note: this starts from where the last week's chapter ended. 

His face is void of any expression.

There's no sign of any emotion.

He stands tall and intimidating with his arms crossed against his chest, regarding both of us with his incisive gaze.

I stare at Adrianna next to me who looks equally stunned as I am. Her hand is on the base of her throat as her gaze rests on her son.

She takes a few long moments to collect herself together. "I can't blame my sister. She was in a terrible emotional state from everything she had been through. We just didn't know."

I swallow, my eyes moving between both of them, and pull myself away from Adrianna. "You'll have to excuse me."

"Stay," Areston demands, his harsh tone making me flinch.

I shake my head. I know he'll be livid for defying him, but they need this. "The two of you need to talk... alone without the presence of a third party."

"You're the woman I'll marry. My better half, not a third party," he says with a hidden message don't push it in it.

His dark, watchful stare accelerates my nervous tension.

"Please, Ares," I lean forward and snaking my arms around his head, I lower it. "Please," I press, pleadingly, my eyes searching his.

His jaw clenches and he claims my mouth in a slow, plundering kiss that drains my breath from my lungs... and then some.

"I'll wait for you," I whisper breathlessly and turn to his mother. "I'll see you around, your royal highness.

"Oh, my god. Thank goodness you're here," Selene grabs my hand and drags me to the bar.

"I am so mad at you. Why did you do it?"

"Were you expecting me to sit and do nothing? It was obvious to me that he was throwing a tantrum because he saw you with Lev. He's such a child."

"He's not happy about it." I pull a bar stool for her and she settles on top of it.

"I don't care if he isn't. He should be glad I didn't punch his handsome face for being so inconsiderate," she snaps and orders a virgin margarita and a dirty martini for me. "He does shit like this because you let him."

"Let's not talk about it."

She rolls her eyes. "I'm exhausted. I hate social parties."

"I know. Why did you come? You should've spent your Sunday relaxing at home."

"Ari would've stayed in as well. I don't want him to be out of the social scene because of me," she leans in closer to speak so I can hear her clearly. The music at the bar grows loud. "Where did your obnoxious man go?"

"He is with his mother."

Her eyes go wide. "Adrianna? What's he doing with her?"

"He overheard us talking. Althea was supposed to marry Areston's dad. Because of her wild lifestyle, they ended their engagement and decided to marry Adrianna and Gio."

"No way! That's why she was salty with her sister and stole her kid?"

"She was married to a duke who died within six months of their wedding. She was pregnant by then and gave birth to a still born child before she offered to be Areston's surrogate a year later. That's when she became salty. Adrianna said she was in a terrible emotional state."

"Goodness. Areston must be shocked."

I bite my lower lip as my heart pounds in my chest. "Shocked is an understatement. I am glad he overheard us, though. I pushed him to talk to her. Let's hope he does. He's a stubborn headed mule, Sel."

"I hope he does. I feel bad for Adrianna. She's being mistreated for something that wasn't her fault."

The phone in the veiled pocket of my floral Dior mini dress starts vibrating.

"What's up?" She speaks something but it's not audible to me. "Shuk, I can't hear you." I try listening to her, but the music is loud."I'll be back in a minute. There must be some emergency otherwise she wouldn't call me." I offer Sel's arm a gentle, reassuring squeeze, and walk away.

"The commerce minister of China wants to set up a zoom with you today. He insisted it remain in an unofficial capacity," Shukura says as I stand in front of the lake, away from the bar's loud music.

There is no one here at this end of the garden so it's peaceful. "Sure. Set something up for the evening and inform me. I'll make myself available. Have the finance minister join. I don't care if he's busy..."

"Juliette Rothschild?" A voice interrupts me from behind, causing me to turn around.

It's a man, tall and large, in a white suit and a pale blue shirt that matches the color of his eyes. His long slicked back golden hair that touches his color. He reminds me of classic Hollywood villains. There's something about the way he's looking at me... more like leering. It's uncomfortable.

"Shuk, get it done. I'll call you back," I hang up. "Yes? How can I help you?"

"We're past the time of you helping me," he sneers, "You could've helped me by not threatening my dad to expose the payment he did for the pipeline project. You blackmailed him into letting you acquire his company."

I cross my arms. "You must be Maxime Allemand's son. We're long past it. I have acquired the company and your dad is living a life outside of prison. Something he doesn't deserve. Wouldn't you call it a help?"

"You are the reason we are ruined. Despite having the old money tag and a fucking 20,000-acre estate where we live in, we're no longer have money. If we want it, the only way we can get it is by selling it, which we can't. You are the reason I am neck-deep in debt," he takes a step in my direction, bridging the distance between us to intimidate me with his towering frame.

He reeks of liquor.

"You're neck-deep in debt because your father is a liar, a criminal, and a goddamn loser." I try to walk away, but he moves closer and tries to grab my arm.

"You dare touch me?" I glare at him, stepping back.

"I am not afraid of your threat. This is the least you could do for me," he leers, moving closer, and successfully getting a hold of my arm this time.

"You bastard." I kick him hard between his thighs so hard he drops into a crouch in front of me with both his hands cupping his penis. "You're just as big a loser as your pathetic father. You deserve what's happening to both of you."

"You fucking bitch," he howls in pain, cursing out loud. "Wait till the day I get a hold of you. I will tie you up and fucking rape you over and over again until you're dead."

In a reaction to his rape threat, my body shudders and freezes for a couple of seconds, completely zoning out as my past starts flashing in front of my eyes. And then sanity returns and rage flares me, a fierce and burning rage, causing my blood to boil. Before I act on it, the jerk is being punched so hard, his head flies in the air and he vomits blood out of his mouth before crashing on the manicured ground.

Areston.

"Repeat what you said about raping my wife!" He grabs the jerk's collar, his body moving with a ferocity and speed I have never seen, and connects his fist with the guy's jaw again.

There's an instant, raw intensity in his stance, a barbaric rage that seems to consume him wholly.

"I am sorry... I didn't mean," the guy begs.

"You don't want to rape my wife over and over again until she's dead?" His face is clenched, his skin red from the rage as he delivers punch after punch, each one more fiercer than the previous.

The sound of his knuckles hitting him is sickening, yet I feel frozen, unable to intervene or speak or look away. The guy is struggling to shield himself from the relentless assault. Blood splattering chin, his neck, his shirt, staining the grass beneath him.

"Areston, stop!" I finally scream, trying to snatch him away from the guy. I look around for help and see Horace and his men running in our direction. "Horace! Help!"

By the time Horace has managed to pull Areston away, the guy has gone limp, no longer even groaning from pain.

"Oh, my god! Is he dead?" I cry in horror.

"He's alive. Just fainted," Horace replies, gesturing to his men, who grab the guy from the ground and carry him away.

"He should be dead," Areston spits in the grass, his eyes burning with incandescent fury, his breathing heavy, his own hands and shirt stained from the blood.

I wrap myself around him, tears streaming down my eyes. His chest is still heaving with violent, unfiltered rage. "Are you okay?"

"Are you?" he pulls back, his arms touching me lightly as he scans the faint smudge of bruises that have already started appearing on my arms where that bastard gripped me.

"I am," I sob, grabbing his hands to inspect his knuckles.

They are raw. Bleeding from the skin torn in the areas where the force of his blows on the guy's jaw must have been the most intense. There are abrasions. Some of the areas have started to swell. They transform into shades of purple and deep red, indicating to me that it'll only become more pronounced with time. The adrenaline that is still coursing in his blood is causing his bruised hand to slightly tremble.

"You're hurt," I swallow, turning to Horace. "We need first aid."

Areston snatches his hands from mine. "What the fuck were you thinking wandering off alone?"

"How was I supposed to expect I'd be harassed? Horace, we need first aid."

"We're going home," Areston announces firmly, entwining his wounded hand in mine. "We'll take the private exit route, Horace. Inform Ari we've left. Mention nothing else."

"What if the guy presses charges against you when he wakes up?" I ask.

Areston only fumes more. But doesn't respond.

"Tell me!" I insist.

"He'll have to be alive to press charges," he says quietly in a menacing tone that almost stops my heart.

I halt in my steps, infuriating him even more. "You're not killing him, Areston. I am not having a man die on my conscience or yours for all the gibberish..."

"Gibberish?" He fumes, taking a calculative step in my direction, fury radiating off him. "He wanted to rape you until you're dead, Belle. It's a divine intervention that I haven't killed him already on my family property. Those are the kind of men who if left alive turn their threats into reality. If he can assault you on my fucking property in the presence of my fucking people just imagine what he could've done if the two of you were alone somewhere else."

A sick fear crawls down my spine. I swallow, placing my free hand on his heart, feeling his thundering heartbeats. "You're not killing him. Please."

"I won't immediately. I'll make him regret saying those words every second he's alive before I end that piece of filth."

"Areston, you're not killing him," I yell in frustration. "I have lived eleven years of my life feeling a crippling guilt that someone from my family brutally murdered those two men from the rehab. I don't know if whoever it was did it on its own or hired someone to do it, but they did it. Whoever it is did it because of love for me. I will not allow you to take someone's death on your conscience too because of me," I shake my head violently, tears dropping down my chin, fisting my fingers into his shirt. "I will not let you do it. Do you understand me?"

🦋✨💗✨🦋

As our car cuts through the frenzied pulse of Manhattan, an unyielding, palpable silence encapsulates us. Areston has been in an incredibly dark mood. He hasn't uttered a single word throughout the helicopter ride from Southampton to the Downtown Manhattan Heliport. His brooding demeanor has been filling the space between us.

Seated beside me in the backseat, he's a study of bottled-up wrath and torment. His gaze is fixed on the world outside the dark window, deliberately not willing to face me. He's sipping Remy Martin cognac from time-to-time, completely uncaring of how I feel about his drinking, which is an indicator of how furious he is right now. I have no idea how his conversation with his mother went so I cannot tell if it's also adding to his blinding fury.

He did not respond to my plea of not killing Allemand's son. I'm just assuming he won't after the way I broke down. He just lifted me in my sobbing state into his arms and stormed into the car waiting to collect us and take us to the helipad which was barely a block away within the castle premises. There has been absolutely no exchange of words or even a glance.

The only point of communication between us is physical. His hand has been entwined with mine all this time. Even now, he has my hand in a possessive hold on the armrest that separates us, his thumb absentmindedly playing with the promise ring on my wedding finger–the symbol of his commitment and covenant to protect me and to keep me safe.

"How long are you going to continue this silent treatment for?" I blurt at last, unable to remain silent and endure this agony of him feeling so distant any longer.

No response. His jaw remains set, an evidence of the storm raging in his mind.

"Areston, I am talking to you."

He draws a sharp breath, steeped in wrath. "When I think of what could have happened had I not found you on time," his voice is steely with barely restrained wrath.

I can sense his mind venturing into all kinds of dark scenarios involving what-ifs. The realization that he, in his own distorted ways, believes that he has failed to protect me hits me like a visceral blow.

I swallow the bile rising in my throat and removing my seat belt, I turn in my seat so that I am facing him.

I take his hand and put it in the middle of my chest. "Nothing would have happened, baby. I was fine. I had already kicked him too hard to get up. He's just like his father. There was no way he could have risked a scene in public by continuing further. Whatever he said were empty threats. I handled his father just fine on my own when he made a pass at me when I went to his place to offer him my mother's deal."

"He made a pass at you?" His face finally turns, his gaze flickers with a volcanic intensity.

"Yes," I take the crystal tumbler from his hand and put it in the cup holder, and lifting the arm rest, I straddle his lap. He immediately presses the privacy button shielding us from his chauffeur and Horace. "Maxime Allemand would have succeeded in doing anything he wanted to me. We were at his place. I was alone. But he couldn't. I didn't let him."

"Does your mother know about this?" His stare is a paradoxical blend of fire and ice, both scalding and freezing. His hold tightens over me.

"She doesn't have to know everything," I snap annoyed.

Though a thick silence follows from his lack of response, the air around him is thrumming with unspoken objections and his pure vexation from my outlook. His expressions are tight. He's such a hypocrite. He hates my mother's involvement in my life, but he doesn't mind it whenever it is convenient to him or his narrative. I want to say that out loud, but I don't wish to push his already dark mood off the edge.

I take out the first aid kit from the cabinet and dab the cotton in the antiseptic liquid and put it on his bruised knuckle. He doesn't even wince. Why would he? He's a demigod. I slather an antiseptic cream over it with my fingers before sealing it with a bandaid. Not a word comes out of his mouth all this time. He just observes me, his gaze remains on my face.

"I am a big girl. I can handle things on my own now ," I sigh, raising his hands to kiss them, especially his bruised one. "I suffered a traumatic period at the rehab, learned how to live again, returned to Yale, became a criminal lawyer, followed my mother's footsteps to serve The Rothschild Group, and took the helm of the Rothschild Media. I put my life back together on my own. The amount of people I have had to meet during this span have taught me resilience and how to handle things on my own. You have to stop thinking of me as a damsel in distress all the time! I wouldn't have gone messing around with dangerous and egoistic men without expecting such consequences, baby. Trust me when I say it, I can handle the likes of him on my own. People like Allemand and his son shock me, but don't scare me. I am prepared for the likes of them I would have to face."

His face remains an impassive mask. It's a façade, a well-calculated and controlled front that he puts up for the world that belies the storm raging within. Unable to help myself and this chilling distance between us, I wrap my arms around him, enveloping him into a hug. He holds me possessively despite how he's feeling at the moment and buries his face in my hair. Closing my eyes, I allow myself to relax against him, listening to his heartbeats. I inhale his scent, feeling the sense of home fill my heart amidst all the chaos. I am consumed by the necessity to breach the wall he has erected between us. I close my mouth around his neck, deliberately nibbling on his skin and my fingers play with the buttons on his shirt.

"Do you know one of the reasons why I escaped to work for the Paris offices?" I pull back and my gaze meets the unrelenting force of his own. "I wanted to live by myself. I was tired of my overprotective brother and Bubbeh who would rather have me wrapped in a cocoon and kept safely in a secured glass chamber at home. They wanted to have me permanently surrounded by bodyguards. My mother understood that such a degree of mollycoddling would only trigger me in the wrong way and allowed me to move away. I understand your fixation on keeping me safe, but I am capable of fending for myself, your highness. I have. I do not need a safety net or you to be feeling guilty whenever something happens."

The moment the last sentence is out of my mouth, I realize the mistake I've made and end up biting my tongue. It has hit the wrong nerve. Dark fury is flaring his gaze to molten amber. His jaw ticks and his pupils dilate and not from desire, but something dark. The barely discernible tightening of hold around me is the indicator that the fury simmering beneath him has grown. I have hurt his pride and have unknowingly wounded his outsized ego. The knowledge makes my heart race. His prolonged silence feels like a double-edged sword. It offers no consolation to my erratic heartbeats.

"Are you going to say something?" I plead.

Instead of answering me, he presses the intercom that connects him to Horace on the other end of the privacy screen. "How long until we're home?"

"50 minutes, your highness."

Areston ends the call, his dark gaze studying me, making me feel intimidating under his withering stare, possessing me as if in his mind, he's rage fucking me and taking all his anger out of me the way we both like.

"Strip. Keep the Viviers on."

My eyes fly wide. "What?"

He doesn't repeat. He knows I've heard it loud and clear. His mouth thins in a line as if he's counting seconds in his head and it's making him more furious.

I swallow, lifting my dress up and discarding it to my seat.

His face remains a stoic mask as in a matter of mere seconds, he rips my lace panties apart. In a move that shouldn't grip me by surprise, but it does, his hands travel down his south and he undoes his belt and lowers the zipper of his jeans and his boxer briefs, springing his cock free. It's already hard. Precum is lining his head. The sight makes me drool. A delicious ache stirs in my core. He rests both of his arms on the armrest and leans back while I'm straddling him.

"Sit all the way down on my cock," he decrees, his tone dark and enticing.

He's deviating us from having an actual communication and is intending to take his rage out on me by fucking me raw. I should be offended but I am not. Probably because I'm under the influence of the spell of fervent arousal he has casted upon me and because I know that this is how we communicate and sort out our issues. It's unhealthy, but it works for us.

I raise my hips so that I am squatting over his cock as I reach out to capture it. The hot and heavy eye contact as he remains stretched back, making his intention clear that he'll be offering no help as usual and I'm on my own makes all of this all the more steamy. His panther-like incisive gaze watches me, his eyes never leaving mine as I spread my thighs, and lowering my hand on the middle of his hard and erect cock, I line it up against my slick, aching entrance.

"Oh, fuck," I gasp, followed by swallowing hard as I take the first inch in me, wriggling so I can fit him in. I have never done this before without his help.

"Take every inch like a good little slutty heiress you are," he breathes, not one expression betraying his taut features.

The man is a god of supreme control. Only that's the explanation. He looks so relaxed as if he's reading his morning newspaper.

I lick my lips, flattening my palms against his chest and I push myself further down, slowly sinking lower on him, inch by inch, my eyes locked with his. I'm moaning, squirming in his lap, as I choke my vagina with his thick girth and huge length, stretching me, dominating me completely. Areston doesn't even move.

"That's it, tesoro," he leans forward, bringing his mouth to my neck. He runs his tongue over my skin all the way up to my ear. "Keep your legs open so I can see your pink, greedy cunt stretched max around my cock."

"Ares," I whisper, panting. "Please help."

"You're doing a great job on your own. Just a couple of inches more. Good girl, take it all for me," he licks the sensitive skin below my ear, nipping my shoulder as I balance myself and thrust myself lower until I'm gasping as I end up having him balls-deep in me.

He's so huge and having swallowed him whole by myself feels like having climbed a mount fucking everest.

"I am so proud of you," he hums, stretching back.

I smile at his praise, feeling so damn proud of myself. I am momentarily at discomfort, but it feels so amazing, I close my eyes in delightful satisfaction.

"Oh, I feel so full. So... so good," I throw my head back, moaning.

Just when I am about to move, he firmly pins my hips to his pelvis, halting me, his fingers digging deep into my skin.

"No moving," he forbids me.

"What?" I frown, opening my eyes and staring wide-eyed at him.

"You have defied me six times today. I want you to sit and contemplate how."

"What do you mean?" I panic.

"It's time you learned your lesson. Belle. It's time I demonstrated to you who between us holds the reins if it wasn't clear already. I won't condone insubordination. This punishment will engrave it in your mind and heart," he draws back his hands pinning me and extracts his iPad from the cabinet next to him.

My heart hammers against my chest. "Punishment?"

"You'll hold my cock in your cunt and not move for the entirety of this ride. You're to stay still," he announces, fire blazing his gaze. "You're not allowed to move, touch yourself, squirm, or cum either. No sound should escape your mouth if we hit a spread breaker and my cock thrusts into you. Everytime you defy any of these orders, it'll be an extra hour you'll have to spend sitting on my cock like this even when we're home. I don't care if it takes the whole evening and the whole night. Do you understand?"

"What for?" I gasp, horrified at the thought of this cruel punishment he has plotted for me.

"That's for you to contemplate while you warm and soak my cock. We'll be here for a while so you have a lot of time on your hands," his smile nowhere reaching his eyes.

"Tell me you're kidding?"

"I assure you I am not," he fires up his iPad and starts reading the content on his screen. "Now behave well and I'll reward you. Fail to follow my precise orders and you'll suffer. Be assured that my cock is not leaving your cunt until I am satisfied you've learned your lesson."

His telling me no is an ultimate aphrodisiac, but my mind warns me against defying him. I know him and the kind of man he is. He would obey every word he has said.

I obligingly acquiesce. It's so frustrating. Aching. Sitting like this just wrapped around him with no movement. I am itching with a blinding need to move. My body is barely restraining the electrical shivers that's coursing in my veins. But I want to be a good submissive to him right now. This is what he needs. Me servicing him the way he wants, by complying to his orders, and by being the toy he wants to play with.

It's testing my patience and my obedience. But I will try to please him. God, I will try. I can't fail him here.

I can't move against his cock, but I can touch him.

I cup his face while he's busy studying the screen of his iPad. "Why won't you punish me the normal way? By spanking or whipping or flogging me to give me the pain?"

"I'd be skinning you if I were to touch you with any of those intentions in the state of rage I'm in," he offers bluntly, scaring the life out of me.

"Is that how violent you feel right now?"

"You don't want to know," he says, ignoring me. "You're to contemplate. Not chit chat. Refusing to oblige would only sour my mood."

I inhale deeply and oblige.

"I know I defied you five times today," I say five minutes later. "I talked to Lev, I didn't let you convince me to deny your mother's request so you could take me someplace private to fuck me, I didn't stay back for your conversation with her, and wandered off alone in the castle despite your warning not to. What's the fourth one?"

"Think harder, tesoro," he tosses casually without looking up.

His one hand comes to cup my breast. The touch feels like it's water going into my mouth after having roamed in a desert thirsty for a week. It causes me to squirm in his lap.

"That's one hour added to your time," he says in a ruthless tone, pinching my erect nipple.

The car crosses a speed breaker. I bounce on his cock, my head falls back from all the ecstasy that the unintended thrust and the pierced head nudging against my womb.

"Another hour," he grunts, squeezing my breast and tonguing my nipple.

"This is not fair, Ares," I yelp in emotional pain from the frustration, my fingers cupping his face as I lean my forehead against his.

"Au contraire, my rose, what's not fair is you thinking you can stop me from doing my job of protecting you and looking after you," he grunts, pinning my hands one after another behind me.

The movement makes his cock move inside me and twitch. It's so hard for me to restrain my moans. He grabs my discarded summer dress from my deserted seat and ties my wrists.

"What's not fair is you thinking I'll ever be content with the fact that you're looking after yourself. What's not fair you thinking my obsession with your safety is unwarranted. Now, stay back, sit straight, watch me, and contemplate," he grounds out.

"Ares..." My breath traps in my throat at his harsh command. He has transformed into a complete sadistic dominant, a side he reserves for disciplining me.

He cups my face in his hands. "You're mine, Belle. My property. My trophy. My pride," his words are a blend of declaration, punishment, and seduction as he kisses me once, and again, and then again, driving me on the cusp of madness with an appetite that cannot be assuaged. "Your life is tied to mine, irrevocably."

He forces me against his body, his one hand traveling low down on my spine, pushing me against him.

"Do you understand me?" he asks, his mouth hovering over mine.

My head swims. "I do."

"You better," he mutters, his mouth moving to my ear, his hand on my cheek, snaking in my hair. "You will move within the confines I set. You'll orbit around me, tied and tethered, on the axis I draw. I am commandeering the submission of your will, not asking for, Belle. Whether it comes to me by coercion or your own choice doesn't matter. I do not care if it hurts your pride," he announces threateningly in my ear.

His teeth enclose the lobe, causing me to shudder against him.

I arch pleadingly against him, gasping as it ends up with me moving against his cock that twitches in response. A helpless moan rips out of my mouth.

"That's two more hours," his hand lowers to my breast, his fingers capturing my jutting, aching peaks.

A gnawing need coils in the pit of my stomach.

"I am going to enjoy warming my cock in your cunt as I work in the bed tonight," his head lowers down to close his mouth around my breast, his tongue circling around my nipple.

My restrained hands pull against the fabric as I barely control my urge to cry from the fierce heat of his mouth against my sensitive bud.

"Now let me work and stop distracting, tesoro. Be a good sub you're always so desperate to be in our bedroom," he chuckles, tugging my nipple one more time between his teeth and leans back against the seat.

Waves of sensations are building in me as I watch him busy himself once again. Every second feels like an hour as I watch him. Frustration and anxiety piles up in me. I feel close, so close to an orgasm, and yet so far. I must truly be a masochist if just the idea of his cock warming inside my pussy and no action is also turning me on. He looks like the ultimate sex god, completely unaffected. He's the one who usually can't help fucking me several times in a row and yet he's not even flinching when his cock accidentally thrusts me due to the car ride. Makes me wonder if Selene was right. A man with this level of patience can only be a serial killer.

"Are you a serial killer by any chance?"

He smirks. "Maybe?"

"Figures. Only serial killers can have such a level of self-restraint."

He flicks the page on his iPad, ignoring me. "I want you to contemplate your actions, Belle. If you keep chit-chatting, I'll add it to the list of rules."

"My back needs rest. It hurts sitting like this."

"That's the idea," he says cruelly.

However, the soft, caring version of him is never far behind. Doesn't matter if the sadistic dominant version of him overpowers every other version.

"Come here," he places his palm on my lower back five minutes later and pulls me against him so that my head is being cradled against his shoulder. His one arm envelopes me, holding me to him while the other hand remains occupied scrolling pages on his iPad. "Good?"

"Mmm. Hmm." I close my eyes, feeling relaxed at last, and try to enter a subspace just the way I did when he had blind folded me.

His thick cock stretching me, stirring a deep ache in my vagina from need is no help. This is a cruel punishment.

He truly meant it to be a punishment unlike every other time. He knows I enjoy the pain so spanking me or giving me any other type of such punishment where he'd have to inflict pain upon me won't work. Deprivation would.

He's a shrewd man who knows exactly what he's doing. He knows that I'm a cock hungry whore for him. Depriving me of it while still keeping it inside of me would be the worst form of punishment.

It's like sending a diabetic on a trip to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.

I remain quiet. The clock in my head keeps ticking. I eye the time on the Patek Phillipe on his wrist. It's only been twenty minutes. The knowledge frays my patience.

"How's contemplation going on, baby?" He asks after 10 minutes. I know it's because he misses my incessant chatter. It's no surprise he loves it.

"It was wrong of you to have expected me to deny your mother's request by luring me with the prospect of sex. I don't consider it defiance. I consider it the proper and decent thing to have done. You're a ruthless man who gives no shit about people, but I do. I agree with the part that I shouldn't have forced you to be alone with your mother," I end up snapping at him, unable to contain my annoyance from reflecting in my tone, but make no attempt to move, knowing it might as well add another hour on the punishment span.

"Indeed," he agrees, his hand on my back stroking it leisurely up and down. "I wanted you to be with me."

"I wanted to be with you," I tilt my head to kiss his neck. "I so wanted to be with you, Ares. But I am certain your mother wouldn't have appreciated it. That conversation was meant to be between the mother and her son. She would have accepted your decision without voicing out her concern out loud, but in her eyes, I am a third person."

"You're my wife-to-be, not a third person," he notes grittingly, not looking up from his iPad.

His words make me smile, my heart fluttering with joy despite the frustration simmering in me.

I push my chin up, keeping my head intact on his shoulder. "It doesn't matter, Areston. Even when I become your wife officially, I'll always be the third person for her. No one can come between the bond of a mother and a child. I will never allow you to come between my matters with my mother, just like I would never allow anyone to come between me and the children we'll have some day. It's a very sacred bond. I am no one, irrespective of who I am to you, to be ruining the sanctity of something so pure."

He sighs, and I know my words have touched him even though he doesn't want me to see it.

"I know I shouldn't have wandered off on my own in an unfamiliar premise. I understand that. I also understand your need to protect me. I am not saying it's unwarranted, but I am also not saying I support your obsession with my safety. I will continue being me. I will continue dealing with men who could be dangerous. You can't be paranoid all the time."

"Your job is to deal with them. My job is to find ways to protect you. I won't stop you from doing shit you won't. You can't stop me from doing the shit I want. As twisted or sick my ways might be ensuring my goal is accomplished."

I inhale deeply, knowing there's no winning. "I have taken note of your concerns. I can't lie to you and tell you I'll fully adhere to all your demands all the time."

"Your defiance and resistance is noted, Belle. But you seem confused so let me clarify something with unwavering certainty," he kisses the top of my head. "Your submission is not up for argument. Your compliance is mine. You will yield to me. Always. Without question."

I sag in defeat against him. I don't know what to say. I don't see how we're ever going to agree over this. He'll continue expecting my compliance and I am going to continue being me. I have zero energy left in me right now to argue. Especially not in the condition I am. He'll only be at a great advantage right now by punishing me more to a point I might feel too numb to defend my perspective and end up capitulating to his insanity.

His fingers brush my hair. "My blood boils as I keep revisiting the scene. What if that bastard would have done something to you? If something were to happen to you, I would never forgive myself."

"I know." It's pointless to explain to him that nothing would have happened to me. At this point, I know he's terrifyingly obsessed with my safety. I don't blame him for feeling that way considering he knows enough about my past now.

We remain like that for a while. Me relishing his thick, hard length pushing against my vaginal walls, stirring an intense, aching need inside me. Him alternating the strokes of his fingers between my hair and my back as he continues reading reports on his iPad, enjoying occasional, deliberate and slow thrusts of his cock inside me just to get a reaction out of me. Fighting not gasp that'll add more hours to my punishment.

"Are you still boiling mad at me?" I risk a chance.

"Yes."

"About Lev..."

"You shouldn't have talked to him after agreeing you'd sever ties," he cuts me off, his voice clipped.

"What was I supposed to do? Ignore him when he arrived at my table?"

"Yes," he hisses, flicking the page to the next one on his screen.

"I can't be that insensitive to my childhood friend."

"You agreed."

I take a deep breath. I am not deluded enough to think that if I put up a fight against him, he'll let me win. I won't win even if I have fair chances to. He won't let me. This is not a fair fight. I have understood that a long time ago. He's a dominant and a pure sadist who'll not only subjugate my efforts and seek pleasure from punishing me for having defied him by putting up a fight. And he won't stop at that. He's a master manipulator who'll use seductive coercion into gaslighting me to believe everything I wouldn't otherwise with a sane mind. I have to be careful around him.

"I agreed no longer to see him as I used to because I am trying to understand your perspective and can see how uncomfortable you might feel knowing how he feels about you. I wanted you to know you're my priority no one else, but it doesn't mean I'm going to pretend I don't know him. I'm sorry I couldn't follow your request but I'm a human. An overly emotional human. He's still the man who has been with me through thick and thin. I won't meet him in privacy but I will absolutely never ignore him in public or cut ties off him completely."

"I would have done it if I were in that situation," he says.

"If Darina tries to change your mind about me once again just like she did in the past, would you cut ties with her for me?"

"Without a second's delay." There's a brutal honesty in his words.

"Then what you have is not friendship," I say grittingly, moving to face him, the delicious friction from the movement causes me to gasp. Shit. Another hour. His gaze hardens. "Friends have the right to speak their minds. It doesn't mean you cut them off from your life if you don't like it. Selene wasn't too happy about our mess today, but you're not asking me to cut off my ties with her. Why him, then? Because you think he's in love with me and it's alright. I understand it. I won't see him for sometime until things get smoother but if you expect me to pretend not to know him when he's in front of me then I won't do it."

"You've added another hour to your punishment and now you've lost the privilege of relaxing by trying to justify your defiance for the sake of your so-called friend." His gaze is bloodshot as he grips my chin and yanks me for a punishing kiss. "Sit like a statue with your back straight for the remainder of the ride and be quiet. You're not to speak until I ask you to. Bear the pain, my slutty masochist." 

which part did you love the most?

what do you think happened between Adrianna and Areston?

what do you think is going to happen next?