Page 39 of Owned

My heartbeat thudded and I barely took in the formalities of signatures and paperwork that followed. The priest had other appointments so he left almost as soon as the ceremony was over, and then Charlotte, beaming at Atlas and I as if we were her children, said something about a celebratory drink.

Except the smile that had turned Atlas’s mouth had long gone and the grim expression was back. “No drinks,” he said curtly. “I need to talk to Rowan alone.”

Charlotte gave him a wicked smile. “I bet you do,” she said, her tone heavy with an insinuation that made me blush like a fool.

“Out,” Atlas growled at her, almost pulling her along to the door and basically shoving her out of it. Then he shut it behind her with slam and turned, stalking like a great cat across the expanse of the loft towards me, his mouth in a hard line.

My heartbeat thumped, my breath catching, but the look I gave him was calm and contained. Steady. He wasn’t going to ruffle me again. This time it was my turn to ruffle him.

“Well,” I said breezily. “Now that’s done, I suppose I should get back to work.” I gave him a look from beneath my lashes. “Unless you’ve got something else in mind?”

“Stop it.” The words were bitten off, making the satisfaction deepen inside me. I was bothering him that was clear. “That little strip tease you did before,” he continued. “Was that for my benefit?”

I’d wondered if he’d noticed and obviously he had. Good. “I was only putting on the dress,” I said, deciding to play the innocent to push him even more. “You bought it for me after all.”

Temper glittered in his eyes. “You want me to fuck you, Rowan? Is that what this is about?”

The blunt way he said it made my cheeks heat, which in turn caught at my own temper for letting him get to me. “Don’t you want to, Atlas?” I shot back in the same hard tone, consciously imitating him. “Isn’t that what this whole blowing hot and cold thing you’re doing is about?”

A muscle jumped in the side of his hard jaw, everything about him tense as he very obviously fought to control his anger.

Perhaps him being angry should have scared me because he was after all, much taller than I was, not to mention much more powerfully built, but I wasn’t scared. He’d never scared me, not in that way, and now, if anything, I felt even more satisfied. Because yes, I was getting to him. I was pushing him and if ever a man needed to be pushed it was Atlas Blackwood.

“You don’t even know what game you’re playing, do you?” he demanded.

“I’m not playing any game,” I said calmly. “You’re the one being a complete and utter fucking dick without giving me the slightest hint about what I’ve done wrong.”

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” he growled, taking another step towards me. “You just have no idea what you’re doing.”

“You keep saying that.” I lifted my chin, staring up at him. “So, tell me. What game am I supposed to be playing?”

He kept on staring at me, tension seething around his tall figure. “You’re pushing me, beauty. And you shouldn’t”

My skin tightened in response to the rough note in his voice. “Why not? I didn’t see you having any problem pushing me last week at La Chouette.”

“I apologized for that.”

“By getting me to tell you I wanted you before making me come, then getting pissed at me for some inexplicable reason.” This time it was my turn to take a step, half furious, half full exhilaration at my own daring. “I know you want me, Atlas. I saw how hard you were. So what’s the issue here?”

“Fuck’s sake,” he muttered. “You really want to know? Okay then. The issue is that my father was a complete and utter prick. He married my mother when she was twenty and he was in his forties. She loved him and he used that love to manipulate her, to get her to do anything he wanted. He fucked around, threw other women in her face, belittled her and undermined her, making her so miserable, she eventually took her own life when I was eighteen.”

Shock hit me and I blinked. I’d been expecting him to give me some sort of evasive nonsense not…this.

“He owned her,” Atlas went on, his eyes burning. “He was a controlling, narcissistic asshole and he owned her. And the problem, Rowan, is that I’m very much like him and what I’d like is to own you too.”

14

Atlas

Rowan stared me, open-mouthed, and who could blame her? She probably hadn’t been expecting me to dump all that onto her. But she’d been pushing me since I’d given her that orgasm, though to be fair, she had reason. I hadn’t been clear with her afterwards, too angry with that fucking beast inside me for wanting her, and with her for being so completely what it wanted. Which was unfair of me, but still. That didn’t change the fact that I was furious.

I shouldn’t have said anything, but her complete lack of understanding of the consequences of pushing me had been infuriating.

I’d been on the verge of showing her exactly what those consequences were when Charlotte had arrived for the wedding ceremony. I’d managed to pull it together enough to invite her in, but then I’d caught a glimpse of Rowan blatantly stripping her clothes off before stepping into the gown I’d bought her, all smooth, pale skin and rounded curves.

Afterwards she’d turned around, holding the flowers, the veil over her head and her hair loose, looking every inch the blushing, virginal bride. But I’d seen the way she’d looked up at me from beneath her lashes, deliberately sexy, deliberately sensual. She’d wanted me to see her undress, the beautiful little bitch. Getting me back, naturally, which had made the dark part of me stretch out, wanting to play.

I wasn’t playing though. I couldn’t give that part of me any airtime at all, so I’d kept an ironclad grip on myself the whole way through the ceremony. Ironic when I’d thought that she’d be the one to white-knuckle it.

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