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

get raped for how long and I can’t drink? Seriously?” I wanted to hate myself for saying it out loud, that brash.

She stopped pouring the way I hoped but instead she simply dropped the bottles into the sink, letting the glass shatter. “You want your precious alcohol? Go ahead and cut your mouth on it.” Crossing her arms, she stared me down, challenging me to chase the bottle.

Trust me; I’ve done some vile things for bottles after my trips to the islands. Cuts? Sounds easy.

“Who’s confirming I was your first? Isn’t that what you’re really mad about? I saw the files, all those disgusting polaroids of girls in slips. They all look like me, why is that?” Leaning into the counter, I swore I could feel heat coming off her.

She thought my first time was robbed too. Technically, it was but not with a woman.

Breaching the vast gap between us, I pinned her back to the countertop, not letting her run away. “Who said I’m mad about one thing, Eve? I’m mad and you’re jealous. It’s that plain. Stop making it complicated.”

I watched her chest pick up pace, taking in shorter quicker breaths and I watched her nipples pinch into small buds. I didn’t want my eyes to get stuck on her body but it did. She’s a walking, talking billboard for sexuality and it was hard not to get caught staring.

My anger was a result of him, not her.

“I’m not jealous,” her voice was hot. Hot enough to melt all the tension between us.

Boxing her in, I leaned into my hands, our chests nearly rubbing, and I could feel her hard nipples graze my chest. “Who are you trying to convince? Yourself?” I paused, watching her cheeks flush and her mouth drop open. “I didn’t fuck any of them. I just saved them because I couldn’t save you. They were going to fall through the cracks in my fingers just like you did—sold to the highest bidder.”

I saved Evey—just too late. I paid for her virginity intact and that became a luxury Elias directly told me I couldn’t afford.

I hadn’t been told a price tag was out of reach—ever. I was an Astor; I could buy the world, everything on it and somehow still be rich at the end of the day.

Her mouth moved but no words came out, she was fighting to fight me. “So you lock them up here and make them fall in love with you because my love wasn’t enough?” The words cut deep enough to flinch, but I stayed so close the pain only inflated against her sharp words.

I enjoyed the pain too much.

Letting my hand squeeze its way between her backside and the counter, I forced her into my chest even more. There was barely any space between us left for my answers to fall into, they seeped right into her instead. “Love? No. They stayed with me for a transition, an adjustment period, pre-made Stockholm syndrome until I could trust the girls I saved to not rat me out. Not being the villain for once in my miserable life—none of that was about love, Eve. I only ever wanted that from you, and I don’t deserve it.”

“Then what are the cages for now? Me? Lock up all the ways you feel.” Her face looked exhausted, and the redness in her eyes made my heart hurt in ways I didn’t foresee.

Still beautiful even when in this much pain.

Letting my head drop to her neck, I whispered the words against her perfect skin. “Locking you in a cage doesn’t change how I feel. How I feel for you isn’t one of the feelings I’m trying to kill.”

I was trying to give her direct answers with no room for interpretation.

If she wanted to do the silent treatment again, we could just get it over with all at once.

Her body stiffened, and I watched her try not to like it when I’m this close. Everything was still too new, shiny, waiting to be explored and this was the trigger warning.

Proximity was always our weakness.

Put miles between us and we survive, but together? It’s something we can’t fight; we fight for it to last longer.

The control washed over her, laminating the parts of her that wanted to give in, the parts of her that were excited under her shirt sans any panties. “I’m still mad. To quote you: Do you think it’s fun for me to chase after your demons because you wanna fill all your wounds with fucking sex?”

“You’re cute when you quote me back.” My lips brushed her neck, and I watched her shudder between me and the countertop.

Finally catching on, I felt her hands push me back and all the alcohol messing with my equilibrium actually made me search for some balance. “This doesn’t fix anything. You can’t fix me with what broke me to begin with!”

Her features were some new combination of angry, turned on, and sad that I wanted to memorize. Commit that to memory for later.

She wanted the truth, it was comfortless. “Nothing fixes us, Eve. Nothing. We just get to live with it and hope nothing opens up our old wounds.” Leaning against the counter, I left the space between us to swell with what I wished someone said to me when it happened, the brutal truth.

“You are my old wound, there’s no closing this.” Her finger swirled between us like I was lumped right in with the trauma. “I’m supposed to count on you. You supposedly saved me, to what only hurt me more when I need you? Do you think I wanted to tell you that you weren’t my first? That I was raped for years when I held so tightly onto everything being yours?”

An overwhelming sense of need to reclaim