“It is how it is presented,” he said finally.
Ana blinked. Wasn’t that what Mother said?
“For example,” Maddoc continued, “do you agree you are a whore?”
Ana ground her jaw so hard she was surprised her teeth didn’t crack. “No, I don’t fucking agree.”
“And yet, even though you’ve come here against your will, you open your legs to me and accept me between them without question,” Maddoc said. “I present you with my cock and you open your mouth and drink whatever I give you, you moan and scream and touch and caress me, you urge me to fuck you, wriggling those sexy hips and spreading your legs wider to tease me with that sweet slit.”
Ana stared at him horrified. “That’s not—”
“Those are the facts!” Maddoc thundered. “And even if they weren’t, it would be easy to imply. Tell me, would you call a woman doing all those things a whore?”
Ana’s face burned so hot she could barely breathe. She pressed her palms to her cheeks to cool them down, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Maddoc. “It’s not the same situation.”
“It’s exactly the same. It’s even predictable.” Maddoc grabbed her, pulling her against his body. “I already know that when I touch you here,” he said, brushing his hand over her nipple and tweaking it, “your slick will perfume the room. If I put those nipples in my mouth, the potency of your slick triples, and makes me harder than I’ve ever been before.”
“Stop,” Ana begged quietly, lowering her eyes, mortified.
He dropped his hand to her mound and tickled along her folds. “I know that if I yank your hair while your hips are tilted just the right way, you will come so beautifully and squeeze my cock so hard, you will dominate my thoughts for hours.”
Ana swallowed, trying to come to terms with what he was saying. “I don’t care if I’m your whore now. I won’t always be.”
Maddoc peered down at her but she couldn’t look him in the eyes. She had been trying so hard to justify the way he’d made her feel, but he was right, it could be simplified down to one simple truth: she was his whore. It wasn’t like she didn’t know that would happen when this started. He’d wanted to humiliate her, embarrass her, and ruin her—and that’s what he’d done. She couldn’t stop him from telling people that… if he survived her father’s attempt to kill him.
“Even if my reputation never recovers from this, after tomorrow night, you will go on your way, and I’ll marry my fated mate,” she said trying to cling on to the hope that Ryden would still want her. “I’ll do all those things with him, and I won’t be a whore then.”
Maddoc’s fingers on her slit froze. “He is not your fated mate.”
“It was arranged,” she explained. “We have been paired.”
“I don’t give a fuck. It is a lie.”
“And how would you know?” Ana asked, irritably.
“How can you not know,” he bellowed.
Ana jerked, surprised at his sudden anger. “I haven’t… been with him yet. I’ll know as soon as I am—it should be better than being with you.”
Maddoc roared, veins pulsing in his neck as he grabbed her and lifted her until her eyes were level with him. “There will never be anything better!”
Ana snarled at him, her anger jumping to match his. This man was so arrogant! “Nothing better than being your whore?” she snapped at him. “I’m sure your ego allows you to believe that, but I assure you, it’s not true!”
“If I wanted a whore, I could get a different one for each hour of every night.” The darkness in his eyes swirled as his gaze clung to her. “It’s not about that.” He carried her to bed and threw her down. “Do you think you will ever be as aroused as this?” He pried her legs open to reveal fresh slick smeared all over her inner thighs.
Ana hissed and tried to push his hands away but he held on tight, dragging her to the edge of the bed. He positioned himself at her entrance, his mushroomed tip massaging the aching muscles of her entrance that had been waiting for him from the moment she woke. She bit back a moan, but her muscles clenched around him of their own accord, and he sunk in slowly.
“Do you think any other cock could fill you so deeply? So completely?”
At that moment, Ana couldn’t imagine it. He was so deep, she was almost breathless.