Evil Twin

“To those who deserve it. There are many people who I no longer respect.”

“What of people you don’t know well, so you don’t know whether you should respect them?”

“I must still respect myself. So I would be kind until I learned that they did not deserve it.”

His dark gaze held hers. “And after all that we shared last night and this day, what would you say that I deserve?”

Everything that is good. But she didn’t say it aloud.

Then he stole her breath by raising her bound hand to his lips and pressing a kiss to the tips of her fingers. His gaze burned into hers.

“We have a long carriage ride,” he said, his voice deepening, “with not much to do.”

Her heart thundered. “I intend to sleep,” she whispered.

“Will you not change your plan? We left many inches unkissed.” The touch of his mouth to her inner wrist sent a shiver over her skin. “Or if you wish to revisit the inches already kissed, I will happily spend the next hours with my head between your thighs.”

“I do not wish it.” She did not. And she hated the reason behind her refusal and hated him for making it hurt. “Why would I ever let you touch me again, knowing of your feelings for my sister?”

He frowned. “Your sister?”

“You thought I was Sapphira last night. Did you not?”

“I did. But—”

“And while inside me, you claimed to already be a fool in love. With her. But I will not be Sapphira’s substitute in your bed.”

He stared at her. “You think I love your twin?”

“For what other reason would you have deceived your way into your brother’s bed, except to take the bride you love? But you were forced to marry me, instead.”

“Forced to marry you? Hardly.” He barked out a laugh before crowding close and snaking his free arm around her waist.

She shrank back. “What are you doing?”

“Lifting you.”

And there was apparently nothing she could do about it. Echo kicked and struggled and pushed, but in a flurry of silver skirts and curses, she still found herself lifted and turned and locked into place—facing him, straddling those massive thighs with his arm wrapped around her waist and her beribboned hand pressed to his lips again.

She sneered into his face. “I still will not touch you.”

He grunted. It sounded like an absentminded agreement. As if he’d not even noticed her sneer or her declaration.

Because during the lifting and struggling, her tits had finally escaped and were happily bouncing along with the carriage. If he’d appeared hungry before, now he looked ravenous. And mesmerized.

“Bane,” she said sweetly.

His eyes were dazed when they met hers.

“Do you truly wish to kiss me?”

His focus cleared. “More than anything.”

“Even knowing what I am? Knowing the risk?”

“You are worth every risk, wife.”

That gruff response nearly undid her. Nearly. But best he learn now that she was not Sapphira. She would never be Sapphira.

“Go on, then,” she urged him. “Take what you wish.”

He wished for her mouth. Even as he dragged her closer by the arm around her waist, his lips covered hers—and she didn’t open to him, couldn’t open, even when his tongue traced the seam of her lips and she so badly wanted to let him in. And he wished for her cunt. With their bound hands, he shoved the bunched hem of her skirt up to her hip, exposing the wet arousal painting her inner thighs to the warm summer air.

And then he stopped. His entire body, frozen in place.

Silently she drew back, her gaze holding his. In his eyes, the fierce internal struggle that took hold of him was clear to see.

“This is why I turned my cheek,” she told him quietly. “I meant to leave you after the ceremony. Perhaps I should have.”

A growl ripped from his chest. And in his eyes was reflected…panic? Worry?

She could at least assuage that. “You have nothing to fear. The effect lasts but a few hours. And it will not kill you. It only prevents you from moving at will.” Though she could move him—as she would have to when extricating herself from the arm he’d locked around her. “But everything your body does to keep you alive is not affected. You’ll breathe and blink, your heart will beat and you’ll still experience any other involuntary…responses.”

She paused. Because one involuntary response had made an earlier appearance and hadn’t yet softened. Between them, in the cradle of her own widespread thighs, the bulge of his erection strained against soft leather, the purpled crown extending above the waist despite the taut constriction of the laces.

It looked…painful. The angry color of his cock recalled the shade of her father’s face while being choked. But although Echo had rejoiced in that strangling, she didn’t want to hurt Bane. Or his prick.

“Should I loosen the laces?”