Contractually Wed

Chapter Eight

CHAPTER EIGHT

I T WAS LONG past midnight and Jia thought her bones might crumble to dust if she so much as moved her little finger. But even sated to the point of exhaustion, she couldn’t fall asleep.

Apollo had been extra ruthless and demanding and insatiable since she’d slowly been gaining her strength back. There had been a near-frenzy to how he had made love to her, as if he had to make up for the time they had lost when she had been ill. As if he had worried about losing her.

Which was ridiculous because it had been an infection. Even that looked like a blessing given it had shifted something between them. Within her.

Admitting to the promise Mom had asked of her had provided a strange relief and rearrangement of facts in her head. After so many years, she thought of those days when Mom had been sick and everyone had been devastated and Jia had been at the center of the storm. She wondered how confused and scared her mom must have been to extract such a promise from a thirteen-year-old.

Had she ever truly loved Jia? Or had she only seen her as one mistake that she had to make up for, for the rest of her life?

It had taken Apollo’s relentless probing to make her question the patterns that had been set a decade ago.

Now this new experience of intimacy with him. A whole week of glutting on him, and not just sex either. He had taught her how to play chess in bed and she had taught him how to binge-watch reality shows—though the workaholic that he was didn’t have a natural talent for it. They worked briefly on some design modifications because Apollo had shockingly enough taken the week off, talked about the charity projects he had put aside a decade ago because he hadn’t the resources to see them through.

He demanded so much from her that she could imagine living in a different galaxy where she was the sun and he some orbiting planet. No one had ever wanted to know how she’d gotten every scar on her body, the meaning of her tattoos, or what her deepest dreams were and why she kept them locked tight.

One evening, he’d flown them to visit a large, and by that she meant vast , plot of land that he had bought two days prior.

He was building a new house there and would like her input for its design, he’d murmured when Jia had prodded him through sleep-heavy lids. Irritatingly enough, she had tired far too soon on their outing and had been almost drifting to sleep. Now she had a feeling he’d whispered the truth because he had thought her out of it.

A house for their family .

It was a commitment she’d never expected from this relationship, never dreamed of from this marriage when she’d broken into his penthouse in New York.

The prospect of that dream, of letting herself see that far into the future, made her heart dance far too fast in her chest, coated her skin with slick sweat.

God, despite her best intentions to safeguard her heart, she wanted it all. To belong to him, to build a new life with him, to root herself to him and the house he wanted to build for them...meant hoping and wishing and praying that he would always want her with the same intensity. That he would always see the value in having her in his life. That someday, he wouldn’t see a mistake when he looked at her, like her Mom always had.

And that kind of faith in him and herself... Jia didn’t know how to build it, much less hold on to it. She’d never been shown how.

When her rational mind showed her the prospect of leaving him behind one day, as if to protect her, her heart raced. Her limbs shook. She pushed herself up on her elbow, to better drink in his haughty, rough-hewn features.

His dark hair was graying at the temples and his mouth, relaxed in his sleep, was lush and wide. The column of his throat, the defined musculature of his chest and abdomen, everything about him screamed hardness. And yet, he could be so incredibly tender with her.

In sleep, he looked like the man he’d buried deep under his motives and ambition, the man who hadn’t deserted her for a minute when she’d been sick. The man who would do anything for his family but somehow found himself outside of the tight unit.

Jia hadn’t missed the distinction.

His mother and sisters loved him and yet, she’d sensed the painful rift, especially between his mother and Apollo. And ever since she’d caught snippets of its source, she finally saw beyond the machinations and the thirst for power to the tormented man beneath it all. Her heart ached with the need to take away his burden, to make him see what kind of man he was outside of this revenge that had consumed two decades of his life.

Giving in to the urge, she traced the bridge of his nose with the tip of her finger and then the bow-shaped curve of his upper lip.

Such little expectations of the people around you , he had said, mocking her.

And it had been easy to follow that edict. Except now, with him. Beneath his obvious anger toward her brother and father, beneath his very righteous belief that here was another way her father was a villain, had been something else though. Something more.

It was such a tempting illusion that Jia fell back against the bed, shaking.

A large, rough palm landed on her belly before long fingers traced the curve of her hip with a possessive familiarity that made her breath come in little pants. “Not tired enough for sleep?”

“I’m...restless tonight.” She was standing at a crossroads, and her heart wanted to go one way and her mind another. One way lay the rational, no-risk, empty life she’d always lived and the other way...lay the possibility of infinite happiness. “Confused,” she added, feeling this uncharacteristic urge to bare all of herself to him.

“About?” he said, a grave tone to the single word.

“About myself, you. And us.” Each word ripped her out from under all the shackles she had bound herself with. Released her into a new terrifying world. But she couldn’t stay put anymore, not after tasting this joy with Apollo.

“What about us?” He practically growled the words at her.

“Why do you want to build another house when we can live in this one?”

“It’s a fresh start.” He replied readily enough that she knew he had been thinking of it too. “For us.”

Or a fresh start for him?

The words he didn’t say danced between them, shocking Jia with their vulnerability.

Because this house was tainted with his need to prove something to the world? Because it was tied to the shadow of a man he had not let go of? Because he was finding himself in a new place with her, and wanted to let go of old things like revenge and reparation?

Excitement skittered through her. “If I sign over my stock in my father’s company to you tomorrow, instead of three years later as he and you agreed on, will this all be over?”

Delaying the stock transfer was the one thing her father had asked of her when Apollo had given her ten minutes to leave. The one thing she’d promised herself she’d never do.

And yet here she was, ready to betray the man who had raised her.

He only raised you. He wasn’t really a father.

She heard the cruel words in Apollo’s voice.

The idea took root in her head and was already spreading its gnarled whispers all over, solidifying. What if she could give Apollo what he wanted and this was over? What if it meant a real fresh start for the both of them, and not just a shiny new house? What if it meant there were no conditions hanging over their relationship?

Behind her, Apollo stiffened. Sudden tension swathed them, as if forming their very own bubble. “What?”

“It would bring you controlling percentage in the company, yeah?”

“Yes.”

“It’s what you wanted all along?”

“Yes.”

“If you promise that—”

“He will never forgive you.”

“Someday, he will realize that I protected him, that I did only what was best for them. But for now, it will be over.”

“He will never realize that, never give you what you’re seeking.”

“What I choose to believe is my prerogative, ne ?” she said, imitating his gruff tone. “So, tell me, will it be over?”

“Will what be over?”

“Your...revenge. This pursuit of his destruction.”

“You’re not signing your stock over to me. What I want will be mine, soon.”

“Yes, we’ve established that, Apollo. And really, I’m just...”

“Just what, agapi ?”

“I’m thinking of what I want my life to look like in a few years. Thinking of what I want for the first time,” she said, giving free rein to the emotions sitting like a tight fist at the center of her chest. It was easier when she wasn’t looking into that unfathomable gray gaze and wondering if she’d one day drown. “I haven’t ever, you know. Thought about what I want, where I want to live, how I want to work and—”

“Let me know when you figure out the specifics.”

“Why?”

“So that I can give it to you.”

Jia shivered at the steely resolve in those words. Apparently, there was no doubt in his head that he wanted to be married to her for the distant future.

She didn’t know what to make of that certainty. Was this chemistry and compatibility enough for him? Did he truly think they could last a lifetime with their pasts so murkily tangled and their foundation built on a cold arrangement? “That’s an ambitious promise,” she finally said, running her fingers over the coarse hair on this forearm.

His laughter spread ripples on the back of her neck. “You married a man for whom nothing is impossible. I thought you understood your commitment to me.”

She could feel his frown like a burn on her cheek as he fully turned toward her, almost angry that her emotions, and she, dared to not follow his dictates. And that made her smile. Because underneath all the ruthless bluster and grumpy dictates, her husband hid a heart of gold.

One hairy, muscled leg thrown over hers, he pulled her closer, and his mouth descended to her neck. That spot where once he kissed her, she lost all reason and logic and self-preservation.

She arched her neck as his teeth grazed the sensitive spot, dampness blooming between her thighs, as easily as if flipping a switch.

“All this talk of your restlessness has made me restless. Only one thing would cure it,” he said, each word pinging over her skin.

“It’s always only one thing with you,” she said, stretching into his touch.

“I want to be inside you,” he said, laving the bite with his tongue. Breathing the words into her skin. “Now. Say yes, agapi . Parakalo .”

When Jia might have turned toward him, he stopped her, one arm crisscrossing between her bare breasts, and the other hand coasting down her side, waist to hip to thigh, finger slowly creeping across her lower belly. Tiny trembles began to skitter across her flesh like ripples on water.

“You’re distracting me and it won’t...” she whispered, but the thought never fully formed as he dipped his fingers into her folds.

She jerked as he pinched her clit, and traced every inch of her aching flesh until her wetness coated his fingers, and then he told her how it felt when he was inside of her, and how she clenched tight when she thought he might retreat, and how he thought it couldn’t get better when he came inside of her but it did. Every single time, it got better.

Words and fingers and lips...he used them all to drive her out of her skin.

She wanted to protest—she wanted to talk to him—but God, the man was enormously talented and Jia moaned as he speared her with two fingers.

“I don’t like it when you don’t fall in with my plans, wife.”

“You don’t want a wife. You want a doll who’ll play along and be your... Oh.”

His mouth was at her nipple, licking, sucking and nipping. Jia had never lost a battle this willingly and this fast.

“No, Tornado,” he said, withdrawing his fingers, leaving her empty, lost. “I want you , only you, willing and happy and amenable to my plans.”

“Come inside me, Apollo,” she said, those words propping her up for now, “and I will fall in with any plans, please.”

As if all he’d needed was her assent, he lifted her leg and probed her wanton, wet flesh with the head of his cock and then he was thrusting into her from behind and Jia thought she might be the exploding sun itself.

It was a sore, tight fit with a delicious burn in this position but she didn’t want to be anywhere else. She didn’t want anything else. She felt engulfed by him and she loved it.

Hands kneading and cupping her flesh all over, keeping her still and soft for his tender assault, Apollo set a merciless rhythm, pounding into her. The slap of their flesh, the erotic tussle of their breaths, the words he whispered into her skin...pleasure suffused every inch of her. Their bodies slipped and slid together as if made for each other, racing toward a pinnacle she’d want again and again.

It was only after their climaxes nearly broke them that Jia realized she’d tried to put everything on the line for him. And he hadn’t wanted it.