“So sensitive,” he murmured, his voice rich with satisfaction. “My pretty bride.”

He turned his attention to my other breast, his fingers toying with the first as he repeated the decadent torment with his mouth.

“You’re a monster,” I whispered, my eyes stinging even as my body sang for him.

“No, I’m your husband.” He speared me with his dark stare, his handsome features twisted into something fierce and possessive. “You’re my wife. From now on, you’ll share my bed. In every way. And you will love every second of it. I won’t allow any shyness or modesty to come between us. You’re mine, Elenora.”

I wanted to rail at him that shyness and modesty had nothing to do with it; what he was doing to me was a barbaric violation. He was turning my own body against me, forcing me to feel pleasure when I should feel nothing but revulsion.

I swallowed down the accusations, recognizing the uncompromising glint in his eyes. Arguing with him would get me nowhere. He would only strip away even more of my dignity if I continued to defy him.

I thought of the low, masculine hum he’d made when I’d kissed him back. It’d been an involuntary sound of pleasure, and for just a moment, I’d felt strangely powerful.

I took a breath and gathered my courage. If he intended to make me come undone, I would do the same to him. I wouldn’t allow him to hold all the power in this twisted relationship. He was right: he was my husband, and I couldn’t change that now. We would share this bed. I could let the awful reality of it break me, or I could learn how to make him weak too.

Something must’ve shifted in my expression, because Luca nodded in approval and pressed a kiss to my sternum. He traced the line of it with his tongue before moving lower, drawing a hot trail down my stomach. My lower lips tingled as he neared my underwear, and wet heat slicked my inner thighs. I pressed them together as though I could hide the embarrassing sign of arousal, but that only stimulated my sensitized sex.

His white teeth caught the band at the top of my panties, and I stopped breathing as he tugged them down my mound. He kept his eyes on mine, pinning me with his gaze while he slowly peeled away my underwear, baring me to him completely. When he’d stripped me down to my thighs, he gripped the white panties in his fists and jerked them down my legs. To my shock, he shoved them into his pocket rather than tossing them aside, as though he was keeping a perverted trophy.

He loomed over me, fully clothed while I was totally naked and bound beneath him—like a virgin sacrifice to a jealous god. He stroked his hand down my side, caressing the curve of my body. Rough callouses lightly scraped my skin, making my nerves jump and dance for him.