AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her eyes widened as she tilted her head. “I can tell you what we’re not doing. We’re not having sex.”
“You say that with an awful lot of confidence, considering you have so much to lose by refusing your husband his marital rights.”
She had just about had enough.
“Look, I’ll play your…Blame Game, but that’s as far as I go. You want to cast me as the seductress so you can snuggle with your mommy, have at it. Anything past that, I suggest you hire yourself a prostitute. Because you’re not getting any of that…” She randomly waved her hands toward the bed. “…from me.”
“You give yourself far too much credit,” he sneered, walking to the closet and, to her surprise, pulling out a camera on a tripod. “I don’t want to have sex with you. I want to take pictures so it looks like I’ve had sex with you.”
Oh. Well, then.
“Why?”
“Doesn’t matter. Lie down on the bed with your hands over your head. Try to look…seductive. Better yet, post-orgasmic.”
Glancing at the bed with hands on her hips, she looked at him while shaking her head. “Are you out of your mind? I’m not allowing you to take pictures of me in this sex kitten panties and bra for others to see, looking as if we’d just…done it.”
“You will, because if you don’t, Pearl goes back to the mental institution, and your family and friends will no longer be safe walking the streets of that godforsaken Southern town you grew up in.”
He went too far. Instead of threatening him with his own life for threatening those she loved, she said instead, “For your information, Wayward was recently ranked as the fifty-third best town in the state to live in.”
Errol looked at her as if she grew horns. Then his voice grew dark and ominous. “I don’t know who you think you are to tell me what to do. You’re nothing more than a pretty plaything to show off and to prove to everyone what I’m capable of. A man who has so much power and influence he can bring his dead father’s widow to heel and convince her to marry him. Then, throw her away when I’m done with her. Get on the bed. Now.”
She shook her head, surprised at not feeling the sense of dread Errol normally inspired. Instead, she was puzzled. “No,” she responded.
There had to be a reason.
Why would he want photos of having alleged sex rather than the real thing? She took a moment to think through what motivated him. Money, greed, control, and the joy of humiliating her.
It dawned on her as she spoke her thoughts out loud. “You need the photos to prove that our fictitious marriage has been consummated.”
Momentary unease in his disposition confirmed her thoughts.
Setting the camera in front of the bed and adjusting the legs he said, “The reason doesn’t matter.”
“Why go to the trouble of forcing me to have my picture taken when you can force me to have sex?”
“You give yourself too much credit. What makes you think I want to have sex with you?”
“Because you said so. The day we left Wayward. You said, and I quote, ‘I know you’re eager to become my wife and make me happy in every possible way.’”
“And you assumed that me having sex with you would make me happy?”
“Well.” Her eyebrows drew together. “It was implied.”
“I have everything I need in terms of love and affection from Ariana.”
Her eyes narrowed at his choice of words and then her eyes went wide. “Ariana’s not your mother.”
He wouldn’t look at her. Avoided her. “Of course she is.” But his body language said she’d nailed it.
“Why did you just call her Ariana, instead of Mom, Mother, or Mommykins ?”
His movements grew more aggressive, a single vein popping from the side of his neck as he looked through the camera lens, bringing the bed into focus.
“But you and Flynn are twins.” She worked through the details, despite his progressively tense movements and growing rage. “But then again, are you? You look alike, but not identical.”
“That’s an interesting conclusion. You have quite the imagination. Now shut the fuck up.”
