Total pages in book: 199
Estimated words: 200280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1001(@200wpm)___ 801(@250wpm)___ 668(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1001(@200wpm)___ 801(@250wpm)___ 668(@300wpm)
This time I stop because he grips my arm. Tightly.
Painfully.
And before I can draw a breath, he spins me around and makes me face the window. The drapes are partially open and I can see the courtyard from here. I can see the altar. The chairs, the flowers, the little votive candles that my mother simply insisted we had to have enough though the wedding was pushed up by three weeks. The guests have started to take their seats. The band is set up in one corner. The minister is in his place, chatting with my father.
This is why my mother hated this room.
Because you could see everything and there should be some mystery before the wedding.
I feel him behind me, his body so close but not touching yet. And despite everything, I step back so I can touch him. So I can feel his hard muscles against my body. See how we fit together.
Because this is quite possibly the last time.
I’m getting married now and even though I can explain to him why, I don’t think he’d want to have to do anything with me. I can never imagine him as someone’s side piece.
I can never imagine him not being the center of someone’s universe, and I wouldn’t want that for him anyway.
Not to mention, he never said he wanted forever with me.
Even though I lied about that too.
I do want forever with him.
But I’m not going to get it. And it looks like I’m not going to get to back into him either because he stops me, flexing his grip on my arm and rasping, “Show me who he is.”
The very first words he’s spoken, and they give me shivers. “Ledger, please. Don’t do this. Don’t —”
“Tell me who he is.”
“My mom could come in any minute now. Please, you have to —”
His other hand strikes and wraps around my throat, making me arch up as he says in my ear, “As much as I like hearing your voice, I don’t want to. Not right now. I only want you to use that cock-sucking mouth of yours to tell me what I’m asking you. Nod if you understand.”
I swallow, dread coursing through me.
Dread and arousal.
At how possessively he’s holding me. My throat.
I nod.
“Good,” he praises, his thumb pressing against my freckle. “That’s good. Now, tell me who the fuck he is.”
With choppy breaths, I whisper, “T-there. By the… By the altar.”
He’s standing with my dad now. Plus the minister and his dad as well.
He hums. “Now show me your father.”
“On his… On his left side.”
At this, he exhales a sharp breath but otherwise doesn’t explain why he’s asking me all this. So again I try, “Ledger, I —”
“Shh,” he coos in my ear, making me whimper. “I didn’t ask you to talk, did I?”
“B-but —”
His grip on my body tightens. “Don’t piss me off, okay? Not when I’m hanging by a thread. If you do as I say I’ll let you go.”
I close my eyes for a second. “P-promise?”
His grip tightens even more. “Yeah.”
“I —”
“But then again, I don’t think we have a good track record for promises.” My heart clenches as he goes on, “But you don’t have a choice right now, do you? Not with so many people out there, waiting for you to walk down the aisle to marry another man. So you’re going to have to do as I say anyway and it’ll go a lot easier on you if play along.”
My breaths are even more broken than they were before.
Not because I’m afraid.
I’m not. Not of him.
Even though he’s angry. As I said to his brother, I know what he’s capable of. I’m not blind to his flaws and I know he won’t physically hurt me or our babies.
It’s the pain lurking in his voice that makes it harder for me to breathe.
The pain I caused.
So isn’t it on me to fix it? Or if not that, then alleviate it a little.
Which makes me nod and I feel his chest move with a breath. As if in relief.
But that only lasts a second because he speaks in a tight voice. “Now tell me who’s standing behind you.”
I open my mouth to answer him but I get delayed.
Because the next thing I know his hand on my arm is moving and it’s going down. Down and down until he reaches the poofy skirt of my wedding dress and starts to drag it up. And again, I want to ask him what he’s doing but this time he beats me and speaks again.
“Tell me who’s pulling your wedding dress up, Tempest.”
I feel him groping my ass, my thighs as I say, “L-Ledger.”
He manages to get it all up as he says, “Good.”
“Now I want you to tell him.”
“I-I’m sorry?”
I’m not sure what it is, why I didn’t understand what he’s asking me, but I think it has to do with the fact that he’s now going for my panties. He’s groping the edges of them and pulling them down and I momentarily forget everything but his rough fingers and the fact that I’m so wet for him.