19. My wife

NINETEEN

It took everything I have to stay on the opposite side of the room from Savannah the entire night long.

The reason was simple. If I didn't? I was going to find an excuse to whisk her away and fuck her in that little black dress she has on.

So desperate for her, I scared myself with how badly I needed to bend her over the nearest surface and take her. The make-up only made it worse. Talk about a temptress. I was already under her spell. Now? I never want it to break.

But what kind of guest of honor would I be if I dipped out of the party to bang my bride? Especially since Savannah has made no sign that she'd welcome me—and after going through that folder, I'm beginning to realize she never will.

So I distracted myself with business. Everyone here is either a Dragonfly or an associate of ours. If I can't have Savannah, the least I could do was find out more about Jimmy Winter and the threat he poses to my Family.

Lincoln's not here. My former rival actually laughed when I tendered him and Ava an invitation. Not only because his wife never wants to be in my company again, but she's so close to her due date, he hates the idea of her leaving Paradise Suites.

That man would lock her up in a tower like Rapunzel if he could. And, honestly, now that I have Savannah, I'm beginning to see the merits in a plan like that…

I didn't think she would mind that I was staying away. I didn't think she's even notice. And if it's a huge boost to my ego that, whenever I'd dare a glance toward the table where I had Genevieve put her, she was watching me closely… well, I was just hoping that she wasn't planning on taking one of the dinner knives and going after me with it.

I had Vin watching her anyway. Since I couldn't trust myself near Savannah, I had my most trusted enforcer on the job. He knew that there was only one excuse he could use to leave her: going to the bathroom. Other than that, he needed to be on her like flies on shit.

That must be what happened. I'd notice some of the newer recruits swarming around Savannah, but seeing Vin so close scared them off. One of them, though, waited until Vin slipped away for just a second to act.

That's all it took. Next thing I know, I saw Savannah getting up from her seat out of the corner of my eye. She says something to the younger Dragonfly—Ricky, his name is Ricky—and whatever it was, he didn't like it.

And then he did something he never should've done.

He grabbed my wife.

Fuck staying away. I was already on the move before she did something that had him twisting away in pain mingled with anger, and just as I was closing the gap between me and Savannah, Ricky whirled around and back-handed her.

I caught her. It was pure luck that I did, and the thing that sealed his fate in the moment more than anything else was the flash of relief I saw on her face as she realized it was me.

That's how much trouble she thought she was in. She's actually glad to see me.

Setting her on her feet, I turn all of my attention to the boy.

"You hit my wife?"

Ricky's cupping himself, but over the noise, those two words make it through. "Your… your wife?"

"Listen to me, son. You didn't answer me. I'll ask you again. Did you have your hands on my wife?"

"Boss, I?—"

My voice could drip icicles, it's that fucking cold. "Answer the question. Did you touch my wife?"

He can't deny it. I wasn't fast enough to stop the hit, though the evidence of it was clear. I had to lunge to grab Savannah before she lane on the floor. Even now her cheek bears the mark of his hand.

He can't deny it, so he tries to place the blame on her. "She tried to knee me in the cock?—"

Dumb fuck.

"That's only because I have her knife," I tell Ricky, cutting off his excuses with my casual words. Dipping my hand under my jacket, I pull the stiletto out of its holster.

Twisting my wrist, showing him the knife, I give him a hard smile—and then my hand moves.

There's no resistance. The sharp blade cuts right through his throat, so efficiently that Ricky doesn't even know he's died right away.

When it catches up to him, though, he clutches his throat. Blood dribbles down his palm skin, covering his fingers, bubbling up in the massive gap that's stretching ear to ear.

He gasps. His knees fold.

I check the sheen of the blood on the knife as Ricky falls forward, landing on his belly, inches away from Savannah's shoes.

I turn to my wife. "See that? That's how you kill someone with this stiletto, my dear."

The entire room goes silent. It probably was before, but after a moment, someone claps—probably my sister—and the chatter starts up again.

We're Dragonflies. We expect murder and mayhem at our gatherings. It's one the reasons we always host them at a property we either own or have a stake in. Because, despite my need to appear debonair and classy, we're a bunch of violent criminals at our core.

And now my wife knows that.

Her lips are parted, mouth hanging open. Her gaze darts to the corpse clutching his throat on the floor. Ricky is dead, and since her stab wound didn't end me, I'm beginning to think this might be the first time she's ever been so close to one

This might be the first time she's ever seen anyone die.

I feel this sudden urge to protect her from the reality of my Family. That's what I've been doing for weeks now, keeping her locked-up in my home, but she's here now. She's a part of it. But maybe it's too much. Maybe she needs a moment to process it all.

With the knife still in my hand, I grab Savannah by the wrist. Knowing there isn't a single soul in this room that will stop me, I tug on her hand. I almost expect her to dig in her feels so that I can't. She doesn't. As though she's a zombie behind me, she just stares ahead as I navigate our way through the crowd.

She was halfway to the hall when Ricky grabbed her. I continue that way. Once we leave the private room behind us, I see the mens' room, the ladies', and the employee's only door.

I own this place. I'm the highest fucking level of employee, and if the manager needs her office? Well, she can wait.

Savannah purses her lips when she sees where I've brought her, though she doesn't say anything as I open the door and shuffle her into the office.

Only when I've slammed shut the door behind her, locking it for good measure in case it all becomes too much and she decides to bolt, does she speak up.

"You killed that guy."

"He hurt you," I answer simply. Calmly.

I wait for her to get hysterical. That's what women do, right? So unused to the brutality of the life, now that she's got over being numb, she'll start crying?—

She slaps me in the arm.

"So did you, Damien! And what happend? I tried to kill uou… I tried to give you the same justice you just dealt out for me… and you didn't fucking die. And now I'm here, that asshole tried to claim me, and you're trying to act like my hero? No. No. If you think someone should die because they hurt me, you should be first in line."

Is that how she feels? I'm so glad that, for once, my wife is being honest with me.

"Fair enough." I hand her the hilt of the stiletto. "Go right ahead."

Savannah takes it with trembling fingers; not because she's upset, though, but because she's furious. She's steady enough as she closes them around the top of the knife, eyes locked on the splash of shiny red blood that coats the blade.

For a moment, I don't know what to expect. I'm ready to dodge if she does strike, but there's a better chance that she's bluffing?—

Without telegraphing her move, she slashes at me. It's wide, thought, not even close to my skin, even if the murderous look on her face makes it clear that it was a good attempt.

To be honest, I would've been disappointed in her if she didn't at least try.

I lash my fingers around her wrist, jerking it down so that she can't try to stab at me again.

And it hits me a second later.

She could've killed me. I handed her the weapon and, if she really wanted to, I highly doubt I could've dodged it so completely that there wasn't even a scratch left on my skin.

Savannah could've killed me—and she didn't.

And everything that happens next is because she had the chance and she didn't take it.

I twist my hand roughly, forcing her to drop the stiletto to the floor. The clang echoes around me as I throw her arm up, pinning her against the door at her back. My other hand goes to her throat.

"What's that, husband?" she bites out, and I can't tell if she's frightened—or excited. "You're gonna choke me now?"

If I did, it would only be because it heightened her arousal to cut off some of her air.

"And let you out of this life when you promised it to me," I coo. "Not fucking way."

Her eyes flash angrily. "Then what do you think you're doing?"

"This."

I kiss her. With my hand a necklace for her pretty, pretty throat, I squeeze just enough to make her gasp in a breath. Once her mouth is open, I dive in, taking advantage of it.

I kiss her, plundering her mouth with my tongue. Our teeth clash, this intimacy another battle, but the way I swallow her breaths, tasting her tongue, sucking her lips until I'm sure they'll be swollen… I kiss her and, in this position, there isn't anything she can do except take it.

And then she proves me wrong. Because Savannah doesn't just take it.

She kisses me back.

I have one arm thrown up over her head. Her other hand goes right to my side. For a second, I think she's squeezing me there because she's trying to find my healing scar, see if I'm still in pain from her stab.

I'm wrong. The deeper the kiss gets, the more she touches me. Her hand on my side. Her heel rubbing up and down the length of my calf. Her head angled as far back as she could move it so that our chests can connect at the same time as she wordlessly begs me to kiss her.

I don't know if this is another trap. If she's trying to lull me into a false sense of security. Only knowing the stiletto is on the floor and there's no way she can reach it is the reason why I finally let go of her hand.

I needed one of my own. If she's touching me, I'm going to take advantage and touch her. Squeezing her tit through her dress, I break the kiss just enough to press my wet mouth against her cheek.

"Tell me to stop, wife. If you don't want this… I won't stop on my own. You have to tell me to stop."

She doesn't say anything. She doesn't say ‘yes'. She doesn't say ‘no'.

She doesn't say ‘stop'...

Letting go of her tit, I grab the hem of her strapless dress. One shove. One shove and, there must be a God because Savannah went without a bra. The material goes down, her breast comes out, and like a starving man who'd long been denied a feast, I drop my head and suck her entire nipple into my mouth.

And even then she doesn't stop me.

Instead, she does the opposite. Panting softly, just about trying to climb me with her legs, Savannah starts to yank on my dress shirt. Now that she has both hands, she finds it easy to do. My dress shirt is out, and next thing I know, she's fumbling with my button.

My button, then my zipper.

My erection springs free as if searching for her hand like it's a goddamn magnet. She shifts her hand, rubbing her thumb around the crown, gathering up the precome I'm not too ashamed is already there.

Fuck. If she keeps playing with me, I might just blow my load before I find out what it's like to be inside of this woman.

No. I can't let that happen. She might complain later that it all happened too fast, that she didn't want it, that she regrets being with me… but that's later. At this very moment, I have her tit in my mouth, her hands on my cock, and my bloodlust from a few minutes' ago turned to straight-up lust now.

I let go of her throat. Both of my hands drop to her waist. I'm still sucking on her tit, swirling my tongue around the nipple, kneading the mound of flesh with my nose. It doesn't take me long to notice that he strokes—as jerky and frantic as they are—go in time to the amount of suction I use on her breast. So, of course, I use that to my advantage, keeping her distracted as I hoist her up.

Her back is still to the door. I use my body to keep her in place. She groans into my neck, obviously annoyed that she can't keep tugging on my cock when that and her hand is trapped between our lower bellies.

I let her tit slip out of my mouth with a soft popping sound.

"Don't be impatient, wife," I tease, using my free hands to take hold of the bottom of her dress.

"Shut up, Damien," she hisses into my ear. "Shut up and fuck me."

Anything for you, ragna mia.

I yank the skirt of her dress up so that it doesn't hinder the movement of her legs. Once she realizes she can move them wider, she instinctively wraps them around my waist.

Savannah might have gone without a bra, but she has a pair of silky black panties on. They're fucking soaked. I can see the moisture along the edge of them and smile into her hair. Even if I doubted that she wanted this now, there's proof that she's as turned on as I am.

If I had my stiletto, I'd slice off the panties to save time. I don't, and I'd rather not draw Savannah's attention back to the weapon, either. So, instead, I hook my finger under the wet material, shoving it to the side so that I can access her pussy.

I don't want to give Savannah the chance to change her mind. Not when I'm so close. Besides. I'm ready to explode, she's basically creaming herself, and it doesn't take much for me to push most of my cock inside of her in one thrust.

There's a small amount of resistance. Not enough to make me worry that my wife is a virgin who's first time is in the manager's office of one of my restaurants, but I'm sure it's been a long, long time since she's had sex.

Probably even longer since she's been thoroughly fucked by a man.

And she wants it. No matter how she reacts later, the moan she lets out as I shove myself the rest of the way in, fully seated inside of her as she wraps her arms around my neck, tugging me up to kiss her again, she wants it.

It takes a few messy seconds where I try to get the right rhythm going while also kissing her. I might've bit her one. She hisses out a breath, but if it hurts, she doesn't complain. Oh, no. She actually squeezes my cock as I thrust up into her.

As much as I wish it was otherwise, once I knew that this would be our first time together was always destined to be a quickie. I'm still so worked up over Ricky's disrespect, plus the mark he left on Savannah's beautiful face. I've spent months dreaming of fucking this woman, too, and I'm racing my certainty that she'll realize she lost her mind and invited the man she hates most in the world into her body.

Most importantly? I wouldn't blame her one bit. I read the files. I pored over her folder. I know the truth.

I know why she tried to kill me, and if I was Savannah? No amount of blustering and bluffing from the man who became my captor would stop me from reaching for the pillow after all.

Not when I learned what I took from her, and how I had no idea until Tanner ran that name for me.

So for as long as I can have her? For as long as I can delude myself that this magnificent creature truly is my wife? I'm going to take it, knowing that it won't last.

And, damn it, it doesn't.

Once I sense that I'm close, I make sure to slip a hand between our bodies. At first, I flick Savannah's clit. When she jolts, then tightens her hold on me, I can tell she's close, too. I start to rub roughly, stimulating her, ripping an orgasm out of her before I nut.

Once she starts gasping into my mouth, her keening whine fucking music to my ears, I know she's coming around my cock. The sensation of her inner walls fluttering around me is too much—as is her desperate need to kiss me again while she climaxes—and I follow right behind her, filling her up with everything I have.

Only then, when I jerk my hips one last time, sure that I've emptied myself does she react like a switch has been flipped.

No more hug. No more kisses. She reaches between us, tucking her breast back into her dress before patting me on the chest.

Understanding the signal even if I don't like it, I pull out of her.

Savannah slides down my body, pushing against the wall to move me away from her..

I miss the warmth of her in my arms instantly.

I'm panting. Coming down from my climax… I'm shuddering, too. I haven't come so hard in longer than I want to admit, but she pushes off my chest, and gives me her back, all while I have the promises to give her the world in the corner of my mouth..

Once there's some space between us, Savannah pats her dress into place. Then, without a word to me, she starts to totter across the room. One heel came partly off her foot while I was pinning her into place against the door, fucking her like mad, and she pauses just long enough to adjust her foot before she straightens her back, gripping the doorknob.

She's going to leave me. She's going to walk out of the manager's office like that didn't just happen.

Like I didn't finally fuck her.

Not in this lifetime, wife.

There's only one way I can think to stop her. If I demand her to return to me, she'll keep going just out of spite. But if I do this… it might mean I'll have to show my cards sooner than I wanted to, but it's a surefire way to get her attention.

Stopping only to fix my pants so that I don't have to confront her with my spent cocking hanging out, I take two steps and call out the one word guaranteed to stop her in her tracks before she can get far enough away from me:

"Georgia."