Page 40 of Owned

It was difficult though, given I’d said those same vows — vows I hadn’t meant then and I didn’t mean now — to her mother. And I was painfully aware that it wasn’t Cait beside me now, but Rowan.

Rowan and her sweet, jasmine scent, the white gown molding to the curves of her breasts and hips, while the silk of her veil made a tantalizing mystery of her lovely face. Her cheeks had been pink beneath that silk when I’d turned to her, and her eyes dark. As dark as they’d been when I’d had her hair in my fist and my hand between her thighs.

I shouldn’t have been thinking that, yet I hadn’t been able to stop. And then things had gotten worse when I’d produced the rings — hers with sapphires for her eyes, because again, I’d thought she deserved something pretty — and she’d stared at me in surprise. It had given me a kick of illicit satisfaction, that surprise, another thing I shouldn’t be feeling.

Fuck, I should have gotten rid of her the same time I’d gotten rid of Charlotte. Called her an Uber and sent her back to work, let it all be done with.

But I hadn’t. I’d pushed Charlotte out the door instead.

So now we were here, alone. And I was furious. With her and with myself for being at the mercy of own my fucking dick, unable to turn her away when I knew I should. Wanting to show her the consequences of pushing me, because she needed to know that it was a very. Bad. Idea.

I hadn’t needed to give her the truth, but I’d demanded the truth from her, and since I wasn’t going a fucking hypocrite, I’d told her about my father. And now she knew, she’d at least understand why there couldn’t be more between us than the empty vows we’d said and the rings that meant nothing on our fingers.

“You want to own me,” she echoed, as if the words had no meaning.

“Yes,” I said. “And given what happened to my mother, you’ll appreciate why I can’t have anything more to do with you.”

Rowan’s dark brows drew down. She was still holding the peonies, the white silk of her wedding gown clinging to her curves, the silvery fall of the veil falling down her back, her glossy black hair gleaming beneath it.

Your virgin bride. Yours.

The muscle in the side of my jaw flexed as I ignored the thought.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “I’m very sorry about your mother, that must have been awful. But I’m not her and you’re nothing like your father.”

“No. But I am nearly twenty years older than you and have exponentially more experience, and I….” My hands were clenched into fists so I tried to relax them. “Want to do things to you that I should not want to do.”

Rowan’s dark gaze searched my face. There was no temper there now, just puzzlement. “What things? What does owning me even mean?”

There was no point trying to sugarcoat it so I didn’t. “You doing whatever I want, whenever I want,” I said. “No arguments, no protests. No compromise. You’re mine and only mine, body and soul.”

She blinked, long, silky lashes fluttering. “That doesn’t sound…too terrible.”

Yeah, she didn’t get it, not at all.

“You think so?” I held her gaze. “Everything will revolve around me, beauty. You are there for my pleasure and my pleasure alone. What you want is irrelevant. In other words, I have ultimate control of you. You’re my property, to do what I want with. That’s what owning something means.”

Her gaze wavered. “Oh.”

“And when it comes to sex, my way goes,” I went on, laying it all out for her so she knew exactly what she was getting into. Saying out loud the fantasies that I’d never let myself have, not with anyone. “I want you adoring me. I want you obsessed with me. I want you to submit to me, do whatever I tell you to do. I want you to be my little fuck toy that I get to play with when the mood takes me, and you don’t get to tell me no. You don’t get to deny me anything at all. Everything is about me. Everything.”

A silence fell and I let it sit there. Let her process exactly what I was saying.

“Um…so…why me?” she asked eventually. “Surely you must have…uh…owned someone else before?”

“I haven’t. I’ve never let that part of me out of its cage. At least not until you came along.” I didn’t hold back the note of accusation that had entered my voice. “You watching me fuck Tina in Arcadia, and it got you all hot and bothered. You giving me big eyes at the restaurant last week, looking up at me like I was the one star in your sky. You being everything I shouldn’t touch and shouldn’t want.” I’d stalked slowly towards her as I said the words, hardly conscious of it until I realized that we were only a breath away from each other. “You being a virgin and untouched. You giving me your trust when you let me touch you, and not even knowing what you’d given me.” I bared my teeth. “You making me feel like my father for wanting a woman half my fucking age and wanting to own her the way he fucking owned my mother.”

She blinked again, but didn’t back away. “I’m sorry you feel that way, but you don’t have to do that with me. We can just?—”

“No,” I interrupted, beginning to lose the already fragile grip I had on my patience. “No, we fucking can’t. You’ve got me crossing a line, Rowan. You’ve got that beast in me rattling its cage. I’ve got no control when it comes to you, and that’s why nothing can happen between us, because you give me a single inch, I’ll take a fucking mile.” I took another step to really hammer home the point. “I’ll take everything.”

Another rapid blink, her knuckles white where she gripped her bouquet. “So, what? That’s it? We can’t even have a conversation about it?”

“We are having a conversation about it.”

“No, we’re not. You’re telling me what you want and expecting me to turn tail.”

“Of course I am,” I snarled. “And if you had any fucking brains that’s exactly what you should do.”

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