He was holding my hands.
He was fucking me like a whore but cherishing me with his mouth and gentle touch. I didn’t know why, but tears built in my eyes. Arthur never held my hands. He was rarely affectionate. I had always accepted it as just who he was. But I had dreamed of the moment he would show me he cared. That I was more to him than just some posh bird he got his kicks out of by fucking once a week.
I couldn’t fight back the orgasm building inside me. I wanted to savour this moment, bask in it some more. I didn’t want this to end. Because this had to end. I was getting married. This, right now, was it.
Arthur kissed up my neck as he thrust inside me. I didn’t know where he began and I ended as I trembled, crying out his name. Then Arthur stilled and I felt his heat flood inside me. My arms and legs were numb in the aftermath, and I could barely breathe.
Arthur rested his forehead on my shoulder again. Only this time, I felt him shaking. At first I thought it was due to exertion, but then I felt the tears trickle down my back. My heart dropped.
He was crying.
I guided our still-joined hands off the headboard and turned my head. Arthur drew his head back, and I saw the track marks of tears on his cheeks. “Arthur,” I whispered, hearing my own voice quiver in empathy.
I lowered myself to the bed, bringing Arthur down with me. He let me guide him against me to rest in my arms. A burst of heat washed through me as he laid his head on my stomach. He had never let me hold him like this before. Never let me cherish him and care for him. And he had never done the same to me.
“It’s okay,” I soothed, feeling Arthur’s shoulders shake and his unrelenting tears pool on my stomach. He held me so tightly, as if I might disappear if he didn’t keep such fierce hold. A lump formed in my throat, and I knew that I didn’t want to hear what had happened to him. Because whatever it was had crippled him. Arthur, who had always been the most unbreakable, formidable man I had ever met, had been destroyed. I ran my hands through his hair, trying to make him feel safe, feel wanted, feel loved.
I wasn’t sure how long we lay like that. But Arthur’s shaking shoulders calmed, and his tears on my stomach all but dried. He was awake. I knew this because he was drawing lazy, hypnotic circles on my stomach. And he hadn’t pulled away. That affected me more than I was willing to admit.
“They’ve gone,” he finally rasped out, his tired voice sounding like broken glass in the silent room. I tensed. “Dad’s in a coma, but they don’t think he’ll ever wake up.”
My eyes widened in the darkness, then I inhaled slowly, trying to organise my scattered thoughts. “Who has gone, baby?” I asked tentatively, keeping my voice soft and quiet. I had never called Arthur “baby” before. But I couldn’t help it as I held him so protectively in my arms.
“All of them,” he said, his finger moving up to my breast. “My uncles, my father … all the bosses of our firm.” My stomach sank as I realised the gravity of that information. His father and his men were notorious. Infamous gangsters, the most feared men in London, in England, and, hell, in most of Europe.
“Gone where?” I asked, stupidly, but needing to hear the actual words from his lips.
“Dead.” Arthur held on to my waist as if the admission would take his strength away. I squeezed my eyes shut in sympathy for the pain he must have been in. Then it dawned on me. Arthur was Alfie Adley’s son. That meant Arthur was the heir, and thus …
Arthur leaned over me, his stomach pressing flush against mine. He put his hand on my cheek, and I instinctively leaned into its warmth. I kissed his wrist and heard his almost silent hiss at my touch. Arthur’s gaze tracked over every part of my face as though it was the last time he would see it. I could still smell the whisky on him and knew that the only reason he ever would have allowed himself the liberties of shedding tears and touching me so intimately, lovingly, was because he was drunk.
“It’s my time now to rule over hell.” His words cut through me like a knife. “It’s my time to embrace the darkness, princess.” He dragged his thumb over my bottom lip, the move I always loved best. He’d done that on the yacht in Marbella all those years ago when we’d first been together. Even now it made me crave him, brought me strictly under his command.