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“You married a fucking Love—are you crazy, or are you smoking the opium y’all motherfuckers are smuggling as well?”
My brows climb all the way to my forehead at hearing his cousin curse him out on the phone.
“First of all, you are in my business, cuz.” He flicks lint I can’t see from his tailored pant legs.
“At least tell me she brought some of that land they stole with her.”
My mouth drops open. It’s no secret the Shelbys have been mad ever since my ancestors triumph over them. The land was entailed, with so many heirs that no one person could sell it. It could only be passed down from generation to generation.
Once I reunited with my family after I graduated high school, Mama-Pete gave me my daddy’s portion of the inheritance, which was only symbolic since I share it with my sister, Kandie.We couldn’t sell it if we wanted to, Kandie told me.You can use it, though. I had the Kandie Shoppe built on that land I claimed. This whole town sits on Love land. Just pick a spot, but don’t be a bitch and take someone’s house.
“No, it’s all entailed. What do I want with it when I have millions of acres in Brazil and the rest of the world? You have sugar all over the world. What the fuck do you want with land that’s not even good for sugar anymore?” He pins me with a stare that reminds me he’s not forgotten our conversation and I better have an answer he likes.
“My grandmother cares.” Jackson sighs.
“We told ’er to let it go,” someone else chimes in.
“Ah, Jericho, why am I not surprised that you’re listening in like a little bitch?” Mathias’s chiding is met with a flood of profanity-laced comments.
“Anyway, I have a campaign to win and a wife to bed. I’ll be expecting your small donations for wasting my time.” He hangs up on them.
“Now I’m giving you one chance to tell me the truth.” His words trigger the memory of his, LL’s, and Natalie’s heads together a little while ago when I was exiting the bathroom.
“She was making sure I was okay. She saw us earlier on the terrace.” I try to keep the embarrassment from my voice.
As he cock his head to the side, his eyes are slits of distrust and budding hatred.
Fear pulses in the air around me. I don’t know what he wants me to say. I have no idea why me talking to my cousin would make him so mad.
After a long silence where he lets me die on the vine, he leans forward, his voice a wrathful indictment. “I sent Nat to check on you to make sure you were okay. She came back very upset, letting me know your cousin was encouraging you to leave me and offering to help you hide from me.”
In a move so swift he knocks the breath from my body, he snatches me to him. “Make no mistake, little wife. I am not Angel. I won’t waste my time going after your family, trying to wring your location from them. No. I will hunt you. You will have no peace. You did this to us. You got me, and I won’t you discard me like trash. You’re mine.” His eyes search mine as if trying to figure out a million-piece jigsaw puzzle. Like I’m some unsolvable equation he doesn’t have the formula for.
With me trapped before him on my knees, between his thighs, with his hand manacling my throat, my breath trembles between us. With the cold eyes of a predator, he tracks the pulse in my throat, the way I nervously lick my lips.
“You’re mine.” He shakes me softly as if he is testing the pliability of my neck. His mouth curls. “I promised I would never be like this.” His eyes slide away. “But you’ve made me like this. You fucking did this, little wife.” He squeezes, gradually increasing the pressure on my throat, careful not to bruise my windpipe, keeping his hands just beneath my jawline, expertly cutting off my air.
Tears spill from my eyes down my cheeks and onto his hard hands. His teeth flash again in a menacing smile. “See how quickly you break?” He tsks, every word laced with mock sympathy. “You had the best of me, darling. But you had to be a grasping, conniving little bitch and aim for more. Mathias wasn’t enough. You wanted the Shelby too. Now you have him.” He brings his mouth close to mine. “I almost want you to run. Just so I can hunt you to ground and fuck you in the dirt.” He tugs my lip into his mouth, drawing blood.
“Ah.” My gasp is swallowed by him. Groaning, he slants his mouth over mine. He gives me the breath he stole. Inhaling, I take deep drags of his scent. He fills me with his aroma of clover, earth, and sugar. His hands, so scary a moment ago, anchor me. My pussy floods, getting ready for him again.
Pulling back, he takes me in. “Look at my pretty little, slut. Open that needy little mouth.”
I do, parting my lips wide for him. Pressing his teeth together, he skeets our mixed kiss in my mouth.
“Mine,” he says, devouring me again, claiming me with his filthy kiss. Dragging me into his lap, he makes me straddle him.
ChapterTwelve
Mathias(three weeks later)
“Jeez,look at her, Mathias—it’s a disgrace.”
Trying to hide my irritation, I smile at the mayor of Birmingham before turning to see what Natalie is saying about Nikki now.
Following her nod, I look to the field where the carnival has been set up to see Nikki dead center in the splash pad area, waving a gigantic bubble wand, capturing children with the bubbles. She’s gone off on her own yet again, with Padre hanging back—her only protection detail, as she deliberately ignores all the campaign and etiquette advice she’s been given by my staff.
For the fifty-eleventh time, I watch as she defines her own path and does exactly as she sees fit.
