Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 94782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
I launch myself across the desk before I can consider the consequences of my actions, and when my fist smashes into his face, it feels cathartic. For all of two seconds, until he slams me back onto the desk and returns three solid blows himself. I take them, not because I respect him, but because I know I always have to let him win. If I don’t, he’ll make my life hell.
As I peel myself up off the desk and we glare at each other in the aftermath, I don’t doubt for a second that he’ll do exactly as he said. My father controls every employee in this palace and every member of our family. If he were to ban me from the grounds, I’d have no recourse to see my mother. And I’d sooner die a slow, miserable death than allow her for one second to believe I wasn’t there for her in these final months.
“Three dates a week with Lavinia.” The king hurls the words out, breathless. “And you will marry her if it’s the last declaration I make. She will be a suitable partner, someone the people can respect, which is more than I can say for you.”
He fails to add that he’s already excavated her entire background and unearthed everything there is to know about the woman, including her bloodline. After all, it would never suit to have a Lykken married to someone without merit.
“Three dates.” I reiterate the words that will continue to haunt me. “For Mor.”
16
Ella
My fingers graze the length of the whip hanging on the wall, and I study it with uncertainty. It appears to be hung for decorative purposes, but could it be possible that he intends to use it on me? Will he want to use any of these things on me?
I don’t know the exact purpose of all the different floggers and paddles and restraints on display. My knowledge on this subject originates from the few bits and pieces I read in a Cosmo magazine. After Lavinia read the article, she whined for a whole month about how she would never let a man do those things to her. And that’s when I realized for the first time just how messed up I was.
It wasn’t that I wanted these things, exactly, but there were parts of the dynamic between a powerful man and a submissive woman that made me recognize something depraved in myself. I was no stranger to pain. Narcissa had been doling it out my entire life. So, when I examine Thorsen’s tools of torture, I can only wonder what it would feel like when he uses them on me.
He’s already spanked me. He’s already fucked my mouth. And soon, he will destroy the only innocence I have left. True to his word, he delivered the first receipt with proof of his donation to Hilliard, along with a new pack of birth control patches and instructions on how to use them. I put the first patch on yesterday, which means in six more days, it will be effective, and he’ll come for me again. When he does, I can’t help wondering what will be left of me.
Will he be rough? Will he be gentle, at least for the first time? I swallow as I recall the size of his cock. It’s at that moment, the door to my suite opens, and the man himself appears.
Our eyes clash, and it feels like a lightning storm in my veins. Fire crackles in the air between us, and for a split second, I can tell he feels it too. There’s something different about him this evening. I can sense it when he locks the door behind him and stalks toward me. Maybe it’s the rigid set of his shoulders or the tightness in his jaw. The hurricane in his eyes seems more turbulent than this morning, and on instinct, I back up, bumping into the apothecary cabinet.
“Did I tell you to put on a bathrobe?” he asks, his voice low and menacing.
My fingers curl around the soft material, holding onto it as if he could make it implode merely by looking at it.
“It was in the bathroom.”
“I want you naked,” he growls. “I want you ready. Don’t make me say it again, Ella.”
I wasn’t wrong about his mood. He looms over me, his features a mask of anguish that runs so deep, I can almost picture the divide in his soul. I want to ask him about it. I want to unearth his most intimate secrets and expose the man hiding within the beast, but that’s a dangerous want to have.
My eyes move over his face, and the energy between us shifts again. An electric current. A drop in temperature. Storm Thorsen is coming, and I realize I’m not at all prepared for it.