“I do,” he says, loud enough that his voice carries to the rafters.
“And you, Isabella Marie Bradley, will you have this man to be your husband in holy matrimony? Will you honor him, obey him, and keep him in sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live?”
Blood thunders through my veins. This one moment will change my life forever. I will honor him. I will obey him. That’s what my family needs, even if my knees feel like jelly under my dress. He waits for me with the patience of the moon. “I do.”
Triumph shines in his dark gaze.
The priest says a few more words before pronouncing us man and wife. “You may kiss the bride,” he says.
“Marie?” Francisco murmurs. My middle name.
I feel lightheaded. Maybe it’s adrenaline. Or maybe it’s the corset. Or maybe it’s the fact that he touches his knuckles to my chin, lifting my face to his. “My grandmother’s name.”
His head descends.
My eyes flutter closed. In the darkness, I can pretend that no one else is in the room. There’s only empty space—him and me, alone.
His lips brush mine. Heat licks through my body. His mouth glances over mine, again and again. It’s not perfunctory, this kiss. Not a form of punctuation or even a command.
It’s a conversation, much like the murmured one we had before our vows. He asks questions in this kiss and receives answers. My breath stutters. If the kiss in the boardroom was a greeting, this one is an intimate conversation over candlelight.
Light presses between my eyelids. We’re not really alone. Everyone’s watching us. Everyone’s waiting. It feels like the entire cathedral holds its breath. We should stop. I can hear my mother’s voice in the back of my mind. There’s probably some arcane etiquette rule for how long a couple can kiss at the altar. Whatever it is, we’ve already gone over the limit.
Francisco is in no hurry. One hand holds me at my waist, keeping me steady on my heels. The other cradles my jaw. I am both cherished and dominated in this moment. I both honor and obey as he coaxes my lips apart. His tongue presses inside for a small, possessive lick. I gasp, and he relents as if he was waiting for my true acquiescence.
Then he leads me down the aisle. I’m blind to the faces on either side. Somehow I manage a bright smile. It’s his arm that supports me all the way down.
Chapter Four
Francisco
A virgin. How the hell did I end up married to a virgin?
“Leave us,” I mutter to the wedding planner. She’s been hovering around Isabella like a bee to a flower. Doing what, I don’t know. My bride looks perfect. A perfect doll that I have had dressed to my exacting specifications. It’s proof of my perversity that the idea makes me hot. I can move her arms and legs as if she’s made of plastic.
I can dress her. And undress her.
The doll in question circles the small room. We’re in a private lounge as we wait for the reception to be ready. The crowd sent us away from the church after the ceremony. A photographer rode with us in the limo, snapping away.
This is the first time we’ve been alone.
“What happens next?” she says, not quite meeting my eyes.
The wedding ceremony was well attended with five hundred people in the cathedral. The reception will be even larger. Almost eight hundred people are pouring into the Bradley Hotel Paris’s ballroom right now. They’re wearing their best clothes, their finest jewels. Drinking the best champagne as they wait for us to make our debut. “When everyone’s arrived, we’ll be formally presented to the room. Then dinner. Dancing.”
“Dinner?” she asks in a dry tone. “I haven’t even started cooking.”
She’s funny, my new wife. That’s something I didn’t know about her. There’s a lot I don’t know about her. “Chicken, beef, or fish?”
That brown gaze flicks to me and then away. “None of the above. I’m a vegetarian.”
My eyebrows raise. “For how long?”
“For forever. I saw a documentary in middle school about the treatment of animals in factories and modern farms, and I just couldn’t do it anymore.”
“Then why are you serving meat at your reception?”
She gives me a tremulous laugh. “Would you have wanted to eat tofu for dinner?”
“I would have wanted to respect my wife’s wishes.”
“Well, your wife wishes to make the eight hundred people happy.”
“What about her husband? Does she want to make him happy?”
“Him, too.”
“Then sit down. You’re pacing.”
She stops abruptly. Her body is completely still, but the delicate white flowers threaded through her hair continue to quiver. It gives the effect that she’s flying, fluttering. Constantly in motion. “This is strange. Right? It’s not just me?”
“Are you nervous?”
“Of course.”
There’s a knot in my stomach. “Are you afraid of me?”
“No,” she says, too quickly.
She is. She should be. Obedience. Submission. Extreme kink. Isabella might have researched those things. I hinted at them, after all. But she won’t understand fully until she experiences them herself.
That’s her new reality with me.
A controlled reality.
None of the emotion or drama that plagued my parents. None of the betrayal. This would be a straightforward arrangement. Painless. For me, anyway. There will be plenty of pain for her. Pleasure, too. I have so many plans for her.
Those plans begin now.
“That couch over there,” I say in a voice both casual and firm. There’s a smattering of armchairs in the room. I want her on the couch, something large enough to support her elaborate gown.
Isabella looks determined, and a little stoic. There’s curiosity in her gaze. That will help. And a willingness to please. That makes my cock hard. She starts to sit, but the long train of her gown gets in the way. I help her tuck it over the back of the sofa, help her sit down off her high heels. It’s gentlemanly. Gentlemanly unless you know what’s on my mind.
I stand in front of her, and she looks up at me. That pose. Those eyes. God. I want her mouth around my cock, but that will have to wait.
Training takes time. The first thing she needs to know is that obedience is rewarded.
“Spread your legs, my dear wife.”
Her eyes go wide. “What?”
“You heard me. I’m going to claim my husbandly rights.”
“Now? Here?”
I don’t bother responding with words. My silence is answer enough. I wait, my cock like iron, my blood pumping. This is what I’ve been waiting for. This is what I’ve been wanting. Part of me wants her to rebel, so I can have the sweet pleasure of punishment. The other part knows how to ride the edge, to push her only slightly past her boundaries, to make her complicit in her own debasement.
She swallows hard. “What if someone comes in? What if the wedding planner comes back?”
“She won’t.” She was hired for her discretion as much as her skill. There is no chance of her coming back inside. It’s clear what I wanted when I ordered her to leave. The wedding planner knew. If there’s staff outside, they also know. Only my new wife was naïve enough to think I wouldn’t taste what was mine.