Bride Read online

  I hummed quietly with curiosity, before I cocked my head and decided to be brave.

  “Tell me, Grayson, how would you have dealt with a naughty girl who ran out of gas?”

  His wicked grin widened tenfold.

  “Do you really want to know, Zoe?” he asked carefully, and my thighs trembled. My clit begged for his touch, and I wanted more than anything to lift my dress and ask him to pleasure me with his mouth.

  Fuck. Get ahold of yourself, woman.

  “Yes,” I breathed, but it was more a husky whisper than anything else.

  He put down his glass of wine and leaned forward, folding his hands together as he cocked his head. Everything about him felt dangerous and entirely too ruthlessly seductive.

  “Running out of gas is quite a naughty thing indeed, my curious bride. You see, I would have made you remove your pants and panties while you were still in the driver’s seat staring at the empty signal. I would have told you that you were going to get a spanking right there, right then, so that you had several moments to think about the fact that you were going to be punished while I climbed in the backseat. I would have made you get out of the car with your bottom fully bare so that you could climb in beside me and present that bare little ass over my knee. I would have given you a hard spanking before I slipped a finger inside that tight bottom hole and made you come for me right there on the side of the road before I called in someone to help us,” he explained firmly, and I nearly choked on a sip of water before he finished.

  “You would have made me walk around the car bare from the waist down?” I squeaked.

  “That would be quite embarrassing, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I answered weakly.

  Why was it so insanely hot though?

  “Did it make your little pussy clench to know that a man like me wouldn’t hesitate to take you in hand whenever you needed it?”

  I turned my head, feeling every smartassed retort fly from my head, leaving me with nothing other than speechlessness.

  “Zoe,” he warned.

  “Yes, sir,” I finally managed, unable to stop myself from covering my face with my fingers in shame.

  “Good,” he answered, and I could have sworn I blushed even harder. “Take your hands away from your face, beautiful. Let me see you,” he said gently, and I did. The sheer appreciation he gave me in return made the small measure of obedience worth it. I slowly worked up the courage to pick up a knife and fork, taking a small bite of the butter-laden crab cake in front of me and moaning when the incredible flavors practically exploded across my tongue.

  “Oh, my God, this is fantastic,” I spoke out loud.

  “My personal chef is one of the best in the world. Stole him away from a Michelin star restaurant, I did,” he offered proudly.

  “He’s good,” I sputtered, before I rushed to take another bite. My hungry eyes roved over the food on my plate. There was a beautifully done lobster tail, stuffed shrimp, roasted garlic risotto, and two fat crab cakes that consisted of more crab than batter. There was no shortage of warm melted butter, and I didn’t skimp on that even a tiny bit.

  “I usually like to enjoy a good steak, but Mark was particularly excited to cook up a good round of seafood for you,” he continued.

  “Seafood is my personal favorite,” I admitted.

  “I know,” he answered, and I looked up at him as I took another bite. Chewing thoughtfully, I mulled over the various reasons he could have decided to wed a woman like me. After a few moments, I came up with nothing though and with a sigh, I sat back.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Why what?” he answered innocently.

  “Why me? You could have anyone. There are so many much more beautiful women than me out there, smarter women, richer women. I don’t understand why the most eligible bachelor in the country set up a meeting to buy my business one morning and decided to make me his bride that very night,” I blurted out.

  He placed his silverware down and leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table. Immediately, his body language changed. He became harder, infinitely more dangerous and the sudden change rattled me. I licked my lips, lifting my chin and trying to remain just as courageous as before.

  “You are beautiful, Zoe. You’re feisty and incredibly intelligent. Any man would be lucky to have a woman like you by his side and you would do well to remember that. If I ever have to remind you of that again, you’ll find your panties around your ankles, your ass welted, and my cock buried deep in that virgin bottom hole of yours,” he threatened, and my stomach did somersaults inside me at the very clear threat. “Do you understand me, little girl?”

  “Yes, sir,” I whispered hoarsely. I hadn’t a feeling that would be a session I wouldn’t particularly enjoy.

  “I, for one, very much enjoy a sassy woman who pushes me from time to time. You’re very special though, Zoe, because you’re also the kind of woman who likes to be put in her place too,” he continued.

  “Why do you think that?” I asked, aghast.

  His gaze dropped to my lap.

  “Lift your dress,” he commanded.

  “What?”

  “Do I need to say it again?” he asked, and he cocked his right eyebrow high in the air.

  I shook my head, chewing on my lower lip as I leaned forward to grasp the bottom of my dress. I did as he commanded, lifting it just high enough so that my knees were bared.

  “Higher,” he demanded. “I want that skirt up around your waist.”

  I blushed heavily as I bared myself, grateful for the fact that I was still wearing underwear. For now, at least.

  “Slip your fingers inside those lacey white panties and tell me what you find.”

  I hesitated and he continued.

  “If I have to come over there, I will rip those panties right off and spank that pretty pussy bright pink until you tell me what I wanted to know in the first place,” he said firmly.

  I whined low in my throat. I lifted my dress higher until the tips of my fingers brushed against the fabric of my panties. The layers of tulle likely hid what I was doing from his eyes, but it was still just as dirty as if he was staring right at my naked body. Rather frantically, I looked around. There was no one there yet touching myself outside like this seemed so terribly wrong, but wildly exciting.

  I slid my fingers beneath the lacey hem, finding what felt like a puddle in the seat of my panties. My fingertips slipped along the sensitive folds of my pussy, just catching my clit lightly enough to make me shudder in pleasure.

  “Tell me what you’ve found, my pretty bride,” he coaxed firmly. I knew I was taking too long, that I was testing his patience and that only made me even needier than before.

  “My pussy is soaking wet,” I answered, my voice nearly a whisper. He sat back with a soft smile, nodding once as if I’d said exactly what he would have expected.

  “You are perfection, Zoe,” he said, his voice dark and seductive and entirely too tempting. “In a normal world, I would have taken you out for coffee, surprised you with a weekend getaway to the Maldives or the northern mountains of Italy or wherever else you wanted to go. I would have swept you off your feet and given you the whirlwind romance that you deserve until I knelt before you and asked for your hand in marriage. You would have said yes, and I would have given you everything you ever wanted.”

  I narrowed my eyes, trying to figure out what he could mean.

  “But this is not that perfect world,” he continued.

  “No. Nothing is ever perfect,” I echoed.

  “I’m not the kind of man that does romance in that way. When I see something that I want, I take it. I don’t care how much it costs.”

  “You know an awful lot about me, and I know so little about you,” I countered.

  “All information has a price, Zoe. I’m just a man that can afford it,” he explained, his voice carrying a slightly harder edge.

  “Who are you, Grayson Asher?”

  “I’m a lot of thi
ngs, Zoe. Some would call me an entrepreneur. Some call me a ruthless businessman or even a soulless monster with eyes only on the bottom line. But… many others just call me king,” he continued.

  I narrowed in on that single word. The way he said it implied dangerous connotations, and I decided to press him a bit further.

  “You own a lot of businesses, Grayson. I know that you like to buy startups like mine and build them up, but I imagine that isn’t your only source of income. Tell me, how many of your businesses are legitimate?” I asked purposefully.

  “Most of them,” he answered, sipping his glass of wine while he held that steady dark stare firmly in my direction.

  “On the surface at least,” I finished for him, and his grin widened precipitously.

  “Quite perceptive, my pretty bride,” he answered.

  “So, you’re something like a mob boss?” I asked.

  “Something like that.” He cocked his head.

  I gritted my teeth. His admission should concern me more. Was he a killer? Would he hurt me? To be honest, I already knew the answers to my questions. I was very certain he wouldn’t really hurt me. I’d slapped him, tossed a glass of wine in his face, and the worst that had happened was that he’d given me a sore bottom. He wouldn’t hurt me. He wanted me.

  And… I wanted him despite everything that was screaming at me not to.

  “Every king needs a queen by his side, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes,” I answered boldly. Right now, I’d really like to be a queen in his bed. I dropped my gaze, remembering what the sight of his cock looked like as he stood next to me, hard and thick and I caught myself thinking about what it would feel like sinking deep in between my legs.

  “How much do you know of your family history?” he asked, and I was a bit taken aback by the sudden change in subject and the fact he’d caught me right in the middle of a sordid fantasy of what was going to happen once the two of us retired to his bedroom for the night.

  “I don’t know a lot about my family. My mother was an only child and her parents passed away some years ago,” I answered thoughtfully.

  “Not on your mother’s side. Tell me about your father,” he pushed.

  “I don’t even know his name,” I admitted. It was the truth. My mother told me he wasn’t worth knowing a very long time ago and she’d refused to answer any of my questions when I’d grown older despite my constant persistence. Eventually, I stopped asking and I started trying to find the answers myself. I tried to find any evidence that would offer a hint to his identity, but in the end, I found nothing. At some point, I gave up on my search and assumed he was just some deadbeat loser. Anyone who had gone to that level of hiding clearly didn’t want me in his life.

  “Did you ever think there was a reason for that?” Grayson asked gently.

  I paused. Grayson clearly knew something about him that I didn’t.

  “I just assumed he was some lowlife that never wanted a daughter,” I answered curtly.

  “No. He was much more than that,” Grayson replied. I licked my lips, trying to discern exactly what he might mean. Was there more to what he was saying? Something hidden between the lines, maybe? I decided to push. If he knew something, he was going to tell me.

  “Does his identity have something to do with why I’m sitting across the table from you in your rooftop gardens in a wedding dress with your ring on my finger?” I asked, keeping my voice steady.

  “It does,” he answered.

  “Will you tell me his name?” I asked. My voice was soft, coaxing even. I didn’t want to demand it of him. I already knew that he didn’t seem like a man who would react well to anything like that.

  “Ismael Zambada Garcia,” he answered. I stared at him for several impressively long seconds.

  I knew that name. Most of America knew that name because he’d ended up on the FBI’s most wanted list for some time on suspicion for drug trafficking. It was also rumored that he was the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, an international crime syndicate that ran deep into the country of Mexico. They were also known to have a significant number of ties to places here in the United States, including but not limited to San Diego. Their reach went far. Their pockets ran deep too.

  “It’s not possible,” I whispered.

  “It is.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Your mother hid his identity from you because she was afraid that if he knew of your existence you would be as good as dead. Ismael wasn’t the man he is now back when you were conceived. He started out as a farmer, a good man, but he got caught up in the cartel and never turned back,” Grayson explained.

  “So why is he so important if he doesn’t know who I am?” I pressed.

  “Because that’s the thing, my pretty bride. He found out about you, and he made a certain set of arrangements for you. Fortunately, I found out about them before they came for you.”

  Chapter 7

  I reached for my wineglass and gulped down a mouthful of the burgundy liquid, trying to come to terms with what Grayson was telling me and not really believing it. It seemed like a twisted story to suddenly become something of a mafia princess in the dangerously bloody world of the cartel. I’d long lost hope of ever knowing anything about my father and his history and to be suddenly thrust into it without any warning was a lot to take in.

  “This isn’t possible,” I repeated.

  “I’m afraid it is, sweet girl. I verified it myself some time ago,” he replied.

  “How?”

  “A few years ago, Ismael’s son was arrested for drug possession. I was able to procure a sample of his blood. I compared it to yours and the results were definitive. He is your brother, which in turn makes Ismael Zambada Garcia your father,” he said. There was no sarcasm or even the hint of a joke in his features. Everything he was saying was the truth, no matter how much I wanted to brush it aside as rumor or conjecture or the biggest fucking nightmare of my life.

  I didn’t ask him how he’d gotten a sample of my blood. It didn’t matter really. I was quickly coming to terms with that fact that Grayson Asher was much more than just a rich eligible bachelor. He was a billionaire and in some fashion, a bit of a crime lord himself. He operated with power that people only dreamed of. I was probably only scratching at the surface of what he was capable of.

  “The Sinaloa Cartel operates by blood and family above all else, but a crime organization of their caliber makes enemies and a lot of them. Their biggest one is the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. The two have been at war for years, but when Ismael discovered that he had a very attractive American daughter, he made an arrangement with his enemies. He arranged for you to be married,” Grayson continued.

  “That’s not possible,” I snapped once again.

  “It is, my sweet bride. Your father arranged for you to be married into one of the bloodiest cartels in recent history,” he said further. “Your husband was to be Nemesio Cervantes.”

  I knew that name too.

  “When was this marriage supposed to happen?” I pressed.

  “On your twenty-fifth birthday,” he answered.

  “That’s in a few days,” I whispered.

  “I know. May twelfth,” he replied. I tried not to be bothered by the fact that he already knew the date.

  “If I’m supposed to be marrying a cartel drug lord in a few days, why am I sitting across from you in a wedding dress?” I swallowed heavily. The white fabric encasing my body suddenly felt heavy, but the ring on my finger felt even more daunting than all of that.

  “This marriage between you and Nemesio has been in arrangement for a long time.”

  “How long?”

  “It was drafted in the weeks following your mother’s death,” he explained.

  I swallowed back my horror.

  “Why am I sitting here as your bride?” I pressed. There was something else he wasn’t telling me, and I needed to know what it was.

  “I come across problems sometimes in my line
of work. Not all of them can be fixed or dealt with and some of them I must pretend like I never even saw at all, but when your marriage contract came to light, I was drawn to it, and I began to investigate it. At the time, you were eighteen and had been in your first year at Stanford University and I decided to take matters into my own hands. I bought your contract myself. The only stipulation in the bill of sale was that you were to be my wife before the day of your twenty-fifth birthday or else the marriage to Nemesio would go forward as planned,” he finally finished and I sat back against the chair, my meal mostly forgotten.

  “You can’t purchase people like a prized horse,” I spat.

  “I can and I did,” he replied curtly.

  “You forced me to say my vows. Any valid court would throw our sham of a marriage out the window,” I scoffed.

  “True, but then the cartel would find you. I don’t need to tell you what would happen after that,” he said, and I gritted my teeth, knowing he was right.

  I reached for my glass of wine once more and took another heavy swallow.

  “Eat, Zoe,” he coaxed gently. I leaned forward and picked my utensils back up again, cutting another bite and placing it on my tongue. I was so unsettled that I hardly tasted it. For a few moments, I was quiet, and he let me be and for that I was grateful. Eventually, I cleared my throat and sat back.

  “Will you show the contract to me, and the blood tests? I’d like to see all that you have regarding my father.” I questioned softly. There was a reluctant part of me that did mostly believe him, but I still needed to see the evidence that he had collected too. I needed a little bit more than just his word that this was how things were.

  “I will show you everything,” he promised, and I sighed with a small measure of relief.

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek, wanting to ask something else and after a few more bites of buttery lobster, I summoned up the courage to speak my mind.

  “You’ve been single in the eyes of the media for a long time. To my knowledge, no paparazzi have even caught wind of you on a date, let alone a relationship with anyone. Why?”