“Sons?” I asked, my eyebrow raised. “How many kids are we having?”
“Two. Is that how many you want?”
“Actually, yes. But why do you assume they’ll be boys?”
He stared at me for a long time, his eyes unblinking and his chest stationary. The answer he gave was a direct contradiction to the length of his pause. “Just do.”
“Are you one of those men who would be disappointed if you had a girl?”
“No. I don’t have a preference, honestly.”
“Seems like you do.”
“It’s just a prediction.”
Our food arrived, but my appetite had disappeared. All of this felt so real, that this man would really be my husband, that I might be buried next to him someday, our corpses rotting until we were nothing but skeletons. “I want to keep my last name.”
He stilled at the request, about to take a bite of his dinner but having a sudden change of heart. “That’s funny.” He took a drink of his wine, washing away his bitterness. “No.”
“No?” I asked. “Taking a man’s name is so archaic—”
“The answer is no. Take my name, or don’t marry me at all.”
Damn. “Then a hyphen.”
“No.”
“You won’t even compromise?”
“My last name will protect you more than a bulletproof vest. Wear it like armor. And my sons won’t be using a fucking hyphen.”
I shouldn’t have expected anything else. “I feel like I’m the one making all the compromises…”
“Because I’m the one doing you a favor.”
“Oh, really?” I spat.
“Most men would treat you like a dog. Trust me on that. You know I never would.”
After meeting Maddox, I believed him, but I still wasn’t happy.
“And I have compromised.”
“No, you haven’t.”
“You asked me to be faithful. That’s a big sacrifice to make. I won’t sneak around behind your back and do my best to keep it a secret. I’m a man of my word, and if you want to be my only, I’ll give it to you. That’s a lot to ask of a man like me.”
I poked my pasta with my fork. “Well…have fun fucking as many women as possible before that day arrives.”
He stopped eating his food altogether. “I haven’t been with anyone since your mother asked me to marry you.”
“Why?”
“It feels wrong.”
He didn’t owe me anything, so it was a sweet gesture. “I haven’t been with anyone either…” I had been in too foul a mood to take a man home, and since I would be sleeping with someone else very soon, it seemed strange.
“Then are you still going to make me wait?”
I could feel his heated stare across the table, feel the copious amounts of desire leak through his skin. I was the target he wanted to claim, the woman he wanted to dominate. “Is this revenge? Do you want to marry me because I said no? Do you want me so you could lose that battle but win the war? Is this some toxic masculinity bullshit?”
He continued to stare at me. “Does it matter?”
“It does to me.”
He leaned forward, lowering his voice so no one could eavesdrop on the conversation. “I want to fuck you. I want to own you. And I want the world to know I fuck you and own you. That’s all.” He leaned back and grabbed his glass of wine again.
It was a power play. If I’d said yes to him in the first place, my marriage would be much better. He would be kind, affectionate, and respectful. But I took the wrong path, and even though I ended up in the same place, this time…I got the monster.
4
Hades
I walked with her up the stairs to her front door. She was in a black dress with matching pumps, sterile in her work attire but still sexy in anything she wore. Her ass shook from side to side as she walked, her long legs carrying her like a queen without a crown. She occasionally brushed her hair behind her shoulder with her fingertips, showing her fair cheeks and painted lips.
I didn’t want to wait.
She stopped at the large mahogany doors and faced me. “Goodnight.”
“Thought I’d say hello to your mother.”
“You can say hello when we move in together.” She grabbed the handle to open the door.
I wanted to grab her and keep her close, but I refrained from touching her. “You never answered my question.”
She halted and turned back to me, still significantly shorter than me despite her formidable heels. Her long brown hair was in wavy curls, and her thick eyelashes were curled with dark mascara. Even after a full day at the office, she looked just as fresh as she did in the morning. “What question?”
“Are you going to make me wait until our wedding night?” It’d only been a week since she’d become my fiancée and my celibacy had begun, but it was already destroying me. I was a man who needed sex on a regular basis, and while I could get laid whenever I wanted, I preferred to wait for the best pussy I’d ever had. If I was going to screw someone, there was only one woman I had in mind.