Page 129 of Vicious Butterfly
There are two wars. The one Tate and I fight—begrudgingly—together, and the more violent and destructive one we fight against each other. If we’re unsuccessful, it’ll be because we’ve killed each other. It’s my only way out of this marriage, so murdering my “dear husband” isn’t off the table, yet.
I never got a copy of the marriage certificate. That’s Tate’s property, like everything else.
Including me.
All the words I’ve been waiting to scream at him die on my tongue. We come together at the same time. Vicious lips andvicious tongues. The only thing that really matters to us. We don’t care about anything, not even breathing, if it gets in the way of kissing each other. Every second of every day that I’ve craved him comes out of me. The sounds of us mauling one another fill the entryway. I need to get closer to him. Closer.Closer.
Need our hands on each other.
Can’t keep our hands off each other.
And it means he craved me, too. Maybe I don’t have anything else, but I have that.
We pull away panting. Glaring at each other.
“In,” he says, yanking me by the wrist. This place iswow. No wonder the front desk woman was squealing. It’s the height of extravagance. A couch that could seat twenty in front of floor-to-ceiling windows. Full kitchen. Fireplace. He drags me to the stairs, and at the top is a large, round bed covered in buttery black silk. “Clothes. Off.”
I’m too goddamn horny to resist. I need him. Want his big cock fucking me into that ostentatious mattress. We undress at the speed of light, both of us taking the opportunity to leer. Tate’s magnificent. Looming. Lips puffy from the way I was sucking them.
He steps toward me, close enough for his aura to swallow me and make me forget anything else but him. His thumb finds that place, the one between my bottom lip and the edge of my chin, nestling there, large fingers cupping my jaw. “God, you’re beautiful, dollface.”
Tate’s other hand palms and strokes my dick a few times, as he comes in for a kiss, and I moan into his mouth. “Want you,” he murmurs.
“Want you so fucking bad,” I admit.
“Can’t fucking believe you were showing this to your friends,” he growls, squeezing harder.
I wasn’t. We got into a conversation about our dick sizes. Don’t ask. But when Tate assumed that I was whipping my dick around the locker room, I loved how jealous he got. I knew it would get his attention.
“Guess you’d better stake your claim,” I say instead of admitting the truth. “Or maybe I do more than whip my dick out.”
Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t have said that. I’m having a hindsight moment, but taking a metaphorical cattle prod to the possessive beast in him brings me unparalleled joy. There’s a solid shove against my chest. I land on a bed of silk.
He tosses something at me, neon moonlight filtering over his taut skin. Tatum VanCourt is a mountain of a man. They must begin injecting VanCourts with steroids at birth. He’s bigger than I am, and I’m not a small guy by any stretch of the imagination.
“What’s this?” I say, turning it over in my hands. It’s a brown leather wrist cuff with a bold letterVin elegant font embossed into a square of paler brown.
“That’s your fucking collar, and I’d better never see you without it.”
I grit my teeth. “You’re a fucking asshole.”
He grabs my face, my jaw in one hand, digging his thumb and pointer finger into the cheeks, squeezing.
“Watch your fucking mouth when you speak to me.” He releases me roughly. “Put it on.Now.”
It’s okay. It’s okay, Ryan. One day you’re gonna put a knife through his fucking eye, and you’ll get to watch the life bleed out of him as you twist it.
Could I actually kill Tate? No. I know it in my bones, but they’re comfort thoughts. And who knows? If this keeps up, maybe I’ll be the one to fucking snap one day.
The cuff fits my wrist perfectly, as if it were made for me. I secure the snaps, turning my arm over and over to get a good visual. To see what other people will see. A sign of his ownership. Something that says I belong to him. A thrill goes through me. Straight to my fucking cock. I wish my body wouldn’t do that.
“What am I supposed to do? Pretend I’m involved in some sort of sex cult? Because my father won’t like that.”
He tries to grab my face again, and I slap his arm away this time, putting real strength behind it. He laughs like I’m a kitten swatting at a tiger. I’ll admit it, I am. I had no fucking clue what getting involved with him was really gonna be like. But I’ll never let him know that.
“You don’t belong to him anymore. You belong to me. You should be worried about what I want, dollface.”
My teeth grind.That name.Because he says I have the face of a pretty doll. Only him. No one’s ever mistaken me for a fucking doll before. They’re usually running the other way from me.
