THE CONTROL: An Arranged Marriage Romance by Elena Monroe (ebook reader android .txt) 📕

Eve wanted something that I had no business giving her.

She wanted parts of me that I didn’t know how to use.

There wasn’t a doubt in my mind she knew what she was doing when she walked around the house in next to nothing, baring her skin to me, with her eyes convincing me to be bad with her the same way she did when we were kids.

I wasn’t in any rush to give her any more ammunition into how fucked up I truly am before she was truly mine.

One of the girls leaned down, offering me a shot when her spare hand smoothed up my thigh before my alcohol-soaked reflexes kicked in and I grabbed her hand, stopping her. “Don’t fucking touch me,” I said in a low voice that rattled her confidence.

Vic’s attention instantly snapped to me when I didn’t let the girl’s hand go right away. I could feel his heavy stare boring into me, trying to barter with me to behave.

Whispering to the girl, I leaned into her, “Strip. I like to watch, not touch.”

It wasn’t a lie.

I didn’t like to participate; I liked to watch and commit the images I liked to memory for when my cock ached so badly, I had no choice but to touch myself.

She stood up slowly like it might be a game. I watched her every movement with so much focus, I almost scared the buzz away. I followed her bra, falling down her arms and her panties that came next. Her dark hair and big blue eyes were almost a match to Eve, only Eve would make you beg before she did as she was told.

That alone ruined it for me.

Standing bare in front of me, I slowly drew my eyes up her legs, paler than Eve’s, up to her exposed small pussy. I didn’t have a comparison for that, so I mentally took a picture of her body parts that weren’t ruined before I laughed in a way that came on like a train wreck through my body.

Vic’s deep voice cut through the tension, “Bowen. Don’t be a fucking asshole. Tip her.”

Still laughing, I practically folded over trying to get control of myself when my own hand slipped down to the bulge in my jeans where I wanted to be hard. I wanted to imagine everything I captured and splice it onto the Eve stuck in my mind.

“It’s her fucking job to do what she’s told. I’m not apologizing because she got naked and I didn’t like it.” Turning my face towards her direction again, I mumbled, “Not for me, babe. Pack it up.”

Vic tried to snag the bottle of Henny from my hands without success. I had been drinking since the first guy who touched me poured the brown liquor into a cup, feeding me more and more until a euphoric haze clouded what he was actually doing to me.

Vic reached over the velvet booth again as he barked out his command, “Knock it the fuck off.”

I challenged him when my smile wrapped around the top of the opening, and the room temp liquid poured more accelerant on my problems.

I was already drunk, maybe terrorizing that line between being here and passed out somewhere else. I was sitting with the boys, trying to forget I was getting married when Khaos handed me a joint.

“Heads up, I think that’s your fiancé…” Khaos’s voice seemed too casual to not be a joke when I looked up and saw Eve stomping her heels in my direction with his ass mid twerk.

“Who the fuck called my future wife?” The word sizzled on my tongue like in insult, not a title she won. I stared into her eyes, depleted of all care when I watched her face cave in against my tone.

Vic took the bottle from my hand, so I stole the joint back from Khaos, replacing one with the other seamlessly. I wasn’t sober and taking my drink didn’t make me any more sober than with it. “You’ve had too much, Bo. I called you a ride.”

The wives of the guys trampled all over our evening effortlessly. Justice joined Vic in watching the strippers, seeming too turned on by his wandering eye. Grimm immediately became overly protective of Abigail’s forsaken innocence, pulling her as closely as he could against his side. Khaos sat Grace on his lap and cheered her on through enjoying a lap dance of her own as she laughed her way through it.

Each of them defining love in their own odd ways but spitting on my way of doing things.

Ignoring them all, I turned my attention to Eve who was wearing powder blue heels with fishnets and a Pantera band shirt that hit mid-thigh, covered by harness around her breasts, making it impossible to not look.

I was always looking—just not touching.

Always committing her to memory.

Saving her for later.

“Bowey, maybe we should go home,” her delicate voice was in Pretty Princess mode and I despised her for changing.

Leaning back into the booth, I inhaled on the joint. “Why, so you can beg me to fuck you some more?”

“Bowen! That's inappropriate.” She actually seemed offended, but it was hard to tell when everything is so smooth and polite.

Kicking my feet back up, I watched her squirm. She was uncomfortable and that was an accomplishment for a girl that wasn’t fazed by much.

“Why don’t you take off that top and show me why I should fuck you? Nothing we all haven’t seen before, Eve.” My hand crawled to my crotch again, only this time it wasn’t a Frankensteined image that didn’t live up to her when I gave myself a squeeze.

“Please stop. You're scaring me, Bowey.” Leaning against the rail, she gave herself a thick boundary between the heathenism happening on