The Breaking Season: An Arranged Marriage Romance Read online

  He looked so… peaceful. I’d forgotten how human he could look while he was sleeping.

  My foot stubbed on the bed, and an oof fell out of my mouth.

  Camden jolted, jerking upright in bed. His chest was heaving as he assessed the room, as if anticipating a threat.

  “Sorry,” I muttered. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  He didn’t immediately deflate when his eyes adjusted and found me standing nearby. “What are you doing here?”

  My first response was to tell him to go fuck himself. That I was fucking staying here, too. He had no right to question me. But I let the anger pool out of me and land like a puddle at my feet. Maybe the truth might be better than my deflection.

  “I… came to check on you,” I admitted.

  He shifted, revealing the full length of him to me. My gaze snagged on his cock, unable to look away. He was hard. At full mast while he had been passed out, asleep on the bed. Heat settled in my core. What exactly had he been dreaming about?

  Camden said nothing before he dropped to his feet and tugged boxer briefs on. It barely obscured that he was rock solid and straining against the material.

  God, I wanted to ask… I probably shouldn’t. But I fucking wanted to.

  My eyes shot back up to his, and there was nothing to indicate whether or not he wanted me to say anything. So, I arched an eyebrow. “Having fun while I was gone?”

  Tension coiled through his muscular shoulders, and he took a dominating step toward me. “Would you like it if I was?” Then he tilted his head. “Or would you prefer to join me?”

  I swallowed, feeling the tension snap taut between us. I knew this game. We had played it for so long, but the rope between us had frayed and then snapped. I wasn’t sure we could knot it back together to keep playing.

  “Maybe,” I whispered throatily.

  He took another step toward me until his fingers pushed up into my dark hair and bared my throat to him. My limbs were tight as unease and anticipation both managed to wind their way through me. I couldn’t do this. But… I could. I could do this.

  His lips landed on the soft spot between my neck and shoulder. My legs nearly buckled under the force of that one kiss. The possessive way he held me and owned me in that touch. Camden Percy did something to my body that I could never explain. He could make it war against me. He could make it succumb to him. He played a pied piper, and I danced to his tune.

  And yet, the thought… scared me. To be that vulnerable with him again. To give him the chance to break me again.

  So, I took a step back. Enough for him to release me and not meet my questioning look with an answer.

  “We’re going to the resort club tonight,” I told him, offering an olive branch. “Maybe… you could meet me.”

  I hadn’t used those words with him in months. He knew what it meant. How it used to be between us. Camden and I never showed up anywhere together. Recently, it had been out of necessity. I hadn’t been able to stand being in his presence for much longer than necessary. But before… when things had been more open between us… when he found me, he could claim me.

  Recognition sparked in his dark eyes.

  “I think I should do that,” he said with a smirk.

  Before we went dancing, I’d met the girls for dinner at a local restaurant that Paulo had recommended. We went all in, ordering the local pork mofongo, which was delicious. Though I could barely touch it or the flaky passion fruit pastry dessert that English had ordered for the table.

  Nerves bit into me. What was I thinking? Did I really want to start a sexual relationship with Camden again? I wanted to have sex with him. But sex wasn’t just sex with Camden Percy.

  Sex was control. Primal, passionate, and addicting. It wasn’t just a fling in the afternoons after the pool. It would never, could never be something that flippant. I’d known it before I’d married him. But I hadn’t really known. Not until our honeymoon when I’d left the Maldives with welts on my legs and ass and my pussy aching for more of whatever he’d give me. The sweet torment of his touch and his absence. Something that should have made me run the other way but somehow felt… safe.

  I shook my head out of my thoughts of those weeks of blissful sex. I didn’t have to decide right now. I could figure it out as I went. It was a lie, but I held on to it for dear life.

  Lark nudged me as we headed toward the club. “You barely touched your food.”

  I bit my lip. I hated to admit this, but it was Lark. “I’m actually… nervous.”

  “About what?” she asked with a laugh. “You’re on vacation.”

  “I invited Camden tonight.”

  “So? Wasn’t he already going to meet us with the rest of the guys?”

  “Yes,” I said softly. “But I invited him to meet me.”

  “There’s a distinction?”

  I nodded. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m overreacting.”

  “Just be careful,” Lark said softly. “I remember how you were after you and Camden… stopped.” She didn’t have to remind me. I knew the shell of a person I’d been. “I don’t want you to go through that again.”

  “Me neither,” I whispered, but the words were drowned out by the pulse of the nightclub as we stepped inside.

  English wove us through the crowd to an unoccupied booth nearest the DJ. Latin music blasted through the speakers with an intoxicating beat that made me want to move my hips. Couples ground against each other on the dance floor, just like back at home, but there were enough who were spiraling together, as if their movements were a choreographed salsa routine, and it was hard to pull my eyes away from them. They were fantastic and utterly sexual. Foreplay in the form of a dance. Erotic in nature but with rules unlike most of what I saw in America. It was a nice change of pace for our usual haunts.

  Rum was the drink of choice. Some I’d heard of, like Bacardi, but others had names that I’d never seen—Palo Viejo, Don Q, and Ron del Barrilito. Our bartender was a saucy woman with long black hair nearly to her waist and a smile that made Whitley lean in. She poured drinks that were fruity and delicious and strong. So strong that my head was fuzzy after just one. Fuck, I really must not have eaten much at dinner.

  I watched a couple dancing like they’d been born for it. I’d wanted to dance so freely once. Not any form of ballroom, of course. But I’d done ballet growing. I’d always been tall and willowy, and ballet had suited my frame. It had been years since I’d longed to put my pointe shoes back on. Even though Lord knew my ankles were not ready for that anymore. I would have never given it up if I hadn’t ended up in the hospital right after graduation. That had changed everything.

  I shoved aside the bad memory and was startled to find the man striding toward me. He must have seen me watching him. I straightened at once, fear coiling in my stomach, though I looked cool on the outside. I always did.

  He held his hand out to me. “Dance?”

  “Oh, I don’t know how,” I said automatically.

  He laughed. “You don’t need to know how. I will lead. You will follow.”

  He was so damn sure of himself that, without thinking about it, I put my hand in his.

  “What are you doing?” English hissed behind me.

  But I was gone before I could answer.

  And he was right. He did lead. I had enough rhythm to follow wherever he led me. It was fun. Really fun. A laugh erupted out of me. Real and genuine. I didn’t know when I’d last laughed like that.

  “You lied,” he breathed into my ear. “You do know how.”

  “I haven’t danced like this in a decade,” I said.

  “Your body doesn’t forget.”

  He wasn’t wrong. He pulled me through another series of movements. My hair flew out behind me. I turned in place, and then he pulled me back into his arms. He was strong and sturdy. It had seemed so sexual when I watched others, but there was nothing sexual here with this man. Just the joy of dancing.

  He meandered us back over to my friends and
spun me one more time when a shadow descended over us. Camden. I stopped in place. The man I’d been dancing with glanced over at Camden as if realizing he’d intruded.

  “Feel free to cut in,” he said, offering my hand to Camden, who took it.

  Then the man was gone. I’d never even gotten his name.

  I was breathing heavily as Camden tugged me against him. Sweat dampened the back of my neck, but my eyes and heart and soul were alight as I looked up at him. The dance had knocked out all my nerves and fears. Reminded me what it was to be alive. So, I just stood on my tiptoes and pressed my lips to my husband’s mouth.

  After the rejection earlier this afternoon, he seemed surprised that I’d offered him that… anything. But then his hands slid around my body, pulling me tight to him. He deepened the kiss, his tongue stroking down into my mouth. He tasted me. Really tasted me. As if he were a man possessed. As if he had been waiting all this time for a yes from me. And I offered it now greedily.

  When he pulled back, his hand moved down the length of my spine to cup my ass. “You were dancing with another man.”

  “Yes,” I said breathlessly.

  I couldn’t tell if my heart pounded in my chest from the dance or that one heart-stopping kiss.

  “I don’t like to see you with anyone else.”

  “Is that so?” I asked coyly.

  His hand tightened on my ass. He didn’t have to say the words. I could see them in his eyes. Possession. I was not an object to be controlled, but in that look, he owned me.

  “You invite me here, and then I find you with someone else. Is this a game to you?”

  “What if it is?” I countered. My hand trailed up his suit coat. I grasped the lapels in my hands.

  “I do not play games, Katherine.”

  My body trembled at the way he’d said my name. “You play them better than almost anyone.”

  “Not with you. Not like this,” he growled.

  I leaned up, brushing my nose along his jaw. My lips lingered at his ear. I let one free hand roam to the front of his suit pants. I dragged my nail down the length of his cock. “What if I want you to play a game with me?”

  He jerked me against him—hard. Desire blasted out his pupils. We’d crossed a line, and I wasn’t sure if it was smart. No, I was sure it wasn’t. Giving Camden my body was one thing, but offering him me was asking for him to hurt me. Not physically… just emotionally and mentally, down to the hardened shards of my soul.

  And yet, I offered myself up on a silver platter anyway. We had one week in our bargain. It might be worthwhile to see where the week took us.

  “Then I believe we should leave,” Camden said hoarsely.

  I nodded. “After you.”

  He took my hand in his. Without a backward glance for our friends, I followed him out of the nightclub.

  13

  Katherine

  When we returned to our villa, even the air was charged between us. I felt reckless, and I was not known for being reckless. How much rum had I had? It didn’t feel like enough to be walking into a dimly lit room with my husband, knowing what I’d proposed.

  The heady relief of the dance had evaporated by the time we were back inside. A fresh bottle of champagne was chilling in a sweating bucket. As if Paulo had known we would need refreshments for the night. I moved toward it to give my hands something to do.

  Camden said nothing as I uncorked the champagne and poured bubbles into two flutes. I drifted back over to him, passing him a fizzing glass.

  “You seemed so confident in the club,” he said. “I forget sometimes that so much of you is bravado.”

  My eyes narrowed. We’d agreed not to argue. Under normal circumstances, I would have bitten his head off for that comment. I was not all bravado. Even if so much of me was in this moment.

  “What does that mean?” I asked instead.

  He set his glass down without taking a sip. “It means usually you are yelling at me. So, I can’t see that something else is lurking beneath.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I finished my drink and discarded it on a nearby table.

  “Oh, Katherine,” he said faintly, sending a chill down my spine as he came to stand behind me. His hand ran down my vertebrae, one after the other after the other. “Underneath your hard exterior, you want me to take control.”

  I swallowed. “Is that what you think?”

  “No.” His hands moved to my shoulders, placing light touches across them and down my arms to my wrists. He grasped each of them, pulling my shoulder blades together and drawing my hands tight behind my back.

  My breathing hitched. Oh god.

  “It’s what I know,” he whispered against the shell of my ear.

  He put both of my wrists in one of his large hands and then used the other to cup my chin and turn my head to the side. I could just barely look at him. I was caught in his embrace, completely at his mercy, and my entire body was singing.

  “What are you doing?” I breathed, my voice betraying my desire.

  “Giving you what you want.”

  “What if I say no?”

  He arched an eyebrow. “You and I both know that is not the word you have chosen.”

  “I didn’t agree…”

  “Do you not agree?”

  I swallowed. That was the question. Did I want this? Did I agree? I’d given this to him once. Enjoyed his command in the bedroom. And then my trust had been shattered. Irrevocably. Was I willing to try to repair it? Would this even fix it?

  And yet, I couldn’t say no. I didn’t want to say no, for fuck’s sake. My thong was already soaked under this minidress. He’d discover it soon enough. We’d been tiptoeing around our desire.

  If I gave in now, it wouldn’t be a promise of forever. It would be a promise of for now.

  I could always back out. I had a word for that. A safe word I’d never used. But it was there all the same.

  “Yes.” My voice was rigid with emotion. “Yes, I agree.”

  “Oh, how I do love to hear that word out of your mouth.” He drew his thumb along my bottom lip. I struggled slightly against where he held me, and his eyes darkened. “Don’t fight me.”

  I stilled. My body reacted to him wholly. In a way that I never would react out of the bedroom. Usually, we were so at each other’s throats that the idea of submitting to his demands was impossible. But here… right now…

  His thumb continued its perusal of my mouth. Gently stroking back and forth against my bottom lip before venturing in, parting me. I flicked my tongue out, caressing the tip. His hand tightened on my wrists, almost to the point of pain. I squirmed against him, but he held me firmly. A warning. Which only made me want to squirm more.

  He continued pushing his thumb inside of my mouth. “Now, suck.”

  I swallowed at the command and closed my lips around him as he withdrew slowly. His eyes were on fire as he removed his thumb from my lips, no trace of my blood-red lipstick on him.

  “There. You do remember how to take direction,” he said with a faint smirk on his lips.

  Something ached in me to lash out at that comment. Every fiber of my being wanted to fight him. And yet, I said nothing. Bit the inside of my cheek to keep from saying exactly where he could shove his directions.

  His smirk widened into a smile when I remained silent. He surely could see the fire lit in my eyes.

  “I think it’s time that I took care of you,” he said, finally releasing my wrists.

  My shoulders ached as my hands returned to my sides. “Take off your dress.”

  I eagerly reached behind me to pull down the zipper.

  But his eyes narrowed. “Slowly.”

  I huffed slightly. His hand found purchase on my ass. A not-quite-gentle smack that sent my entire body reeling. I could barely keep from moaning as remembered welts melded together with orgasms in my mind.

  It wasn’t that I necessarily wanted him to spank me again. It was humiliating. And somehow, desire poo
led even deeper into my core. My body pulsed with it as I slowly, ever so slowly, dragged the zipper of my dress down. When I finally reached the base, I let the straps fall from my shoulders, baring my breasts before sliding over my narrow hips to puddle at my feet.

  Camden moved to stand before me. His eyes roamed me, assessing. A look I never would have tolerated. And now, I found only intense hunger.

  He stepped forward, bringing his fingers down over the curves of my ribs before lightly running them over the underside of my breasts. And then up and around until his thumb flickered across my erect nipple.

  A sigh escaped me at the contact. I was so sensitive. I always had been. And he knew it as he pinched the nipple between his fingers, twisting slightly. I arched into him. My eyes fluttered closed. Another soft exhale released from me.

  “Eyes open,” he commanded.

  And so I did. I stared right back at him as he pulled and tugged and twirled my nipples between his fingers. Until they were sore. Until I felt like I could release right then and there.

  Not that he would have let me. He wasn’t ready for me to come. Not just yet.

  One hand traced down my stomach and then fingered the front of my thong almost absentmindedly. Except I knew he managed my reactions with keen focus. Just as he managed the company. Just as he did everything.

  He almost slipped inside, and it took everything in me not to urge him onward. But he moved over the silk material, dipping his index finger across the front and slowly, slowly, slowly to the point where I wanted him. He pressed harder against my clit and I couldn’t make myself stop. I moved into him, eager, wanton.

  He pulled back. Because, of course. I wanted to grumble. Instead, I bit my lip.

  He smirked. “Do you want me?”

  “Yes,” I whispered hoarsely.

  “Show me where.”

  I froze in place. He arched his eyebrow expectantly. I pushed my pride down to the back of my mind and gestured vaguely to my underwear.

  “Walk backward to the bed,” he told me fiercely.

  I nodded primly and stepped back in my Louboutin heels until the back of my knees touched the bed. His finger hooked into my underwear and unceremoniously yanked them down to my feet. He pushed me down until my back was against the soft comforter. My legs were squeezed tight together.