The Accidental Marriage: Chapter 10

I scowl, mostly out of reflex. I’m not used to people probing so openly. Not even Dad or Aunt Jeremiah do it—they’re afraid of reopening old wounds. And because sometimes it’s easier to just pretend everything’s fine rather than dig too deep.

Lareina lifts a hand toward my face, and I frown harder, torn between the desire to have her stroke me and to evade her altogether. Her presence is unsettling, throws my equilibrium off, leaving me feeling vulnerable and unprotected.

When she drops her hand back to her side, it isn’t relief, but disappointment that floods me. I realize I wanted to feel her touch more than I was honest enough to admit. Uncertainty casts shadows in her eyes, and I get a strong urge to comfort her.

Stop. I don’t know where this unfamiliar drive is coming from. But if Lareina is Mom or Harvey’s agent, they did far better than I ever thought possible. I better watch my back. And if, by some one-in-a-million chance, Lareina is innocent, there’s still danger. Women who can make you act out of character are fatal. Just look at how things turned out for Dad when he met Mom. A woman who inspires respectful indifference, possibly tinged with some mild affection, is ideal, the kind I’m aiming to find and spend the rest of my life with. Dad’s life with Akiko is exactly like that, and all the proof I need.

Just as I open my mouth, there are three hard knocks at the door. Lareina jumps, casting a furtive glance in that direction. Her fingers dig into my sleeve, her entire being focused on the door. It’s damn good acting, designed to make me feel sympathy.

“Relax. It’s just breakfast,” I say in a rather cool voice to let her know her antics won’t work.

Her cheeks flush as she looks up at me. “Sorry,” she says. “Didn’t mean to do that.” She pulls away as though embarrassed to have been clutching me. I roll my shoulders, trying to ignore the bereft sensation.

Trying to restore my equilibrium, I head over to the door and check the peephole. An elderly, uniformed staff member is standing over a tray cart.

As soon as I open the door, he rolls the cart in and sets it up in the living room. Two bowls of fresh berries and whipped heavy cream, a basket of croissants that smell like heaven, various jams and salted butter, coffee, freshly squeezed OJ and sparkling water. French toast topped with powdered sugar and berries with maple syrup on the side complete the spread. And bacon, of course.

Perhaps I went a bit overboard when I placed my order, but I’m sure I can finish most of it. Besides, Lareina is hungry, too. She’s literally licking her lips, staring at the food with the intensity of a starved dog.

After the man leaves with my signature, I pull a chair out for her, then immediately regret it. I need to be a dick, not a nice guy. The problem is Lareina. Showing her little courtesies comes instinctively.

She sits down, and I pick up a coffee pot, deliberately pouring myself a cup, but not her. It’s much harder than expected. But damn it, if she wants some, she can serve herself. I pour enough syrup over my toast to drown it and take a big bite. I’m starving. I also take a chunk out of the bacon on my plate and several gulps of coffee. Ah… This is what it feels like to be human again.

Lareina pushes her food around. Her mouth grows tauter and tauter, and an inexplicable tension pulls her shoulders toward her ears.

“What’s wrong? Not to your liking?” I ask, almost relieved. I’ve finally found a reason to dislike her: she’s a picky princess. “Should I have ordered you fat-free yogurt or something, your highness?”

“No. Um…” She pulls her lips in, her eyes darting back and forth between my food and hers.

What is this? When a woman thinks this hard and hesitates this much, nothing good ever follows. I brace myself.

“Mind if we swap?” she says suddenly.

“Swap…?”

She points at our plates. “Food. I keep thinking yours looks more delicious.”

I look at hers, then mine. They look about the same, except for the fact that mine has a bite or two taken out. “Is it because there are a couple more slices of strawberries on my French toast?” I look at the bowls of fresh berries and cream on the side, hinting that she can just grab those.

“I think it’s better this way. And you get more food. I’m sort of hungry, but not, like, super hungry.” Except the intense focus in her eyes says she’s starving.

What’s going on?

She reaches over and swaps the plates. “Thank you for understanding.” Then she scarfs down half the French toast before I can blink. If this is the latest seduction trend, she needs to quit watching so many stupid videos on worthless social media sites.

Finally, she makes a slight choking noise.

“You don’t have to shovel it in. I’m not stealing your food,” I say.

She shakes her head. “That’s not it.” She pours two OJs and pushes one toward me.

“I don’t drink fruit juice.”

“You don’t?”

“No. It just came with the breakfast.”

“Oh.” Lareina looks down at her glass and purses her lips. Her expression reminds me of a kid being told she isn’t getting a Christmas present.

I should just ignore her and go back to my breakfast. But I can’t stop myself from reaching for the glass and taking a sip. Ugh. Tart. Not my thing.

She leans forward. “You like it?”

Does she want me to say I love it because she’s the one who served it? “No.”

“Great.” She beams, then reaches for my glass. “I’ll take it, then.”

Uh… What? “You have yours.”

“I know. But you said you don’t like it. Wouldn’t want to waste this one.” She grabs my glass and takes a sip. If she’d pressed her lips where mine touched, I might’ve thought she was attempting to flirt, clumsily so. But no. She’s acting too casual now.

Perhaps my suggestion that she can slow down penetrated, because she’s eating at a more normal pace now, and bothering me for a different reason. It’s just standard breakfast—and yes, it may seem more delicious due to our hunger—but her cheeks flush, and her eyes half close with every bite she takes. When she munches on the bacon, bliss transforms her face, making it glow as though she’s just had the best orgasm of her life.

My tongue stops registering taste and texture as all my overheated blood heads to my dick. I eat mechanically, totally focused on her. If she’s reacting like this to food, what’s she going to be like in bed? A screamer? A moaner? Will she cling? Bite? Scratch? Does she like to wrap her legs around her man? Did her exes give her orgasms on a reliable basis?

No, probably not, I decide. If they had, she wouldn’t be deriving this much pleasure from the food. Even the OJ is making her hum a bit.

When she reaches for the glass again, the ring on her finger—the same as mine—winks. The sight should cool my blood, but instead, it sends an unfamiliar sensation through me.

“Tell me what happened last night,” I say.

“You don’t remember anything?”

“No. Not really.”

“You punched my step-cousin out.”

Her eyes sparkle with sheer admiration as she looks at me across the table as though I’m her knight in shining armor. I don’t usually like it when women look at me like this, but with her… I feel ten feet tall. The realization is terrifying, like being trapped on a roller coaster that’s about to drop.

“You know, the asshole I was almost forced to marry so he could steal my money,” she says.

The one she supposedly crossed the hotel wall to escape from.

“But it was too late for him because we’d gotten married already,” she says. “We were walking out of the chapel when he stopped us.”

Weird. How loopy was I that I agreed to marry her, just like that?

“By the way, your punch was justified because he hit you first,” she adds. “He knows karate, so he hit you pretty hard.”

I cock an eyebrow. He must be shitty at karate, because I’m not feeling it. If Josh or Bryce had punched me, I would’ve been bruised for days.

“He went down like a misfired rocket.” She lets out a laugh, which puts a reluctant smile on my face. “Hopefully, he and his parents won’t bother me for a while.”

“Why not?”

“Because you and I are married now?”

“The ceremony alone isn’t legally binding,” I inform her.

“Don’t worry.” She’s all sincerity. “We got a marriage license first.”

Isn’t she thorough? “Who told you to get a license?”

“No one. It just happened. You were there, too. And you insisted on paying for it.”

I can’t picture myself doing that. But I don’t remember, so I can’t deny it. She could lie about everything, including her relationship with Mom and Harvey—or lack thereof—and I wouldn’t know any better. Irritating.

“A fake Frank Sinatra sang for us, too, which makes it extra airtight because he’s a licensed officiant.”

I frown. A fake Frank Sinatra? Fucking Harvey. It isn’t like me at all to marry a woman I don’t know, even if I was high. He was probably willing to keep me all night to force me to sign the retainer agreement. Bet the drug he fed me was to make me malleable and nod and agree with him, regardless of whatever warning signs might have been there.

“Can I suggest something?” Lareina asks.

“Sure.” She might finally tell me why she’s gone after my bachelorhood while I was out of it. I pull one of the cream-laden bowls of berries close and start to eat.

She eyes it longingly. I push the other bowl toward her, but she doesn’t touch it. Instead, she continues to look at mine, then swallows hard.

I don’t know what this…fetish is, and shouldn’t care. But her longing gaze is driving me crazy. A starving stray dog would be less overt. I swap the bowls.

“Thank you.” The smile she gives me is like the sunlight pouring in through the window behind her. I stare, dazzled. My heart pounds, the rapid beats reverberating through my body. I reach for my coffee to shake off the strange agitation.

“As I was saying…” She pops a strawberry into her mouth and sighs softly. If she wants me to give her proposal proper consideration, she needs to quit making that orgasm face! “I’d like to propose that we maintain our marriage.”

“No.” My response is instant and firm. I look at the cheap ring on my finger again. It’s nice enough that she helped, but I’m not staying married to a woman who throws me off like this. And although I only have two more days until my deadline, I do have more dates set up. Surely one of them will work out.

My personal goals are simple: marry a woman who doesn’t throw me off, get promoted and live a good, uneventful life.

“It’d only be for six months, until my thirtieth birthday,” she says.

“What happens after your thirtieth birthday?”

“I’ll be one hundred percent free to do whatever I want.”

“Hmm. And what would I get out of it?”

“Money.” Her answer is prompt.

Doesn’t she know how much I’m worth? She spoke of having her own inheritance, but I doubt it’s much. Large inheritances tend to be held in complex trusts that are designed specifically to preserve the wealth for the beneficiary and their descendants for generations to come. They can’t be undone with something as simple as a marriage.

“I’ll make it worth your while,” she adds.

“Don’t want it.” My response is as decisive as hers.

She cocks her head, the berries on her fork forgotten. “Everyone wants money.”

“Not me.”

“Oh.” She looks down, then scoops up strawberries, making sure they’re laden with cream, and brings them to her lips. She puts them in her mouth, then licks the cream on one corner. The sight of her rosy tongue is shockingly erotic.

Fuck. My libido is out of control, and I’m sober. How crazy was it last night when I had no control?

“What do you want, then?” she asks warily.

“Absolutely nothing you can give me. You aren’t what I have in mind for a suitable wife or ideal marriage.”

“I’m not?” Her eyes widen, then she bites her lip, looking away briefly to hide the uncertainty in her expressive gaze before raising it to meet mine. “What’s wrong with me?”

I open my mouth to respond, then change my mind. It’ll be less hurtful to tell her what I have in mind for my future. “I want a marriage of respectful indifference with someone who has a busy life of her own. She and I care enough about each other to be considerate, but never cross the line into being nosy or controlling. Pleasant dinners when neither of us is working late. Annual vacations to someplace pretty and relaxing. Well-raised children, likely to head to Harvard or Yale Law and take over Huxley & Webber when they’re ready. Unfortunately, a marriage with you wouldn’t offer me any of that.”

Or anything of value. If Soledad were a normal human being, I might assume my marital status would discourage her, but she’s a self-centered sociopath and won’t care. Mom won’t give up whatever horrific plot she comes up with to reunite the family just because I’m married. And Lareina doesn’t fit the image of a “good, respectful woman” The Fogeys have in mind.

“I can be respectfully indifferent,” she protests. “And I can get a job and stay busy. I promise. Plus, I’m totally open to giving you children.”

I return to my food. “No.”

“I’ll even let you ask me for a favor later, as long as it’s not illegal or something.”

Her plea is difficult to resist, but I’m not letting myself get suckered by a pretty face and the sexual need she arouses in me. “Still no.”

“But you told me last night that you wanted to be my knight and protect me,” she says in a small, shaky voice.

What? Be her knight and protect her… That’s a sentiment I’ve had for Queen…and Queen only. I’ve never expressed it to anyone else.

I lift my gaze from the plate and look at Lareina. Her eyes shimmer with unshed tears of frustration as she looks out at the Vegas sky, then at her fingertips.

My mind conjures how sassy she was after the hair-raising balcony stunt she pulled yesterday. Something about her spirit and appearance reminds me of Queen, even though I know it’s not her. But this reaction…

You crushed her, asshole. Congratulations. With your sterling personality and charm, where are you going to find a wife? You only have two days left before the month is up. The Fogeys picked the timeline, knowing you’d fail. And you will fail and never make partner.

I get up and pace. Sometimes I really hate my conscience. “Your condition is that we stay married for six months?”

“Yes. Well. And as long as you agree that it doesn’t cross any inappropriate boundaries… I wouldn’t want to be disrespectful or clingy, but…can we have sex while we’re married? Other than just for making babies?” She peers at me to gauge my reaction. Thankfully I’m done with coffee, so I have nothing to shoot out of my nostrils. “I think our chemistry is pretty good.”

Suddenly the air feels too thick. I feign nonchalance, sit down again and slowly chew on some raspberries to buy time. “Is it?”

“Don’t you remember?” She smiles, then bites her lip. The bright sparkle in her eyes and the flush in her cheeks make her look like a teenager in love. “You said the kiss we had was amazing.”

I raise an eyebrow. I remember nothing, and it’s infuriating. But that kind of praise is unlike me. It’s my policy not to discuss or analyze bedroom technique. If it’s good, the relationship proceeds. Otherwise, it ends. No point in putting things into words.

Perhaps it was too good to go unremarked upon, my worthless libido says.

The silence stretches, and she gives me a narrow-eyed stare. Slight irritation begins to infect her gaze. “Well…?”

“Well what? I have nothing to say.” Outrage flashes, and she bristles like a furious—but cute—guinea pig. I already made it clear I don’t remember what happened last night. Is she probing to test me, or is she just trying to take advantage of the fact that I don’t have full information? If I had all the memories of last night, I wouldn’t be so guarded. Since I’m feeling perverse, I add, “Maybe the kiss wasn’t memorable enough to leave a lasting impression.”

She gasps, then glares at me like I’m the most awful person ever. “You know what? I think I was far superior to you. You were just, you know, okay, despite having a lot of experience compared to me. It was my first time kissing somebody.”

She might as well have sucker-punched me in the solar plexus. “First time?” I choke out. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-nine. And what’s up with the reaction?” Her tone is aggrieved.

“You’re twenty-nine and never kissed anybody until now?” How can that even happen?

“Basically. Also, not now. Yesterday.”

“Are you telling me…” There’s only one—almost unbelievable—conclusion. “You’re a virgin?”

She nods. I search for any sign of deception or amusement, but she’s dead serious. What the…?

“Why do you want to give your virginity to me?” I ask, even as my dick hardens. Sexual excitement that she wants to be with me for her first time and be mine electrifies my blood. Something must be defective, because I’ve never cared about such things as virginity. I expect a woman to be experienced, especially at our age. But being Lareina’s first feels as special as being the first to step into a field of freshly fallen snow.

“Well…you are my husband. And you’re an okay kisser,” she says primly, her chin tilted up.

“There are words other than ‘okay’ to describe my kiss. Heart-pounding, magnificent, carnal, orgasmic—”

She ignores me and continues: “But if you’re awful at sex, we’ll stop. I’ve abstained for twenty-nine years. I can go for another six months, then divorce you and get myself a proper man with satisfying technique.”

“Awfully eager to divorce, aren’t you?” Is this some kind of reverse psychology?

“Well, I can’t be with a man who doesn’t satisfy me in bed. You said a marriage of respectful indifference, not sexual frustration. I mean, we aren’t even in love with each other.”

“Okay. What if you can’t satisfy me?”

She stares at me wide-eyed. It’s obvious that the thought has never occurred to her. Talk about confidence… Or is it arrogance? “Then six months later we divorce.”

“Well, I haven’t gone without for that long.” A lie. I’ve gone for months without a woman every time I broke up because just thinking about their obsessive clinging destroys my sexual appetite.

Lareina finishes the berries. “I don’t think I’ll be a problem, since you thought a simple kiss was amazing. But if you’re worried about your prowess, you can always audition.”

“Audition?”

“To prove yourself worthy.” She holds my eyes in challenge.

Does she think she can play with fire and remain unscathed? I toss the napkin on the table and stand, then stalk toward her.

Her tongue darts out, swipes over her lower lip before disappearing. She tilts her chin higher and looks at me with eyes dark with anticipation. “You can try kissing me again.”

“Kissing is anemic.”

Despite the hotel shampoo and soap, there’s a faint whiff of lemon and something sweet and hot coming from her. She exhales, the warm breath just the tiniest bit shaky. Her long, thick lashes flutter a little as she stares at me. I put my hands on the arm rests, caging her. The pulse in her throat throbs, and I lower my head, brushing the tip of my nose against hers. A tremulous inhale; her throat works as she waits for my next move, and I enjoy her subtle responses. Her lips part. The heat from her body is sweet and intoxicating. I angle my head, press kisses along the taut line of her pixie-like jaw.

“Are you going for my chin?” Her voice shakes, the pulse in her neck beating wildly.

I chuckle. “Who says the mouth is the only place a man can kiss a woman?” I rain kisses on her hot cheeks, then smooth forehead and cute nose, and she lets out a soft whimper. Get a proper man with satisfying technique, indeed. I have no idea how the kiss went yesterday, but the one right now is going to be seared into her mind, and she won’t even think of using shitty sex as a reason for divorce. I’ll make sure of it.

She shifts a little, angling her face, chasing my mouth. Instead of giving her what she wants, I kiss the corners of her gorgeous eyes. Amazing how beautiful they are, how expressive.

She tunnels her hand into my hair and tugs me down. Triumphant, I run my tongue over her lips.

A soft sigh, and our breaths mingle. I take in the air between us and stroke her pillowy mouth with mine. Excitement breaks throughout my body, making every nerve ending prickle with life. Her fingers dig into my forearms, and I deepen the kiss, invading her mouth with my tongue. Hers glides against mine, and an electric ripple runs down my spine. The flush on her cheeks deepens until they’re almost crimson.

Another sound, half sigh and half moan, comes from her throat. She flexes her fingers, then tilts her head back to offer me better access. I cup her nape and plunder her, taste the sweet syrup, berries and spice. She kisses me back, more enthusiasm than technique, but the raw display of desire is sexy as hell. My blood runs hotter than ever, pooling into my now-rigid dick.

If I had a condom, I might be tempted to carry her to bed. But I don’t—and pregnancy would be stupid in a temporary situation like ours.

I cradle her face with one hand, swiping my thumb slowly over her cheekbone. She leans into my palm, wrapping her hand around my thick wrist. Tenderly I trace the shell of her ear and she shivers.

Sensitive. Mmm.

I take the earlobe between my lips and suck, running my teeth along the tender flesh. She moans softly, tilting her head to the side. “Oh my God, Ares. Okay, you pass,” she says, her lips wet and swollen.

I laugh darkly. “Sweetheart, I’m just getting started.”