After the reception finally limped to its merciful end, Damon and I were escorted to our shared bedroom by a pair of stone-faced staff members who definitely knew this marriage was about as authentic as a three-dollar bill.
I was too exhausted to protest. My feet had filed a formal complaint with my nervous system, citing cruel and unusual punishment. My face ached from eight hours of fake smiling.
The bedroom was obscene, of course. A four-poster bed large enough to host a small nation.
Silk sheets, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking manicured grounds that existed solely to remind you that yes, these people had money, and yes, they wanted you to know it.
Damon shrugged off his jacket and tossed it carelessly onto a chair worth more than my mother's car. He loosened his belt. Unbuttoned his shirt halfway.
Then he collapsed into an armchair like he owned the place—which, technically, he partially did.
"You know," he drawled, watching me struggle with my dress's approximately seventeen thousand buttons, "traditionally, this is where the wedding night happens. Consummation. Marital duties. All that fun stuff."
"We're ahead of the curve."
I finally freed myself from button prison and gestured vaguely at my midsection.
"Our 'wedding night' already happened. In a bathroom. At a frat party. The evidence is currently the size of a lime and making me nauseous every morning.”
He stood, moving toward me with the easy confidence of someone who'd never been told no in his life.
"Think about it. Once your belly's the size of a football, you won't be able to properly enjoy all this." He gestured at himself with absolutely zero humility. Like he was a prize at a carnival. A very expensive, very irritating carnival.
"Your ego is genuinely breathtaking." I kicked off my heels, groaning as my feet finally touched flat ground. "Do you practice in the mirror, or does it come naturally?"
But he was already standing so close. Shirt hanging open, revealing a chest that I absolutely did not notice was well-defined. Belt undone, hanging loose at his hips.
I could smell his cologne—something expensive and woody that had been tormenting me all day.
Could feel heat radiating off his skin, mere inches from mine. Could see the way his eyes had darkened, tracking down my body with an intensity that made my stomach flip.
The wedding ring burned against my finger like a brand.
The realization crashed over me in waves. I was someone's wife now. Legally bound to this infuriating man-child until death or divorce did us part. In a few months, I'd be someone's mother.
My entire life, the plans, the ambitions, the carefully constructed future I'd been building since I was old enough to understand what poverty cost, was officially, irrevocably over.
Everything I'd worked for. Everything I'd sacrificed. Gone.
Something reckless ignited in my chest.
The damage was done. The contracts were signed. The ring was on my finger and the baby was in my belly and nothing I did now could make things worse.
So why not make things interesting?
I grabbed his belt, yanking him forward until we were millimeters apart. His breath caught, actually caught, and I watched surprise flicker across his features before it was swallowed by something darker. Hungrier.
"I'm only agreeing to this," I murmured against his lips, "because thanks to you, I won't be having sex for nine months. Maybe longer. Pregnancy isn't exactly a libido booster."
I tugged harder, eliminating the last sliver of space between us. "Consider this collecting on a debt."
His voice dropped an octave, rough at the edges in a way that sent electricity sparking down my spine. "I'm very good at paying debts."
"Less talking." I fisted my hand in his open shirt. "More proving."
His mouth crashed into mine, and whatever remained of my rational thought dissolved on contact.
What followed was nothing like our drunken bathroom encounter.
This time, I was devastatingly, crystallinely sober—aware of every touch, every whispered word, every infuriatingly skillful thing Damon did with his hands and his mouth and the rest of him.
He walked me backward until my knees hit the bed, then lowered me onto those ridiculous silk sheets with a deliberateness that made my breath hitch.
His shirt was gone and he was working on the remaining buttons of my dress with fingers far more nimble than they had any right to be.
"This thing has too many buttons," he muttered against my collarbone.
"Complain to Victoria. She picked it."
"I'll send her a thank-you card instead." The dress finally gave way, and he pulled it down my body inch by agonizing inch, his mouth following the path of exposed skin. "For the view."
He unclasped my bra with one hand, show-off, and his mouth found my breast, tongue circling my nipple until I arched off the bed.
"Damon…"
"Mmm." The vibration against my sensitive skin made me gasp. "Keep saying my name like that."
His hand slid down my stomach, past my hip, fingers hooking into the lace of my underwear. He pulled them down slowly, deliberately, watching my face the entire time with those dark eyes that saw too much.
Then his hand was between my thighs, and I stopped thinking entirely. I was gasping against his shoulder and digging my nails into his back hard enough to leave marks.
His thumb found my clit with devastating precision, rubbing slow circles that had me writhing beneath him.
"That's it," he breathed against my throat, one hand tangled in my hair, the other working me with a rhythm that was driving me insane. "You're so wet already. Let me hear you."
"Shut up."
"Make me."
He added another finger, crooking them just right, and I bit down on his shoulder to muffle the moan that tore from my throat. He laughed. Bastard.
"Don't hide it." He pulled back to look at me, fingers still moving, still devastating. "I want to hear every sound."
I hated how good he was at this. Hated how my body responded to him like it had been waiting, like some traitorous part of me had spent months wondering what this would be like sober.
Hated the sounds he pulled from my throat—embarrassing, desperate sounds I'd never made before and would absolutely deny making later.
He positioned himself at my entrance, pausing just long enough to meet my eyes. "Say please."
"In your dreams."
He thrust into me in one smooth stroke. I cried out—couldn't help it. The stretch, the fullness, the way he filled me completely—it was overwhelming and perfect and infuriating all at once.
He gave me a moment to adjust, which was almost considerate, before he started to move.
Long, deep strokes that hit every nerve ending I possessed. His hips snapped against mine with a rhythm that was half controlled, half desperate.
I wrapped my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, and his groan was the most satisfying sound I'd ever heard.
"Fuck, Kitty." His forehead dropped to mine, breath ragged. He hiked my leg higher, changing the angle, and I actually saw stars.
"Come for me." His voice was wrecked, barely recognizable. "I want to feel you come."
"Don't tell me what to—oh God…"
The orgasm hit me like a freight train, pleasure crashing through me in waves that seemed endless.
I clenched around him, and he followed seconds later with a groan that I felt in my bones, spilling inside me with a final, shuddering thrust.
Hated the way he smirked when I gasped his name at the end. Like he was keeping score. Like every moan was a point in some competition I hadn't agreed to enter.
Mostly, I hated how much I didn't hate any of it at all.