Page 70 of Unseen

“Why are you being gentle with me now?” My jaw quivered, and my eyes fluttered closed as he brushed soft kisses along my neck.

“Because this is what you need tonight.” He pushed inside me, and my breath caught in my lungs. “I told you, Evie. I know you. I’m the only one…” He groaned as he withdrew, almost to the tip, then slowly, achingly, entered me again. “The only one who really knows you. You cannot hide from me.”

His thrusts were slow, and while I wanted him to move faster, to drive me to that blissful peak, I did not urge him on.

“Does that feel good for you?” He asked as I whimpered.

“Yes.” I nodded, clasping onto his arms.

“This is how we shall spend our honeymoon,” he chuckled breathlessly. “Teaching you all the ways a body may feel pleasure.”

“I-I want to pleasure you too.”

“You do, beloved.” He groaned loudly, his own legs shaking, his chest shuddering against my back. “You do, by simply existing.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to shut out all the sweetness that flooded me at these words. I could not bear him speaking to me in this way. It felt too much like love, and this felt too much like lovemaking, the very thing he had so scornfully derided. Now I was encased by his strong arms, my sweat mingling with his, and he was telling me how precious I was, how his life had meaning now that I was his wife.

But if I wanted to scurry away and run, hide from these emotions, from Azriel’s declarations of something as perverse as love, my body did not acknowledge it. For when Azriel pressed a hand to my stomach, I saw stars, a white hot burning in my vision as I collapsed into that sweet agony. I screamed out my release, and Azriel followed me swiftly, groaning out my name against my neck.

“Evie, Evie, my Evie.” He crooned, exhaling shakily. “No one will ever take you from me. I swear it.”

His words brought my reality crashing back into the room. My family had no wealth, certainly, but they still had a good name. They still had something to defend in the eyes of all good society. And I knew they would defend it ardently.

Whatever the next day would bring, it was likely they would seek to have my marriage to Azriel dissolved. I would have to be convincing. I would have to throw myself at my aunt’s feet. I would have to appeal to her good nature as the only mother I had ever known.

“Where are you?” Azriel asked after a while, stroking his fingers down my side. “You are so quiet, beloved.”

“I am only thinking on tomorrow.” I whimpered softly as he withdrew from me, and I turned in his arms so we were face to face. “You must not be there. Please, believe me whenI tell you that it will be better if I see her alone. I will make a case for our marriage.”

He sighed heavily, stroking the hair from my forehead. “You must know what I will do if they try to take you.”

I frowned at him. “They will not.”

“If they do, I will tell them what you did.” His arms caged around me as I gasped and tried to move away from him. “I am not above that, my little viper. Do not think for one moment that I would let you go so easily.”

“You bastard!” I flailed against his iron grip, fury replacing the heat of my climax. “You lie here and call me yours,Your Evie, and then you would throw me to the wolves anyway?”

“Not to the wolves, Evie. To your own people. Who would surely not wish for you to die.”

“But you would reveal my shame to them? My crime? How could they ever look at me again?”

“How could they look at you now?” He pinned me down on the bed, kissing me, hard and punishing, while I protested. “You said it yourself, you have fallen from all good society. But you must decide now just how far you are willing to fall in their estimations of you.”

I leaned up, my teeth snapping at his face, and he laughed cruelly.

“I hate you, Azriel Caine!” I writhed under him, bucking with my hips to try and shift his weight. “I hate you! Get off me!”

“I told you I am not a good man,” he murmured against my ear. “Now, perhaps you will believe me.”

Azriel finally let me up, and I scrambled off the bed, snatching up my robe and frantically pulling it around me. My cheeks burned with humiliation. I was so unbelievably stupid. To be so blind, to think for one moment this man could truly care for me, care for anyone.

Without another word, I fled his room, running down the stairs and corridors back to my room. I blinked away hot tears as I filled the syringe with water and baking soda, unable to suppress a sob as I washed away the proof of what had happened between us.

How in heaven’s name was I going to convince my aunt that I needed this man, that I loved him more than life itself, when he had just shamed and humiliated me, threatened me in the worst possible way?

I hated him. I wished I had never gone to him. He had indeed driven me insane - insane enough to believe a man like Azriel Caine was even capable of something as pure as love.

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