Page 83 of Bound Enemies
It’s impossible to resist the desire in his gaze. It makes the throb between my thighs insistent, makes me forget what I’m saying, even forget how to breathe. Perhaps I shouldn’t keep pushing this. Perhaps I should leave it, since it is, after all, our wedding day, and I’m more than ready for the pleasure I know only he can give me. And apart from anything else, I’m tired of fighting.
So I let go of my questions and this time purposefully give him a smile, one that he doesn’t need to be jealous about. One that’s just for him. ‘Well,’ I murmur, ‘when you put it like that, how can I refuse?’
Chapter Sixteen
Santiago
I open myeyes and stare at the ceiling for a couple of moments, my brain, for a change, blissfully empty of thought. I’m relaxed, sated, and feel better than I have for months, if not years. A warm hand is resting on my stomach, golden hair lying across my chest, so I turn my head and there she is, fast asleep beside me.
My wife.
Things had the potential to be difficult when I bought her the ring yesterday, which Beatrix was clearly unhappy about. But then she gave me her reasons for it and I won’t lie, I felt a measure of satisfaction that she didn’t wear my father’s engagement ring. But I had to tell her the truth about why I wanted her to wear mine, that I was jealous of the smiles she gave so freely to everyone but me. She liked my jealousy, though—that blush of hers gave her away, and certainly enough to get a promise from me to be faithful to her. Not that it’s a problem in any case. No woman I’ve ever been with—and I’ve been with many—has ever given me the kind of pleasure she does, so it was nothing to tell her I wanted only her. It’s the truth, after all.
I prop myself up on my elbow, studying her sleeping face. The perfection of her mouth. The straight line of her nose. The arched golden brows. The pale, silky skin. Her other hand is tucked beneath her chin, and I can see the gleam of my wedding band around her finger.
Deep satisfaction stretches out inside me, the primitive man pleased at this display of my claim on her. The unadorned white gold rings were a good choice, I could see that as soon as I showed them to her, and that she liked them pleases me. Last night I staked my claim on her in other ways, leaving my marks on her pale skin, and now I ease the sheet down to her waist in order to admire them.
I had no idea that possessing her would make me feel this way, so self-satisfied and smug, and not a little triumphant, and, since she’s mine unequivocally, I allow myself to enjoy the feelings for a few moments.
So, now she’s yours, what’s next?
An interesting question. Obviously what’s next is the baby and we need to discuss our plans for its arrival. I have a room next to this one that is at present a guest room, but I’ll have it converted into the perfect nursery.
What about those things she asked of you yesterday?
Through the haze of satisfaction, something unwelcome shifts inside me, a nagging irritation.
It’s true I was annoyed when she asked for the details of our marriage going forward. Mainly because all I could think about was the best way to get her home and into bed as quickly as possible. I didn’t want to discuss the minutiae of what our lives would look like now we’re married, not then at least.
Now, though, I’m reflecting on the conversation, and I can see why those details would be important to her. She wants stability and certainty, and I understand that, especially since in her early life she had neither. She wants a home, too, and a family, and again, I understand.
Bringing her here to Paris has been very much about whatIwant, even if the marriage itself was her suggestion, and now she’s my wife, she’s my responsibility. Which means it’s my duty to take care of her, provide her with what she needs, what she wants, and that, at least, I’m familiar with. I’ve been providing for my own mother since I left school, after all, even if she gives me no thanks for it.
Beatrix makes a soft sound, giving a sensual little stretch in her sleep as she rolls onto her back, and the sheet falls away, exposing her full breasts and the marks of my mouth on her skin. My gaze roves further down her body, to the soft curve of her stomach where our baby lies.
Hunger begins to build inside me, and I’m getting hard again. I’d have thought that after the night we had together, and all the pleasure it involved, I wouldn’t be so hungry again or so soon, but I am.
I want to touch her, wake her with kisses before sinking inside her tight, wet heat, but I kept her up till the early hours of the morning, and she needs sleep. So instead I slip from the bed, pull on a pair of jeans, and leave the room.
Downstairs, I go into the kitchen, where Helene is bustling about, and arrange for a breakfast tray to be brought up to us. While she’s doing that, she says absently, ‘Oh, by the way, your mother phoned last night. I told her you weren’t to be disturbed.’
Fuck. Of course. My mother’s nightly call. I’d forgotten entirely about it, and I know my mother: she doesn’t like to be forgotten.
I’ll have to call her back, since if I don’t she gets upset, so, moving quietly, I retrieve my phone from the bedroom, then go back downstairs and outside to the terrace to make the call.
‘Where were you last night, Santiago?’ my mother demands immediately on answering. ‘You didn’t tell me you were out.’
‘It slipped my mind,’ I say levelly. ‘Hence me calling you now.’
‘Oh, I see,’ she says, sounding hurt. ‘I’m that easy to forget, am I?’
It’s always this way with Catelina. She wants attention, and gets wounded if she feels she’s not being given an adequate amount of it. I’m eternally having to reassure her, which can be a long and involved task that requires patience. ‘It wasn’t like that,’ I point out mildly. ‘I had an…unexpected engagement.’
‘What engagement?’
And abruptly I’m confronted with my own insistence on the truth, and how, years ago, I made a promise to myself that I would never lie to her, not after my father lied to her so completely. Yet once again I find myself in the position of having to give her a truth that will hurt, about Beatrix and me, and there’s no way around it. No way to soften it.
Then again, as she keeps telling me so eloquently, nothing I do ever makes her feel better, so I may as well just say it. She’ll find out at some point anyway.
