Hupotasso (Vampire Bachelor Games #2)

7

7

I sit on my bed in my puffy gown and stare at the bare walls.

Jag escorted me here and left me with a perfunctory nod about two hours ago.

I don’t have a watch, but I estimate it’s probably one or two in the morning by now. It’s still dark out and the weather is still raging, as am I.

A maid had come in not long ago and stoked up the fire, but when I’d asked to use a phone she’d told me to “ring the bell” if I needed anything and bustled out as though the hounds of hell were on her tail.

If she hadn’t literally run out, I would have asked her to unlace me from the tightly corseted gown I’m still trapped in and tell me where the hell my suitcase is, but the phone question had obviously rattled her.

My own phone, surrendered when I’d entered The Games, has still not been returned. I can’t think why, unless I truly am being held prisoner and Falcon intends to isolate me completely. But I’m trying, desperately, not to think this is the case.

Jag had promised he’d speak to him and sort things out, but in the meantime I dearly want to ring my parents and tell them I’m OK. Despite trying to look happy at the wedding I hadn’t fooled my mother. Her face was white and strained throughout the ceremony, and each time I looked at her she gave me that worried ‘what’s wrong?’ look.

But I hadn’t had a chance to talk to her, or anyone for that matter. The early evening televised ceremony attended by humans, including my family, had been quick. The second vampire-only ritual had been long, decidedly creepy and tedious; more like a business deal than a ceremony. Unlike human weddings, there was no reception. No sooner had the vampire ceremony finished than I’d been ushered into the limo.

And now here I am, alone in a bare, rock-walled room with a window the size of a postage stamp, a rug, a four-poster bed swathed in dark-blue velvet curtains, a fireplace, a changing screen, and a bathtub. Apart from the bed my room has none of the luxury or creature comforts I’d glimpsed when I’d visited Falcon’s family as part of The Games.

I know I’m being punished — and I’m mad as hell and heartsick.

The man I love doesn’t trust me, doesn’t trust my feelings for him, and certainly doesn’t appear to have any of the feelings he once indicated he had for me.

My brain returns to the inevitable worry loop it’s been on for months, suppressed but not forgotten.

‘He’d never said he loved me. He’d been honest that there could never be vampire and human love. I just hoped I could change him. I wanted him to love me so badly that I believed he would. I thought if I won The Games he must have feelings for me. I’m an idiot.’

Sighing, I rise and walk to the door, testing to see if it’s locked.

It is.

“Oh, you fucking bastard!”

A knock makes me jump back and squeak in alarm.

“Angelina, it’s Jag. May I enter?”

I snort as he unlocks the door and walks in without waiting for my answer.

He frowns when he sees my expression.

“Is everything alright?”

“Alright?” I snap. “How could anything be alright? I’m a fucking prisoner in a cold, rock hole. Please tell me you’ve spoken to Falcon.”

“I did,” he sighs. “Angelina, he’s quite convinced you’re Spider’s minion.”

“And you?” I ask, my voice small.

“I’m undecided. I have to leave the castle and undertake more investigation. In the meantime Falcon intends to keep you here. My advice to you is to try not to raise his suspicions or anger him any further until I return.”

“Any further?” I frown. “I haven’t done anything! Jag, you know him better than anyone. It’s going to take some kind of miracle for him to believe I’m not a spy – and I’m starting to think he doesn’t want to believe otherwise.”

“He has his reasons.”

“Yeah? Well, just between you and me, the last time I looked marriages were supposed to be based on trust. If he still doesn’t trust me by now, he never will.”

“I know he cares about you, Angelina. Even if he won’t admit it. But I also know The Games changed him. Wolf and I both agree he’s not the same man we knew. Just try to be obedient for a time. I need to go now. Is there anything you need?”

‘Obedient? Not fucking likely.”

“You mean apart from my freedom?” I snap.

He narrows his eyes at me and I sigh. The last thing I need to do is alienate the one person who’s been kind to me, the one person who might be able to help me.

“Yes, there is something I need,” I roll my eyes before turning my back to him, pointing over my shoulder at my dress.

“Can you unlace this, please? I can’t do it myself and I feel like I’m suffocating.”

After a pause, a long pause, he begins unlacing. I stand still, waiting for him to finish, but shiver as his fingertips trace my bare skin down the line of my spine to the top edge of my lace panties.

‘Oh, no.’

“Ah, Jag,” I spin, gasping when I see who it was that elicited my goosebumps.

Jag and he exchange what looks to me like angry expressions as the former reaches the door, nods, and leaves without a word.

As the door bangs shut behind him I clutch the front of my gown to my breasts and stare at the man I married. Part of me is relieved it was his fingers running down my back and not Jag’s, which would have been, to coin Jag’s phrase, ‘problematic.’ But the other part of me doesn’t know what to feel now that my husband is here, standing before me.

He looks impassively back at me like a stranger, his eyes intent on mine, but for a moment, just a brief moment, I see a flash of something else. Pain?

“Falcon…”

“No other man undresses my wife,” he snarls. “Remember that.”

Before I can say anything he reaches for me, crushing me to him, his lips claiming mine in a hard, bruising kiss desperate in its intensity. Twisting my head I try to escape his cruel attentions. We need to talk. We need to clear the air. I’m angry as hell at how he’s treated me, and I want him to know it. But he ignores my struggles, looping one hand up into my hair to keep my face still, the other imprisoning my waist and pulling me against the hard length of his body.

I know this is wrong. This can’t go on. We can’t do this. But as he continues his kiss, holding me tight against him, he groans, and despite my best intentions, I respond. So long I’ve wanted this man, loved this man, and I can’t resist his hold on my body, even if my mind is railing against my submission. But right now there are no cameras, no game, no other women or challenges to the death. There’s only him and I and all the time in the world to work out our problems. And if he needs me to physically submit to him fully before he can trust me, then so be it.

As I stop struggling his kiss gentles and his hand moves lower from the small of my back to my butt. He pulls me in even tighter and I shiver with excitement as I feel his body respond.

“Falcon,” I whisper, as his hands run up and down the bare skin on my back, and my stomach clenches with desire.

Lifting me, he meets my eyes momentarily as he carries me to the bed, and in one swift movement pulls down the bodice of my gown, exposing my breasts. I gasp as he buries his face against first one, then the other, licking my nipples, nipping, sucking, driving me insane with need as I arch into him. Unlike our previous nights together, he’s not slow or gentle in his touch, aiming to build me to a crescendo without consummation. Tonight there’s intention behind his actions — and I want that. We’ve waited so long that our needs seem matched and as he looks into my eyes again I think I see all the same feelings I saw in The Games: Admiration, warmth, longing.

I tell myself there’ll be time to talk later, that him coming to me, wanting me, must mean he’s come to his senses and realises his mistake. That perhaps he’s thought over what Jag said after all.

‘It will all work out. Now I need him. I want him. Now we should let our bodies speak for us. I’ll show him how much I care for him.’

Forgetting that I’m his prisoner, putting aside his cruel words and actions, ignoring everything that had happened in the past forty-eight hours, I cry out in pleasure and surprise as he raises my voluminous skirts and, pushing aside my white, silk and lace panties, thrusts into my body.