wedges as I crossed the hardwood floor toward him.
He met my gaze, clearly in a bad mood after the day he’d had. “You’re gaining weight.” He looked me up and down, seeing the way the bikini fit underneath my loose cover-up.
Considering how much that beautiful man wanted me the other night, I knew I didn’t have a weight problem.
“I told you to stay the same weight. That was one of my only rules.”
Another woman might be offended, but I certainly wasn’t. I didn’t care what Lucian’s opinion of me was. “You’ve gained weight.”
His eyes narrowed at the offense. “But I own you. And you own nothing.” He turned back to the table and searched through his papers. “Did you give me the paperwork from Carl?”
“Yes, but I have a copy if you lost it.”
“I didn’t lose it. If you have a copy, then you didn’t give it to me.”
“I gave you the original. Mine is a photocopy.” I came to his side and looked through his paperwork. On his left hand, he wore a gold ring with a black stone in the middle. That was the ring he put on the day of our wedding, and according to my observation, he hardly ever wore it. But he did screw whores and fanatics often. “Here.” I found the papers hidden between two folders.
He took it with a growl, like it was still my fault it had been misplaced in the first place. “Alright. Then that’s settled.”
I wanted to return to my lounger so I could get lost in my book and forget the horrible reality of my life. “If that’s all, I’d like to return to the pool.”
“Yes. But I want you in my bed tonight after dinner.”
Lucian and I had separate bedrooms. It’d been that way since the beginning, and I only joined him when he wanted sex. I treated his commands as a duty because I’d signed up for this and vowed not to fight. So when he asked for sex, I had to open my legs and obey. “Alright.” I walked out of the room and back to the pool.
I never allowed the beautiful surroundings to fool me. This was a prison, a prison with no escape until Lucian died. He was much older than I was, but he was still only forty years old, so he had a lot of life left to live. If he lived to be ninety, then I would have to spend a lifetime in suffering. I would be seventy-five by the time he was gone, and I would have no interest in men or sex by that time. I would only have the children I made with him to keep me company in my last years of life.
It was a depressing thought.
I tried to remind myself that it could be worse. Lucian said insulting things to me from time to time, but he rarely ever hit me. He focused on work and lived his life and didn’t spend much time terrorizing me. He told me when he wanted sex, and when he was satisfied, he left me alone until he was horny again. Whenever he had special occasions, he expected me to look my best and be the star of the evening. He seemed to care more about making me his trophy wife than actually having a relationship with me.
So it could definitely be worse.
Lucian never lasted long when he fucked me. Sex took five minutes at the longest. Since this was the only sex I would ever get for the rest of my life, I tried to enjoy it as much as possible, but because I wasn’t attracted to his appearance or his spirit, that was nearly impossible.
So I pictured the man from the bar instead.
The mysterious stranger with the skull on his card.
I closed my eyes as Lucian rocked into me, and I pretended that gorgeous man was the one thrusting inside me. I pictured his stunning blue eyes, his hard jawline, the masculine rasp of his voice.
I felt myself grow wet.
“You like this, sweetheart?” Lucian pressed his face into my neck and kept thrusting, the hair on his chest scratching the soft skin of my breasts.
My hands clung to his back, and I imagined that muscular man on top of me. I visualized my nails slicing his skin. I pictured how big his dick must be, how tight his body was. That made me wetter. My imagination was so powerful, it also made me come.