Hateful Games: (An arranged marriage billionaire romance) (Arranged Games Book 2)

Chapter Fifty-eight

Nova is facing the bar when I enter the beautifully lit deck, rivaling the stars in the night sky. A candlelit dinner table set in the middle.

At the sound of my heels, he turns.

His eyes turning molten at the sight of my dress.

A red cocktail gown.

I might’ve made an exception tonight. My own gait falters. My hungry gaze roaming down his solid frame in an all-black suit sans tie, hugging him in all the right places. He’s styled his hair tonight. Instead of being in disarray—the way I’m obsessed with—his locks are slicked back over his forehead. Highlighting the sharp angles of his sinful face.

His penetrating gaze washes over me in a caress.

They flare in carnality at the daring plunging neckline with ruching below my belly button. The halter neck style leaves my back completely nude while the long skirt flares out around my high heels.

Despite the cool wind, swirling because of the waves of the ocean, it’s his hooded stare sending a shiver down my spine.

I stay where I am when he takes a step toward.

He doesn’t rush in closing the distance, still dragging his hawklike gaze up my belly piercing to rest on my face.

My lips—swollen from his filthy kisses all day—tingle in anticipation. The tanned skin peeking through the unbuttoned top half of his shirt has me aching to press my mouth and taste the remnants of ocean salt on his skin.

Nova doesn’t pause once he’s close, sending my pulse racing. Like a predator homing in on his prey, he circles around me and stops behind my back. Still not touching me for long, tortuous seconds.

It’s sweet mercy when he finally does.

I moan low, arching up when he trails a singer along my naked spine.

“Why red?” His tone is low and gravelly. “Did you make an exception for me, Rose?”

“Maybe.”

“So, yes.” Brushing aside my curls to the front of my shoulder, his fingers wrap around the back of my neck. A reminder of his power and dominance over me. His hair and warm breath tease my collarbone. His mouth peppers me with soft kisses, nipping my skin with his teeth as they leave a wet trail to my ear.

“Nova,” I whimper when he bites the lobe.

“You’re looking like my meal, wife.” One arm hauls me flush against his hard body. His thick cock digging into my ass. “I’ve never seen someone so gorgeous and divine.”

“Thank you,” I whisper. A fiend for his compliments.

“You only wear any other color for me, Rose,” he growls possessively. “Do you hear me?”

His deep voice in my ear, his scent drugging my senses, I would’ve said yes to anything. “Okay.”

“Good girl.” Rounding to my front, his hands span my waist. With his right thumb, he circles the piercing. My clit pulses as he tugs and twists, staring at the movement with his bottom lip trapped between his teeth.

I watch, starstruck, when he pushes one hand into his suit jacket and pulls out a small blue velvet box. Cartier written on the top. When he flips it open, my breath catches in my throat at the blinding white diamond.

Staring at the size, I know it’s not a ring.

But a belly ring.

Nova did say he will buy me one, but I thought he simply said it in the heat of the moment. My abs contract when he silently and carefully pulls out my old piercing, expertly replacing it with the new and expensive one in the shape of a rose.

I don’t stop him.

Loving the idea of wearing his mark.

“Just when I thought you couldn’t look even more perfect,” he rasps. “And mine.”

Nova loves to spoil.

There’s no doubt about it.

Whether that’s an exception for me or all the women he dates… I don’t know.

I clutch his forearms when he slides his hands upward and shamelessly cups my breasts. His thumb grazing the nipples until they harden from his attention. “These are going to be next.”

If possible, my nipples pucker even more, causing a little smirk to appear on his handsome face.

Closing my agape mouth, he leads me to the cozy and romantic dining table. Charming and a gentleman, he pulls out my chair and tucks it in when I sit down.

“Is this your way of making up for all my dinner dates you ruined?” I amusedly ask as he settles down across from me. My heart rate kicking up when he absently unbuttons his suit jacket before sitting.

Darkness descends and his jaw hardens. “It would be, if I regretted them.”

“You’re not even a little bit sorry?”

“I don’t share you,” he states matter-of-factly. “Not then, not now, not ever.”

I glance away as I reply, “There was one time.”

Perhaps I’m making a mistake bringing this up but ever since confronting me, Nova has been pretending it didn’t happen. Does he care if I regret it? Or does it not matter to him because he’d been sleeping with other women too? The latter I have no clue about.

He waits until I’m looking back at him to coldly ask, “Were you attracted to Malcolm or did you sleep with him because any man, who wasn’t me, would’ve done?”

“Does the why matter?”

“You brought this up, Rose.”

“I hated you. I was mad at a situation that was out of my control. I didn’t want to lose my virginity to a man I despised.”

“Do you hate me still?”

Suddenly I’m incapable of speech because I’m too scared to confess the truth to myself, let alone to him. Hell, I came to Vegas just to put distance between us and get my head on straight. To cure myself of the crush I was—am—developing on him.

Like a moth to a flame, he found me.

I was in disbelief he left everything—his work—behind to come get me.

Instead of spilling all of it, I ask with an edge to my voice, “Why aren’t you mad? You can’t stand the thought of me with another man, yet you’re completely okay with me fucking your best friend.”

“Does it upset you that I’m not?”

His casual tone grates on my nerves. “It upsets me that I don’t want you to be.”

There’s the bloody truth.

Twisted and dangerous.

My intent from all those years ago have done a complete one-eighty. I went from wanting to break his arrogance to regretting it. It was an impulsive decision, fueled by betrayal and hatred.

“If all you wanted was to hurt me, Rose,” Nova says, peering deeply at me. “You accomplished that. The reason I’m not going insane with rage is because I know you didn’t have feelings for Malcolm. You neither did in the past nor you do today.”

“What if I had?”

Expression devoid of mercy, like a psychopath, he shrugs and states, “Then he’d be lying dead in a ditch. Right beside your uncle.” His rugged face illuminated by the candles, he leans forward. “If you’re not mine, you’re not going to be anyone else’s.”

In other words… Either I fall in love with him.

Or forget loving anyone.

“What if I don’t want to be yours?” I ask in a small voice. “Will you never let me be happy with someone else?”

“Do you want the truth that you already know or the lie to feed your delusion that you’ll never let me in your heart?”

Said organ threatens to beat out of my chest. “The truth.”

“No.”

“You can’t force someone to love you, Nova.”

“Why not?”

“Because then it’s Stockholm syndrome, not love.”

“I told you, Rose. You and I… it’s for eternity.” His deep and raspy voice is soft yet fierce. It leaves no room for doubt to creep in. “I’m still the same man. Only, my motives have changed. Instead of letting you go, I’m going to make you mine. Make you want me so fiercely that you can’t bear the thought to leave me, let alone fall for some other man.”

***

Nova’s deranged, almost to the point of obsessive, words haven’t stopped plaguing my mind since last night.

We’re either we’re at one extreme or the other.

One minute, I think I finally understand him better, and the next, I’m questioning my damn morals and common sense for falling for his possessive words.

The fucked-up part is neither makes me want to run for the hills.

Rather to him.

It must be the only explanation why I’m upset for finding his side of the bed empty as I wake up. He’s an early sleeper and riser but he’s always hovering around me in the mornings. Whether it’s reading the newspaper, his emails, or sitting shirtless against the headboard with my head on his lap.

Today, our bedroom in the luxurious suite of his yacht is devoid of his presence.

Only sign he was here are the rumpled sheets on his side.

The dinner date last night was rather tense and I just needed a breather from his intensity. So, I made an excuse about how I was tired from our activities of the day, which wasn’t exactly a lie, and went to bed.

According to the conversation I heard between him and the captain, our arrival destination today is Riviera Romagnola. I’ve never visited it but know it’s wildly popular for its unforgettable nightlife.

Dancing the night away in a club does sound nice.

Sitting up in bed, I pick up my phone from the nightstand to check in with the girls. However, my attention is captured by another notification.

The one which sends adrenaline pumping in my veins.

And a low throb in my pussy.

A guilty pleasure of mine that I promise to quit after each time. With the stress of the wedding, and then moving in with Nova, it got completely erased from my mind.

It glares in my face, tempting me with its danger and allure.

After the night of Nova’s secret graduation party, my curiosity had gotten the best of me and I fell down the rabbit hole of primal play. If there were similar parties with higher stakes happening around, I had fought its lure but after a few weeks, I gave in. In the privacy of my bedroom, I had begun researching the kink community and the lifestyle.

It was different than reading it in books.

This felt more real. The risk, the stakes… the magnetism. Like a siren’s song, calling me to dip my toes. The rush I had felt in being chased in the dark caverns gave me the confidence I had felt missing.

The fear and anxiety were replaced by thrill.

I wanted more.

As if fate was on my side, I stumbled upon The Provocative Playground. It wasn’t exactly a club but an elite group hosting a fetish-themed event, bringing one’s fantasies to life, around the world. When I read primal play, I signed up without a single thought. After doing my due diligence, of course.

Once I knew it was safe, I accepted their invitation. Before every party, or play, as they liked to call it, they would send all the instructions and the rules. A form asking for my hard and soft limits, there was even a box allowing one to choose sex or no sex.

Everything—including the scene and the partner—was carefully outlined to provide safety and the utmost satisfaction to their clientele.

I was nineteen the first time I attended. A nervous ball of energy, ridden with doubts but oddly excited. I was taking control of the awful tragedy that had left invisible scars for years.

Maybe it was a twisted way of coping.

But it was healing me in a way nothing ever had.

Some might claim it wasn’t normal to crave sex from being chased, manhandled, and fucked roughly but the freedom in submitting like that was nothing short of powerful and heady. I craved it. I wanted it.

The hunt.

The chase.

The sweet ecstasy.

The men I slept with over the years were a blur of scary masks as I let them ravage my body. Except now, the same thrill lurks but the faceless mask is replaced by Nova’s face.

My husband, who is oblivious to my darker proclivities.

Reading the notification as it conveys the next playground night is in Milan, I’m held in a precarious position because a part of me wants to go, unprepared to say goodbye to that part of my life. Another urges me to confess to him. He’s as deviant and dirty as me in bed.

He doesn’t treat me delicately.

He pushes my limits.

However, after last night, I’m not sure how he’d feel. One man he could make peace with, but a long string of them is bound to send him into a bloody spree of rage.

With Nova stalking my every move, will I even be able to sneak away?

Do I even want to risk his wrath?

Because the alternative is… giving him every last bit of me. A power like that in his hands is like giving the obsessed and infatuated devil the string to your life.