The Wrong Bride (The Windsors, #1)

by Catharina Maura

She pulls my pants down to my thighs, and I smirk at her. “Good girl,” I whisper, and she looks up at me, desire clear in her eyes. This is how she looked at me the night I had her in my lap, and her expression has haunted my dreams ever since.

“Remind me, that recent underwear campaign you did… It was something like this, wasn’t it?” I pull her against me and thread one hand in her hair before tipping her head back to expose her neck. She gasps when I lower my lips to her ear, my teeth grazing over her earlobe. “This is how you posed with Tom Foster, wasn’t it? Tell me, my love, was he as hard as I am when he held you like this?”

“I never realized you were so possessive,” she whispers. I pull back to look at her and push my fingers up her scalp, grabbing more of her hair as my grip on her waist tightens. “I never was. Not until you. You…yeah, you changed the game. I want all of you, Raven. I need you to be mine in every single way.” She looks at me with such vulnerability in her eyes. “I’m already yours, Ares.”

I’m required to engage with the content on social media for an hour.” I run a hand through my hair and groan loudly. “You’re kidding me.” She shakes her head and starts to scroll through her phone. “It’s awful timing, I know. I just…” I pull her back against me and kiss her, my hand balling into her hair. “Fuck the campaign,” I whisper in between kisses. “I’ll pay the penalty. I’ll do anything if you’ll just let me keep kissing you.”

“No,” she tells me. “That’s not who I am. I hate being irresponsible like that.” She sits up in bed, and I groan as she puts her no-nonsense work face on. Yeah, there’s no way she’ll let me kiss her now.

“Where the fuck is your wedding ring?” Her eyes widen, and she looks away. “I took it off.” “What do you mean, you took it off?” She pulls her hand out of mine and slips it underneath the covers. “It just…it’s very much Hannah’s style, but it isn’t mine. It doesn’t feel right to wear it.” I roll onto my back and stare up at the ceiling for a moment, trying to collect my thoughts yet finding it impossible to do so. “Next week,” I say, my tone harsher than I intended. “We’ll buy you a new ring next week, and you will wear it.”

I grab her hand and place my phone in it. “Check. I haven’t replied to any of her messages. Check my call history. Today is the first time I picked up when she called.” “You think I won’t?” she snaps. I smile up at her. “Baby, I gave you my phone because I want you to check. This isn’t me playing games with you. This is me giving you the honesty you asked for.”

Whatever you decide, I will honor.” She stares at me in disbelief. “What if I decide that I never want you to speak to her again?” I smile at her. “Then I won’t. You are my wife, Raven. I will always put you above anyone and everything else. Always.”

She doesn’t realize it, but she could ask me for the moon and I’d try to give it to her. There’s nothing I won’t do for her.

I watch as my phone resets and smile to myself as I type in a new password, choosing a combination of Raven’s birthday and our wedding date. Had I known erasing everything would feel so good, I’d have done it long ago.

My hands move slowly as I knead, my thumbs working through her glutes. “Oh,” she moans again. “Hurts.” “Here, baby?” I continue, moving my hands lower, until they’re covering her ass fully, my grip tight as my thumbs dig into her muscles. “Yeah,” she groans. “There.”

“You may need to take another shower, Wifey. I got oil all over your body.” “Yeah,” she whispers. “I, um, I’ll just go take another shower now.” I kiss her skin again and pull away. “I’ve got a conference call in a few minutes, so just relax for a bit before you shower, my love.” I sigh and lean in one more time, kissing her shoulder blade this time.

“Please, Rave. Tell him to talk to me. I know my request sounds ridiculous, especially because your marriage isn’t real. You said it yourself, the two of you are just friends, and considering how much he loves me, it’ll never be more than that, but he just…he has such a strong sense of loyalty. Remind him that it’s misplaced.” I stare at her for a moment as a wave of disappointment and sorrow washes over me. “You aren’t here to apologize for what you did to me, are you? You’re here because you need me to talk to Ares on your behalf.”

I look into her eyes, my heart breaking as I remember the pain I was put through five years ago. I can’t ever go back to how things used to be. My heart won’t survive seeing them together again. I can’t lose what I’ve got now. “No,” I tell her, my voice soft. “I won’t talk to Ares for you. He’s not a child, and I’m not a mediator. Don’t ask me for more than I’ve already given you, Hannah, because there’s not much left of me to give.”

“Give me another moment of honesty, baby. These stretches? Do you ever do them with any other men?” My eyes widen, and he grits his teeth when I don’t immediately answer. “Only with my trainer.” Ares tightens his grip on my calves for a moment before his hands move down to my thighs. “You won’t ever do them with anyone else ever again, you hear me?” “Why?” His eyes flash, and he lifts my hips up, until he’s got my thighs wrapped around his shoulders, his lips a mere inch away from my pussy. “Because you look way too fucking sexy like this, and I won’t have anyone else seeing my wife this way.”

You’re a supermodel, baby. Your sessions are one-on-one, aren’t they? Just you and your trainer, all alone…” I nod, and Ares laughs humorlessly. “You can’t tell me he’s never wanted to do this to you.” He presses a kiss against my pussy and then drags his tongue over my yoga pants. “No man can see you lying there, your legs up in the air, without thinking of the way you’d look naked, without wanting a taste of you.”

“Tell me what you want, Raven. Tell me what you want me to do. Do you want me to fuck you with my tongue? My fingers? Or shall I give you my cock? Do you want to come for me, my love?”

“You want more, baby? You want to come for me?” I nod, restless. “Please, Ares. Please. Make me come, my love.” He smiles then. “I’ll reward you for calling me my love, but you don’t get to come unless you swear to me that no other man will ever help you with your stretches.” He turns his face in and kisses my thigh, his touch tender. “You want it, don’t you? You want to come on my tongue, don’t you, baby?”

Ares leans over me, holding himself up on one forearm as he uses his free hand to position his cock. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve dreamed of this, Raven?”

I glance at Ares nervously as we sit down, but he merely smiles and brings our joined hands to his lips. “Anything you want, Raven. There is no budget. I just want you to have a ring you’ll wear with pride.” He looks at Mr. Laurier then. “My only request is that you engrave my name on the inside of my wife’s ring.”

It’ll be a shared-prong eternity band with a trellis design. What kind of carat weight were you thinking of?” Ares tenses and straightens his back, his grip on my hand tightening. “I need it to be visible from across the room,” he says, his expression unyielding. “Would ten carats be okay? Perhaps fifteen.”

“Even if what I’m asking for is your body? Your devotion? Passion? What if what I want is everything that used to be hers?” He smiles as he caresses my cheek with the back of his fingers. “I’m yours,” he repeats. “And there’s nothing I’d rather do than make you mine in return.”

I’m practically always hard around you. You’re not the only one who overthinks things, Rave. You’re the most important woman in my life, and there’s no way I was going to do anything that would upset you. I’d already asked enough of you by making you marry me, and I didn’t dare ask for anything else…but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want it.” He leans in, his lips hovering over mine. “Let me show you what it means to be my wife, Raven.”

She leads us into her living room, and this time, it’s Sierra who dashes forward. She grabs the plate of cookies that was waiting for us, and without hesitating for even a single moment, she empties the plate into her handbag. I look at her in disbelief. “Are you serious?”

Grandma wraps her hand around my waist and leans in to whisper in my ear. “I hid some for you. I’ll send them over later.” “What was that?” Sierra asks instantly, her eyes narrowed.

“You, my sweet Raven, will inherit all of the Windsor jewelry. You’ll become this family’s next matriarch, and there’s no one else I’d rather have at the head of this family.” She turns to Sierra then. “And you will, no doubt, become the matriarch of the family you’ll marry into.”

I stare at the rings in my hand with the most wicked smile on my face. I felt a sense of dread when Hannah picked our rings, yet merely seeing the rings Raven chose fills me with satisfaction.

“Do you truly see a future with me, Ares? When we first got married you…well, you mentioned leaving me in three years. Do you still want to? I need to know. I can’t…I don’t want to get hurt.” I cup her cheek and look into her eyes, my thumb brushing over her lips. “I will never let you go, Raven. Fuck what I said. I was a fucking moron who didn’t realize that he’d struck fucking gold. You’re my wife, for better or worse. Only you. For as long as I live.”

“Tomorrow,” I whisper against her lips. “Let’s announce our marriage tomorrow.” I know that announcing our marriage means a lot of additional eyes on us, and it’s bound to make Hannah panic, but fuck it. I need the world to know that Raven is mine.

“I love the photo you posted,” he murmurs. “I thought you’d pick a general photo of us or just something recent, but there was no ambiguity.” I lean back in his arms to look at him, pure love spreading from my heart. “I’m proud to be your wife,” I whisper. “Why wouldn’t I want to show you off?” He leans in, his lips brushing over my ear. “You made my day,” he murmurs. “I’ll have to reward you later.”

He pauses for a moment and smiles. “My love, I don’t think you quite realize that your wedding ring is worth more than the penalty I paid. And either way, it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing I won’t do for you.”

“This is how you take measurements, Wife?” he snaps. I lean back a little to look at him and shake my head. “No. I never do this myself, but I wanted to for you.” “Hmm,” he grunts. “Very well. No one but me, Raven.”

His free hand moves to his cock and he wraps his fingers around the base. “If I find out you’ve ever measured another man this way, there’ll be hell to pay,” he warns.

“Get dressed,” he says as he rushes through the dressing room, pulling on clothes in a hurry. I stare at him, still on my knees in a dress I didn’t think he could resist. His gaze drops to me, and guilt flashes through his eyes. He kneels in front of me and cups my face, his eyes on mine. “Raven,” he whispers. I shake my head and look away. “Just go,” I whisper. “Go to her, like you always do.”

I push away from him and walk toward the bathroom, locking the door behind me before I sink down to the floor, my knees drawn to my chest. It still doesn’t hurt any less. Despite the promises and the sex, he still goes running the moment he hears her voice.

I hesitate for a moment, wondering how best to handle her. “You know as well as I do that Grandma insists we give our marriage a real chance.” “Ares,” she pleads. “Please don’t tell me you’re really giving your marriage with her a chance? You two aren’t… You can’t be…” I’m reminded of the way I pushed my cock into Raven’s mouth just a few moments ago, and guilt hits me hard. I wanted her with such desperation…I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anyone more. Not even Hannah.

I stare at her, unsure what to do or say. I don’t want to hurt her, but I can’t lie to her either. Things aren’t as black-and-white between Raven and me as Hannah would like them to be. “That is, quite frankly, no longer any of your business. You and I can’t be more than friends, and you can’t do this. You can’t drop by my house unannounced and get upset about my wife and me simply being together.”

“Stop calling her your wife!” she snaps. “That’s what she is, Hannah!” Big, fat tears run down her cheeks, her gaze filled with remorse.

“Don’t,” she says, her voice trembling. “Don’t defend her like that, Ares. It kills me when you do that, can’t you see? You keep promising me that you’ll give me your all, yet you run out at the sound of her voice.” She pushes a hand through her hair, her eyes flashing. “And then you just stand there when she’s telling me that you’ll never be mine—not a single word of denial. How am I supposed to believe your words when your actions say otherwise? It isn’t her I’m concerned about. It’s you. You’re making me feel like a part of you truly does still love her, and I can’t stand it. The way you acted just now shows me you don’t care about me.”

She pushes against me and walks away, pausing by the door. “You told her you feel trapped in this marriage, but how do you think I feel? I was forced to marry someone I’ll never stand a chance with—someone who will never even be able to look at me without thinking of my sister. Have you ever stopped to think about what I might have wanted out of a marriage? I want happiness too, Ares. I can see now that you will never give me that, no matter what I do. I’ll never be her. When given a choice between hurting either of us, it’s always me you’ll choose. I’ll never be your priority, not truly.”

I wonder what she was thinking. Did she really believe nothing would change between us, even though I married Raven? I wouldn’t put it past her. She’s always been self-centered, but I just never realized it before. Or perhaps I did, and I just chose to ignore it.

“I’m fucking obsessed with you,” I admit. “I’m addicted, Raven. Every touch, every kiss. Every single thing you do hooks me more. You’re a habit I never want to kick.”

“Promise me, Ares. Promise me that you’ll always be mine.” I grab her hair and pull her closer, my lips brushing against hers. “I’m yours, Raven Windsor. Forever. I promise.”

“Raven,” I whisper. “You’re it for me.”

She cups my cheek and presses a kiss to the tip of my nose, making me chuckle. She does the cutest things sometimes, and damn if it doesn’t make me fall even harder. “You’ve always been the one for me, Ares Windsor.”

She looks at me, and it’s as though she’s finally really seeing me, hearing me. “Ares,” she pleads. “I can’t lose you.” I look away and stare out the window instead, my heart hollow. “You already did, Hannah.”

Please, Ares. I… Tell me what to do. Tell me how to salvage what we had. I’ll do anything if it’ll prove to you how much I love you.” I shake my head. “There’s one thing I need you to do for me, Han.” She looks up at me, her eyes sparkling with a hint of hope. “I need you to move on.” She inhales sharply, fresh tears filling her eyes.

I place my hand in his and smile up at him. “This,” he tells me as he helps me to my feet. “This is what I’ve always wanted, Raven. It’s you. You’re the one that’s made all of my dreams come true.”

Ares and she both burst out laughing, and he shakes his head at me. “Talking about good looks,” he says. “What do you think of my wife’s dress? She designed it herself. She designed my suit for me too.”

I was so certain that she’d want to stake her claim, yet here she is, suffering in silence because she doesn’t want to hurt her sister. Fuck. I think I’m done for. I think I’m falling in love with my wife. Hell, I think I may have been in love with her for far longer than I’d ever admit to myself.