Rouge: A Dark Billionaire Romance (Tattered Curtain Series)
Rouge: Act 2 – Scene 10

Lacey

Kian’s hand is on my throat.

I’ve never seen someone move so fast. The scent and smooth texture of leather hit me before I realize I’m face-first in a couch cushion. Kian’s hard thighs are stone underneath me, my breasts are shoved up to my chin thanks to my stupid corset, and my tulled ass waves like a white flag of surrender in the air.

His large hand yanks my dress up and I gasp at the cold air wafting over my naked backside. The chill is short-lived though, as his palm grabs a fistful of my right butt cheek.

“Kian,” I huff. “What’re you—”

Before I can fight him, his hand moves in my periphery and a sharp crack rings in the air. The slap on my ass is nowhere near as hard as I hit him, but I still yelp at the sting.

“Kian!”

“Never…” He smacks me again, making me howl. “Hit…”

Smack!

“Me…”

Smack!

“Again, wife.”

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It’s only five spankings, one after the other, delivered almost too swiftly for my body to comprehend. But my mind knows full well what’s happening. A flood of shame rushes through my veins and emerges as white-hot tears that warp my vision. I refuse to let them spill down my cheeks, even as my bottom lip trembles. I clench my teeth to keep from crying out and ball my fists against the couch cushion, vibrating with rage.

This is fucking humiliating.

My so-called husband is spanking me.

As great as the Garde is at secrets, the worst-kept one is how the men treat their wives. They don’t hold back when it comes to physically punishing their women. If the abuse ever gets out of hand, the Garde just covers it up. My father was an anomaly. He would yell, but I never saw him raise a fist toward my mom. The Baron, though, has promised to rule me with a firm hand.

I guess Kian is just like all the other Garde men.

I don’t know why that realization hurts the most. The thought makes me sniffle and my body overheats with embarrassment until… until I realize the warmth has become something… else.

His palm caresses where it dealt the stinging blows. Strong fingers knead gently over the sensitive skin, heightened from his confusing torment. When I try to get up on my knees, he firmly pushes me back down with his hand on the back of my neck. I’m baffled by my body when it listens and silently lies across his thighs again. He squeezes my nape in approval and the sensual pressure both there and my glutes elicits a mortifying whimper from my lips.

“It feels good, doesn’t it? This is what punishment should feel like between a man and his wife.”

God, if this is how he’s going to “punish” me, I can’t wait to be bad again.

Using a gentle push with his fingers on my nape, he signals me to turn my head toward him until I can see his face despite the awkward angle. His hard jaw is set and there’s a hint of sweat over his furrowed dark-auburn brows as if he’s trying to maintain his control. Those hazel eyes tell everything, though. They’re molten hot with need, and I bite my tongue to keep from begging him to fuck me again.

“Never strike me in anger, Lacey. Although the Garde may encourage abusive behavior, you’ll find I don’t give a feck what the Garde thinks. I don’t want to tame that fire in you, but I won’t let it rage out of control, either.”

“Oh, but you get to hit me in anger?” I spit.

He shakes his head and kneads one of my cheeks even harder, traveling dangerously close to my aching center. My pussy throbs and twisted desire surges arousal to my core. My body has a mind of its own as my ass lifts slightly, begging for him to go lower. A hard thickness pokes my hip, and it takes my lust-addled mind entirely too long to realize he’s enjoying this, too.

“Does it feel like I’m angry, tine?”

He thrusts against me slightly, making me hold on to his thighs for purchase. My legs fall open and his adept fingers finally find my core.

“Mmm, no. No i-it doesn’t.”

His fingers lazily play in my soaked entrance before one swirls and pulses against my clit in a quick tempo. A moan escapes me and I turn my head away from him. His fingers tighten on my nape until my chin rests on the leather as if he is afraid I’d try to flee. When I settle back down, his low rumble of encouragement makes my lower belly flip and his grip on my nape lightens in response.

“The way I see it, I’ll never do anything that truly warrants you hitting me. I promise I’ll never need your brand of punishment, but what about you? What do you think of my brand of punishment, wife?” The title hisses out of him, thick with possession.

“I’m not your wife,” I meant for it to be a reprimand, but God help me, it comes out as a moan instead.

Suddenly, my clit is bereft of his touch and my left butt cheek is on fire from another spanking.

“Kian!” I squirm until his fingers promptly return to massage my clit.

“You’re my wife, Lacey. You saw the papers, the video, and you have my ring. You may not remember our midnight wedding, but I’ll never let you forget who you are married to. Me. Not Monroe fecking Baron. Understood?”

“Kian, I’m not—”

Smack.

“Son of a—fine, alright!” My release is so tantalizingly close I’ll admit to anything. “I’m your wife, okay?”

“That’s what I like to hear, tine.” Kian murmurs assurances under his breath, making me shiver. “But one day I’m going to make you believe it.”

His hand leaves my neck while his other keeps teasing my throbbing clit. Nothing is holding me down now but his stroking fingertips, and it takes me a second to realize that we both know he’s got me right where he wants me. I’m not going anywhere.

I writhe against his fingers, searching for release, and my body grows feverish with need. He’s bringing me right to the brink of an orgasm, but my empty pussy aches and I can’t quite get there.

“Kian,” I whine.

“Listen to you cry for me. I sated you last night and already you’re wishing I’d fuck you again. You want me to fill you with my cock, don’t you? Spill my cum inside you until it leaks from this sweet pussy?”

My cheeks burn at his dirty words, but I agree breathlessly. “Y-yes.”

“I loved the way your tight cunt sucked me, fucking greedy for my cum.” He leans forward until his hot breath tickles my ear. “I didn’t want to leave your warm pussy, tine. I wanted to stay buried inside you for the rest of my life. And now I can make you feel this good anytime you want. Wouldn’t you like that, wife? If I fucked you so good, you’d never want to run away?”

His words have me hot and aching and I can’t answer him for the life of me. All that matters is coming.

He sits up, leaving my face cool without his warm breath. His fingers rub my clit furiously and the sensation has me spinning until finally…

Finally…

He leaves my core and slaps my ass cheek hard, jarring me from my sensual haze.

“Kian!”

He moves quickly out from underneath me and before I know it, I’m face-planting into the couch again while Kian stands. I scramble to sit up and smooth my ruffled skirt, using the simple movement to try to get my bearings.

When I finally look up again, ticked off and horny, Kian’s hazel eyes glare down at me.

“I didn’t… um…” I hedge, giving him the benefit of the doubt that this isn’t a cruel joke. But his dark laugh says otherwise.

“You didn’t come? Oh, I’m well aware of that, Lacey. I now know what it feels like to have you fall apart in my arms, and you were just on the brink of it, which is why I stopped.”

“Kian,” I scoff. “What the hell?”

“I felt your submission. Your real submission, not that pretend shite you pull to appease the Garde. But you need to know what it feels like to be properly dominated and to trust me when I do it.”

“Dominated? What? And how can I trust you if you leave me hanging?!”

“You’ll have to trust that I’ll let you come when I return.” His long fingers straighten his sleeves and fiddle with his silver, ruby, and diamond cuff links as if he’s totally unfazed by what just happened. But the huge hard-on nearly bursting from his Armani slacks betrays him.

“Well, you didn’t come either,” I point out with a glare toward his dick. I drag my eyes away quickly, though, once I realize I was trying to find his piercing beneath the fabric.

“Oh, don’t worry about me, Lacey. This is Vegas. And seeing as how I’m an unmarried man, there will be plenty more opportunities to get my dick wet.” He doesn’t look at me as he says it, but his words knock me back all the same.

I’m shocked to taste the acidic tang of jealousy on my tongue. My hand rubs my chest as he finally looks up at me from his cuff links and sinks his hands into his pockets.

“I have business to attend to.”

“Hold on. Where are you going?” I shift to get up, but my pussy flutters in protest and I think better about it. I also know for a fact I’ve left a damp spot on this leather couch that I desperately don’t want him to see.

Although it’d serve the bastard right.

“Are you my wife?” he asks, throwing me off.

“No.” The word rushes out of me on reflex and I immediately know it was a mistake.

He nods, scrubbing his coarse shadow of a beard before pointing at me with a wagging finger. “Then I don’t see how where I’m going is any of your business.”

My jaw drops at him using my own words against me. He ignores my shock to snatch my phone from the soft white rug where I must’ve dropped it and shoves it into his pocket.

“Kian—wait, that’s mine!”

“You can get it back later.”

“I need it now. What if someone calls?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll take a message.”

My heart drops to my stomach. “But what if it’s—”

“The Baron?” Kian’s voice lilts up, mocking the title. “If it’s your precious Monroe, I’ll enjoy answering that call the most.”

He turns around and adjusts himself on his way to the door, sending alarm bells clanging in my head as I finally realize he’s not kidding.

“Wait, seriously, Kian. You can’t leave me here! I need to go.”

He grabs his phone from the entry table and faces me again with a sexy, teasing smirk that makes me want to leap over his lap again.

“This is your punishment for hitting me. You get to sit with your unsated lust and feel guilty about what you did to your poor, generous, dashingly handsome husband. Maybe next time you want to deny me respect, you’ll remember what I can deny you.”

I scoff, “So you’ve denied me, but you’ll go get off at some club?”

“Does that bother you…” he pauses, that same damn grin flashing, “…wife?”

“No!” And it shouldn’t bother me. All a Garde woman can ask of her husband is discretion, not faithfulness.

Not that Kian is my husband. And since he isn’t, I can’t even insist on discretion.

“Pity,” he sighs as if he’s the one disappointed in me. “Oh, before I go, I’ve made several copies of our marriage license, so destroy it if you want to, I don’t care. But don’t try to get yourself off while I’m gone. I’ll know,” he orders in an annoying singsongy voice as he turns and opens the door.

I jump up from the couch. “Kian, wait—”

“And try not to think of me too much when you disobey me anyway.”

He winks at me while I lunge for the door, but he shuts it behind him before I can get there.

“Kian?” I bang on the door with the heel of my palm. “Kian!”

“You’re in my suite in the McKennon Hotel.” Kian’s voice echoes at me, and I startle backward from the speaker I hadn’t noticed beside the door. “The insulation and soundproofing is impeccable. I oversaw its installation myself. So scream all you want, Lacey McKennon. No one will hear you.”

The truth of his words settles over me like a cold fog and I stare at the speaker for several long minutes. Once his threat stops ringing in my ears, I turn slowly on my heel toward the expensive furnishings in the living room with no way out.

Then it hits me.

He said he wanted to free me, but this is just another gilded cage. Only my husband has the key… and he has absolutely no desire to let me out.

I’m more trapped than ever.

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