows.

“But don’t worry …” He makes a fist. “I’ll make them all pay for hiding you from us.”

I panic. “Please don’t.” I shake my head. “They were only trying to help me.”

Luca grabs the ropes, dragging me closer. “And here my father was, thinking he could trust Van Buren.”

“They’re good people, Luca,” I reply. “Please, don’t hurt them. They have nothing to do with our family feud.”

“Family feud?” He laughs. “You think that’s what this is?” He hovers right in front of my face, looking me dead in the eyes. “No, bunny. This is war.”

I jerk around in the ropes, but it’s no use. Every time I try to free myself, all it does is bury the rope further into my skin. Fuck.

“Give up, Jill.”

“Just because you put a ring on my finger and a collar around my neck does not mean I’ll stop trying to get away from you.”

“Hate me that much?” he says with a denigrating tone. “Aw, I’m almost offended.” He plants a hand on my chest and stills my body while staring deep into my eyes. “If I didn’t know it was a lie.”

I swallow away the lump in my throat. I still can’t get used to feeling his hands on my naked skin, and the way my body responds to his touch is insufferable.

“Just like I know you lied to me about Nick.”

Luca’s hand slides down my chest between my breasts, making me painfully aware just how little control I have … not just over what happens but also over my own damn body.

“You demanded I gave you a name,” I retort. “I wish I never did.”

A sudden pinch to my nipples is so hard to ignore, but I try my best to swallow the squeal.

“Because you kept insisting you weren’t a virgin.”

I close my lips and look away, unable to face him because I know the truth.

He leans in to whisper into my ear. “You lied, didn’t you?” I shudder. “You are a virgin.”

He grabs my other nipple too and twists it. “C’mon, bunny, admit it,” he whispers in my ear. “Admit it, and maybe I’ll go easy on you.”

“Please …” I mutter.

“Please what, Jill? Don’t hurt your friends? Hmm?” he murmurs. “Maybe I should go over to Easton now if you don’t tell me the truth.”

“No, don’t!” I reply. I can’t let them get hurt. “Fine. Yes. I am a virgin.”

I hate saying it out loud. I hate the gravity of these words.

But I can’t keep lying. It’ll only end up hurting more people.

But now that it’s out, my entire body starts heating up at the thought of what he’ll do to me now that he knows.

Now that he realizes he was the first to touch me.

The only one.

Oh, God.

I can feel him smile against my ear. “Good girl.”

I wish it did nothing for me. That it didn’t make my heart thump. That it didn’t make me whimper. That it didn’t make my pussy clench.

But I’d be lying, and every lie I tell is one he’ll make me pay for.

When his hands leave my breasts and my skin comes in contact with the cold air, tears well up in my eyes.

Suddenly, he tugs at the ropes, and my body is lifted only to be pulled down again all the way to the floor until I can finally stand. The weightlessness did a number on me as my knees immediately buckle. But Luca is there to catch me before I fall, his hands wrapping around my body like a sweet embrace from the devil himself.

“Whoa … easy there,” he says, his hand steady and strong against my shivering cold back. “Lean against me.”

I shake my head but do it anyway because the only other choice is to fall on my ass and hurt myself.

“It takes a few minutes to adjust.” He caresses my back like I’m some kind of pet to him, and it confuses me so much.

One moment, he’s evil incarnate, pure danger, and then the next, he’s delicate with me.

This duality in his personality messes with my head.

My body floods with warmth from the sudden kindness, and it only brings more tears to my eyes.

“Why are you doing this?” I can’t help but let the words slip out.

“Because good girls deserve a reward for telling the truth.”

I sigh against his shoulder as he caresses me, wishing this moment wouldn’t end. If he’d been like this since the start, since we first met, maybe I wouldn’t have been so … bitter.

I sniff to stop the tears from flowing, but some still manage to run down my cheeks.

He leans back and looks me in the eyes. “Can you stand?”

I nod as he pushes back gently.

“Stay still.”

He slowly undoes the ropes around my wrists and chucks them in a corner like they meant nothing to him. Then he moves down to my ankles, removing the bar that kept my legs spread too until I’m free again. But he doesn’t remove the collar, and I don’t know how to feel about that.

He stands again and focuses solely on the red marks where the fiber of the rope edged into my flesh. “We’ll have to take better care of that next time.”

Next time? There’s gonna be a next time of being tied to the ceiling?

Oh, God. I hope not because the last time already did a number on me. If that’s going to happen more … I don’t think I can handle all the ways he could make me come.

His hand suddenly touches my face, breaking the spell. I’m completely frozen when he strokes my cheek with his ringed fingers and picks up my tear with his thumb.

“Why are you crying, bunny?”

I grind my teeth, refusing to tell, refusing to show.

He tilts his head and throws me a dominant look. “Tell me.”

“I never wanted to tell you I’m a virgin,” I say, my hands turning into fists because of how upset I am at myself that I couldn’t keep it a secret.

He grabs my chin. “It’s cute that you thought you could keep that a secret from me.”

My eyes narrow, and I sneer, “I’m not a piece of meat you can buy. My virginity shouldn’t matter.”

He leans in to whisper into my ear. “Nothing matters more to me than being the first to claim you and make you come.” His hand is suddenly down between my legs, forcing me to remember how good it felt when he touched me there. “Because I’m going to be the last.”

Something about that statement makes me suck in a breath and hold it.

Good God.

What has this man done to me?

“You already claimed me,” I say, my words almost choked by my own breath faltering.

“Not every inch.” He cups my pussy and presses his middle finger onto my clit. “But I will. Don’t worry, bunny. When I do, you’ll definitely know.” He groans, the sound making me wet as he circles his finger. “And I can’t fucking wait to be the first to fuck this pretty little pussy and fill it to the brim.”

He comes closer and closer, his lips hovering close to my skin, and when he presses the softest kiss against my neck, I almost fall apart right there and then.

Why is it so easy for him to make me want him? I hate it.

He groans against my skin. “So you never let anyone even touch you?”

I shake my head.

“No one? Ever?”

It’s like he can’t believe it, but it’s true.

“So when I came into your room the night my brother died, I was the first and last to touch you?”

I nod, but it only makes him groan harder to the point even I find it hard not to moan along as he cups my slit and makes me wet all over again.

“God … it’s too good to be true,” he murmurs. “My bunny, a fucking virgin.” He laughs. “You filthy little liar … All mine.”

Suddenly, he lifts me into his arms, and I squeal from the sudden motion. He hauls me to a door in the back of the room and kicks it open. He carries me to a shower and puts me down right in the middle, turning on the faucet.

The hot water pouring down from the jets onto my skin makes my nipples instantly harden. His hungry eyes dart down to my breasts, and his tongue dips out to wet his lips.

Still, he doesn’t make a move.

Even though I thought he would, now that he knows the truth.

Is he going to let me shower?

“Are you going to leave?” I ask.

“No,” Luca says, his brow arching.

Guess not.

“I don’t trust you on your own yet,” he adds.

I roll my eyes.

Figures.

But he keeps looking at me like I’m a piece of meat, and it’s hard to even move, let alone wash myself.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask in a moment of bravery.

“Like what?” he says with a lopsided grin, clutching the shower doors. “Tell me, Jill, what do I look like to you?”

I look up into his smoldering eyes. “Like a wolf.”

His grip on the doors tighten. “And what does that make you?”

I swallow as the water gushes down onto my body. “Prey.”

The wicked grin on his face grows bigger, more menacing. “Exactly. And this wolf is hungry for more …”

I plant my body against the wall, my teeth clattering from the thought of him touching me again. I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself, let alone him, if I let him come close.

But do I even have a choice?

I’m his captive wife. The one who chose to be here in exchange for a debt.

And I made a promise to my father that I’d make him happy … at all cost.

“Don’t cry now, bunny. It makes you less pretty,” he says.

“Like you ever thought I was pretty,” I quip.

His eyes narrow. “Why wouldn’t I? You were always the most beautiful girl I’d ever met and still are.”

I gulp from his words. He’s never said anything like that to me.

Does he mean it? Or is he only saying it to make me complacent?

“Don’t lie to me,” I say.

“Why would I lie?” he replies, fishing his knife from his pocket to toy with it, but to me, it’s only a reminder of who’s in charge.

He’s dangerous. I should stop, but I don’t want to back down. “You told me I looked hideous in the dresses I made back when we were young.”

He laughs. “Jill, really? We were kids.” He throws the knife like it’s a juggling pin. “I’m surprised you remember, though.”

“Because you bullied me,” I retort.

His eyes suddenly fixate on me like they’re trying to bore a hole into my head. “Has no one ever told you why boys bully?”

“Because they’re dicks,” I retort, but it only makes him laugh.

“Call me a dick. It doesn’t matter to me.” He stops throwing the knife and holds it tight in his hand. “The only thing that matters is that you belong to me now.”

“Does anything I say ever matter to you?” I ask.

His nostrils flare as he brings the knife to his mouth and licks the tip. “You don’t even know how much.”

I don’t know what to say to that.

He’s so damn twisted, yet he can even make licking a blade look hot.

It’s quiet for a few seconds as the water rushes down on my skin, filling me with a warmth that’s not even close to the heat surging through my body when he looks at me like that. Like he wants to eat me alive and then some.

“What are you thinking about?” Luca asks, tucking the knife back into his pocket.

I look up from underneath my dripping lashes. “You.”

The showerhead rains down, creating a curtain between us, but I can see his dark, scorching eyes right through the veil.

A hand drifts through.

Then another.

His clothes get soaked as he steps inside the shower with me, planting one hand against the wall while the other grabs my chin, forcing me to look up into his lustful, hungry eyes.

“You weren’t so eager to escape when I had you pinned to the wall like this back when I snuck into your room three years ago,” he says, and he leans in closer and closer until my breath falters. “Back when I gave you the best orgasm you could ever wish for.”

My entire body quivers from the memory alone.

“I know you remember,” he says. “And I know you’ve thought about it. About my fingers there, between your legs. The handle of my knife inside your pussy. My hands on your body, my tongue licking your skin.”

My lips shudder as his are so dangerously close to mine I can almost taste them.

“You know you liked it,” he murmurs.

I have to do something, say something. I have to stop this before he … kisses me.

Before he breaks me.

“Because you still had a sliver of humanity back then,” I reply. “But now? Nothing.”

He leans back, the look on his face turning darker and darker until nothing’s left of that lust I felt seconds ago. Something in his eyes has changed. Like he suddenly remembers how much he should hate me.

“I’m just another girl to you, another girl you can fuck, just like all the others before me. You never wanted me. You just crave what you can’t have,” I add. “But my heart will never be yours.”

A nail to the coffin as his eyes begin to twitch and his grip on my chin vanishes.

“You’re wrong,” he says through gritted teeth.

As violent as he barged into the room before, he pushes himself off the wall and marches out of the bathroom with soaked clothes, leaving me hot and naked underneath the pouring water.

God.

I was this close.