The sarcasm in his tone makes me stare at him in outrage. “Are you suggesting I wanted to marry you?”
“I’m suggesting that if you really didn’t, you’d have figured out how to get a handle on your idiot brother without strutting down the aisle in a wedding dress.”
I say through clenched teeth, “I. Didn’t. Strut. I walked.”
“My point is that I saw you stand in front of a man pointing a gun at your chest and you told him to go fuck himself. You said you’d see him in hell, where you’d cut off his balls and choke him with them.” His smile is small and hideously smug. “There’s no way Gianni scared you.”
I lift my chin and sniff snootily. “You’re delusional, but you can think whatever you want.”
“I will. And what I think is that deep down, you wanted to marry me.”
“Your ego is the eighth wonder of the world, my friend.”
Ignoring that, he continues in a softer, more intimate tone. “Because you’re not a woman who’d give up a freedom that was won by such a high cost.”
His gaze is piercing, drilling into mine and daring me to contradict him. He waits for my response, stroking his thumb gently back and forth over my cheek as he holds me.
“This is a terrible thing to say, especially on our wedding day, so please forgive me. But there’s no guarantee I won’t be back to wearing black before the month is out.”
He stares at me in tense, blistering silence.
Then he throws his head back and laughs.
He laughs so long and so hard, I get irritated. I give him a smack on one of his big, stupid pecs.
“It’s not like you didn’t already know that! You said you’d be taking your life into your own hands!”
“Aye,” he agrees, still laughing. “And I am.”
“Then what’s so funny?”
“I never thought I’d find a threat on my life romantic.”
“Oh, shut up,” I grumble, shaking my head in disgust. “You’re an idiot.”
“But I’m your idiot,” he says, his laughter fading. His voice lowers an octave. His gaze grows intense. “And you’re my viper.”
“I hate that nickname.”
He growls, “No, you don’t, you fucking liar.”
He pulls me in and kisses me.
Wrapping his big hand around the back of my neck, he holds me close and drinks deep from my mouth as I fist the lapel of his tux in one hand and cling to his shoulders with the other. He slides his other hand up my thigh to my hip, which he squeezes.
Then he hooks his thumb under the elastic of my panties and tugs on it, sending shockwaves of pleasure through my pelvis as the cotton drags against my clit.
Against my mouth, he murmurs, “You’re trembling. I suppose that’s fear, right?” He chuckles. “Because you’d never be aroused by such an idiot.”
“I hate you.”
“The lies never stop with you, do they?”
He takes my mouth again, kissing me harder. I arch into him, my heart hammering and my nipples hardening with every sweep of his tongue against mine. He tugs on my panties again, making me squirm restlessly, then slides his hand between my legs.
“Soaked,” he whispers, rubbing my panties. “Sweet little viper, you’re already soaking wet.”
“I was thinking about poisoning your coffee,” I say raggedly.
“You were thinking about riding my dick.”
“How are you so awful?”
“You bring out the bastard in me. Now let’s see if I can get you to do something with that mouth other than slice me to ribbons.”
He slips his fingers under my panties and gently pinches my swollen clit.
I gasp, stiffening.
When he slides one thick finger inside me, I close my eyes and moan.
“Perfect,” he murmurs. “What if I do this?”
He presses his thumb against my clit and slowly works his finger in and out, fucking me with it. I shudder, dropping my head against his shoulder and biting my lip so I don’t make a sound.
Until he adds another finger. Then I groan like a zombie crawling out of a grave. It’s the most unattractive sound I’ve made in my life.
But Quinn doesn’t think so. He growls in approval, dipping his head to latch onto my throat with his hot mouth. He sucks on my neck and finger fucks me while I helplessly grind against his hand.
He says hotly into my ear, “You want to come like this, baby? Or do you want my mouth?”
Delirious, my eyes rolling back in my head, I gasp, “What the hell is happening?”
“Your husband is fingering your gorgeous wet cunt, that’s what.”
“Jesus! Quinn!”
He breathes, “Aye, lass. Say my name just like that when you come.”
Rocking his hips into me so his erection is pressed right up against my hip, he kisses a path down my neck to my chest, then licks at my cleavage, dipping his tongue into the cleft between my breasts. When I groan again, he lightly bites down on the swell of one breast.
“I need to taste every inch of you,” he whispers, his voice dark. “I need to bite every perfect part of your skin. I want to fuck you and spank you and make you take my cock down your throat. I want you to tell me every filthy thing you want me to do to you, starting right fucking now.”
He pulls his fingers out of me and slides them lazily up and down through my soaked folds, spreading the wetness around. When he brushes against my clit, I jerk.
“Start talking, viper. What do you want?”
“An annulment.”
“Liar.”
He bites my hard nipple right through the delicate fabric of the dress.
Panting, I say, “Do you not care that you’re giving the poor driver a show?”
“I care that you’re flexing your hips to try to get my fingers back inside you.”
Horrified that he’s right, I drop my head back and squeeze my eyes shut. “Gah!”
Laughter in his voice, he whispers, “So greedy.”
“Quinn—”
“Ask me to finger fuck you, viper. Ask me to make you come. I want to hear it.”
“You and all your talking! Is this what you learned in therapy? How to break a girl down with your incessant chatter? It’s like water torture, only with words!”
Sweeping his fingers back and forth over my throbbing clit, he says, “Tell me you need my cock. Tell me you want me to fuck you. Tell me you’ve been dreaming about it every night and aching for it every day, the way I have.”
When I open my eyes, he’s got the most intense look on his face. So intense, it’s frightening.
Holding my gaze, he commands, “Tell me.”
Then he slides his fingers inside me again.
Arching my back, I suck in a breath. My eyes widen. He crooks his fingers and hits a sensitive spot inside me, rubbing against it with maddening slowness, intently watching every expression that crosses my face.
I can’t look away from him. I want to, but I can’t.
Somehow, he’s got me trapped in the weight of his powerful gaze. A fly caught in amber.
A desperate little insect snared in a hungry spider’s web.
And for all my pride and independence, for all the times I swore I’d never allow myself to be owned again, I find it impossible not to give him what he’s demanding.