A bitter realization

I crane my neck upward and fix Ethan with a questioning stare, trying to put two and two together, but the further I try, the further his utterance eludes me. There was an extraordinary meeting, and the paparazzi were there by chance and had tumbled on us. Right? 

“I don't follow,” I whisper, confused.

“Don’t worry, I'll spell it out for you. I knew marrying you would be easier if I put my career on the line. So I somehow followed you to that parking lot and had one of my allies bring the paparazzi to us.” He laughs victoriously, but I can hear the mockery behind his laughter.

His words break me inside. Realizing the whole thing was a scheme to lure me into his inferno and hurt me, sorrow, anger, and fear swell inside me. My eyes mist over and my throat tightens; I'm shivering to my lip.

I succumb to my emotions as body-shaking sobs claim me.

I wriggle in his arms to free myself, which makes him tighten his hands around me. “You’re crazy,” I sob, my voice barely above a whisper.

“I know. And I have to be honest, Vio. I tried to forget you and put everything behind me. But forgetting you is a lost cause,” he whispers in my ear, then nibbles on my earlobe.

I squirm with discomfort, but he squeezes me tighter — a warning for me to quit trying.

“I looked for you in so many women, you'll always be you. It's you I want. Not just to have you, but to fuck you,” he says the fuck starkly. “and make good on the promise I made to you that day. To punish you for what you fucking did,” he snarls.

I shudder inwardly in response.

“Maybe before our one-year contract is over, I could've gotten enough of you.”

One-year contract? “It’s a three-month contract.”

“That’s the problem. You signed the contract without reading the fine print. The juicy part is… it's not even a one-year contract. It's a forever contract. You're only free from this marriage when I set you free. That will be when I'm done with you.”

“You tricked me,” I yell, flailing wildly in his hold. Being trapped in his arms just makes everything worse.

“Because you wanted to be tricked. Who knows, you saw the trap and deliberately jumped right into it, thinking you'll get away with some money like your gold-digging mother did with your biological father.”

“Ethan,” I yell in rage, bursting into tears. This time, I fight with every ounce of strength to free myself from his suffocating grip. How could he bring my mother into this? I blame myself for trusting a psychopath so much that I told him my family's secrets.

My siblings and I share the same mother but different fathers. My mother's past flings with many wealthy men make it unclear who my father is.

“Shh. Don't waste those tears, Vio, you'll be needing them through the entirety of our contract,” he breathes in my ear. Still, I can't stop sobbing. His lips slowly graze the arch of my neck. “Did Nate kiss you like this?” he whispers against the skin of my neck.

“Show me how you kissed the bully you chose over your fat boyfriend.” His voice thickens with carnality, and he kisses me on the cheek, a dispassionate kiss meant to taunt me.

“I didn't do it.”

“Then how do you explain the letter you left at my doorstep, telling me all the nonsense you couldn't say to my face?”

In a daze, I pause, and so do my tears. “What letter?”

“You’re gonna deny that too?” he rages, grabs my hair, and walks me a few steps forward, hurling me to my knees. “Fucking look at that!” he pins my forehead against a paper on the floor. “Look closely.”

His grip on my hair is so firm my head begins to throb painfully; I open my eyes and look at the paper. Confusion razes me. That's my penmanship, but I didn't write that. Until now, I hadn't realized that someone was in disapproval of what Ethan and I had.

“You remember the letter, don't you? Huh!”

A groan rips from my chest as he yanks me up by my hair, and as soon as I'm on my feet, my hands fly up to tug on his hand that's in my hair. I can't keep from whimpering. He grabs my neck with his other hand, his face inching so closer to mine until our breaths mingle.

“I spent quite a lot of time in this room thinking about ways to torture you, and fuck, this room gives me a lot of inspiration. And guess what, Vio… our wedding night has only just begun.”

Without warning, his hand brushes across my posterior thighs as he wraps his muscular arm around my legs, hoists me from the floor, and effortlessly slings me over his shoulder. As if I'm some empty backpack.

When I realize he's taking me to the bed, I fall back to instinct and wriggle my body in an attempt to fall off his hold. One hard, humiliating smack on my butt shatters my resolve.

“I’ll stop fighting if I were you. Just a heads-up, the doors are locked, and the more you resist, the worse this will get.”

He hurls me onto the bed and my body rebounds at the rough impact. In a blink of an eye, Ethan kneels over me and his hands swiftly grab my robe belt to undo it.

Instinct goads me to fight and I make to grab his hand, but I pause midair. My hands fist the red duvet as I glare at him, shivering from stifled emotions. But how long can I contain them?

He grabs the shawl lapel of my robe and spreads them apart to bare my breasts to his eyes, smiling in contentment and giving me a black, lewd look. “I love the good pair of tits.”

Quickly, I send my arms across my chest to cover my breasts.

But his face instantly scrunches with rage. “You can't do that,” he snarls. He takes my forearms in a crushing grip that drives a cry from me, flinging them aside, and then his big hands cover my breasts in a tight squeeze.

In another attempt to struggle, he gathers my wrists in his big hand and seizes them over my head. Now I can only writhe and flail.

“Oh, my Violet,” he purrs, his voice gruff and heavy with desire as he leans down and laves my breast from the bottom to the top.

I squeeze my eyes shut in discomfort and shame, going calm. Tears stream down my ears at the painful humiliation. How could he treat me like a slut?

Those men raped me, saying I was a whore and I deserved it. Ethan is doing the same thing to me. I don't deserve it. I really don't.

He runs his tongue along my cleavage, twirling his tongue over my areola. Then he sucks my nipple into his mouth, squeezing my breast into his mouth as if intending to suck everything in where it's impossible.

The humiliation surpasses me and I resort to kicking so hard until he becomes unfocused. But I regret it when he perks up and vigorously slaps my breast, leans closer, and pins my hands over my head again.

“You, of all people, know I hate interruptions when I'm being fucking serious. Now remain perfectly still for me, else,” he warns.

His mouth crashes against mine and he kisses me roughly. I don't respond, and he doesn't seem to care. He traces his kisses down the front of my neck, my clavicle, cleavage, and stomach, and when he gets to my mound, I press my eyes shut in dread.

I let instinct guide, but just as soon as I intend to scramble back, he rebounds to his knees. His countenance darkens with raging as he glares at me. 

“No panties in my house. Not for you,” he yells. His lips flash a hint of a sinister smile. “As I said before, everything in this room inspires me. Your underwear inspires me, and I'm going to use it.”

He leans down and continues his wicked torture, kissing my lower stomach and heading towards my mound. A hysterical panic has me panting, completely helpless.

He grabs the waistband of my panties to pull it down.

“Fuck!” he snarls.