Shattered Vows: An Arranged Marriage Standalone Romance (Tarnished Empire)
Shattered Vows: Epilogue

“What are you doing?” My breath came faster in the living room of the penthouse that we’d somehow made a home. Bastian had bought my grandmother’s house only for me to tell him to sell it again. I loved living in that high rise with him watering the damn plants with his spray bottle more than I ever thought I would.

“I’m tying you up,” Bastian replied, as he wrapped my wrists in silk like his mind was already made up and this was the most logical thing to do.

I pulled my hands away, but they were already tied and he yanked the end hard toward him. I stumbled into his chest, completely off balance.

Moonshine had already wandered off to her bedroom. The dog was a fucking princess when it came to her sleep schedule. She whined to get into her bedroom and every night at eight o’clock, Bastian followed her down the hall, gave her a dog treat from the linen closet and told her he loved her.

My hair fell over my shoulder and I looked up at him through it. “You think this is fun?”

“If you don’t like it, tell me to stop.” He shrugged. “I’m here to accommodate my wife because it seems she needs someone to remind her she’s loved even when she’s being ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous about what?”

He turned me with him and slid open the patio door.

“Oh, no, Bastian.”

“Oh, yes. Morina. You need to come sit out here and enjoy the salt lamps I installed on our balcony.”

“I really appreciate that you did that.” I pushed away from his chest but he gripped the small of my back like I wasn’t going anywhere. I tried yanking at my wrists and he yanked back. “But I don’t think I’ll enjoy it as much as you.”

“You will, ragazza.” He whispered into my ear and then before I could stop him, scooped me up to carry me out onto the balcony.

I squealed and gripped his shirt. The wind whipped at us both like it was telling us this was unnatural for a human to be this high out in the open.

I agreed. Shutting my eyes, I whispered, “If I die, I’m going to haunt you like my grandma haunted me. I’ll make your life a living hell.”

“Oh, what’s there to worry about, Morina? The salt lamps are putting out negative ions.” He chuckled as he walked us over to his oak rocking chair.

“That’s not how it works, and you know it.” I bit my lip as he sat down, scared the patio would suddenly give and we’d fall fifty stories to our doom. We deserved it after being so frivolous with our lives and stepping out here like we were gods of some sort in the first place.

“Ragazza, open your eyes,” Bastian murmured and dragged a finger down my cheek.

I took a deep breath and reminded myself that this man had taken lives for me, had made me an Untouchable for my protection, tucked me in every night after a good amount of sex, and told me he loved me over and over. I cracked one eye open to only look at him, “I’m trusting you, Bastian.”

“As you should.” He nodded and then pointed, “Now look.”

There were tiny crystals lining the railing and the overhang of our balcony that wrapped around the whole penthouse. The glowed a pinkish hue, almost the same color of the last rays of the sun in the sky. “We get our own sunset right here with the crystals,” I murmured.

He nodded. “Maybe, but your ocean’s sunset is better.”

“Only because I have a husband who made sure it wasn’t getting polluted.” I kissed his neck, knowing that the wheels were in motion for Tropical Oil’s new construction. We were turning terminals to green energy and the city was thriving just months after the deal had been solidified.

Bastian had rejected my donation of the shares only two days after Mr. Crow’s death on the beach. He’d called the lawyer right in front of me and told him that he didn’t want anything to do with the shares if I wasn’t the shareholder.

I fought him the whole way. I wanted to surf and be a housewife, didn’t he know? I enjoyed a lazy week, rather than one filled with packets of business dealings. Bastian had laughed at my confession and said he didn’t care who owned what. He just wanted me happy.

Happiness had been him dealing with most of the planning and me still running my food truck. We’d had another six months of bliss and were nearing a whole year together as husband and wife.

Every night, we tried to be home by dinner time. He made it a mission most days even though he sometimes travelled out of town on one of his ridiculous jets. Then, I watched him make dinner before I climbed him like a hungry cat. He had claw marks most of the time to show for it.

“I’m happy you’re happy about it. We’re six months into construction and I think we’ll meet the nine month goal.” Bastian murmured into my neck and I wiggled on his cock, not caring a bit about business talk at the moment.

“Can we go in now?” I stared at his lips, wanting to have them even before we ate dinner or anything else that evening.

“What for?” He smirked down at me.

I gripped the baggy shirt that was bunched around my thighs. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I want to thank you for this nice balcony gift?”

His gaze raked up and down my body before he said, “Something came in the mail for you today.”

“Oh?” I shrugged. “What?”

He slid his hand in his chest pocket and pulled out a small metal ball. “Linny sent this to you. Her letter read that you’d need it since you were having so many problems in the bedroom.”

“What?” I tried to grab it away but he held it just out of the reach of my tied hands. “You opened a package that was addressed to me?”

“We’re married, ragazza.” The hand that held me at my back suddenly was pulling his tie above my head to the railing just beside the chair. He put the metal device back in his pocket so he could a knot quickly. Then, he slid the metal device back out to stare at. “You should know better than to think a package is just yours.”

“What? She put my name on it.” I pulled on my restraints. There wasn’t any give.

He turned it in his hand before pressing a small button that made it vibrate. “What’s yours is mine.”

Oh, God. My eyes widened as his dark eyes sparkled.

He took his time sliding his hands under my shirt and then said, “Be a good girl and lift your hips, ragazza.”

I chewed on my cheek but knew I was going with the path of me getting off. I lifted and he slid my panties off to drop onto the ground. Then he took his time lowering the metal egg to my thigh and the cool metal slid up and shocked my system with each vibration.

“Bastian, we should probably just go inside. We aren’t going to do anything on this balcony,” I said through clenched teeth, but my breath was already coming faster and faster.

“Of course we are, love.” His middle finger grazed my pussy. “If we weren’t, you wouldn’t be wet for me right now.”

“Your cock has been against my ass for the last five minutes. Of course I’m wet for you. That’s not an indication that—”

I gasped when he slid the cold metal over my clit and then rubbed it over my entrance. “Bastian…”

“Ragazza, call me by my full name when I’m about to get you off. Your husband likes the world to hear it on your lips.”

I shook my head in defiance, “No one would hear me fifty stories up.”

He grabbed my hair and pulled my head back to expose my neck so he could suck on it as he rubbed a thumb over my clit and let the device work me into a frenzy. “Then you better scream loud, bellissima. We need to let this city know you and your husband have no problems at all in the bedroom and out of it, right?”

I moaned when he went back to sucking on my neck. I wiggled back and forth on his dick, wanting every sensation I could take from him. He was pushing all my senses by bringing me out here, lighting up the night with salt crystals, and then vibrating my pussy into oblivion. “I need all of you.”

He growled and then lifted and spun me so I was sitting on top of him, looking out at the town, the ocean, the horizon.

He moved my hair to the side so he could continue marking my neck, but his hands went to my breasts and clitoris. They worked me in unison to my high. I hit it fast with that device in me and he murmured how beautiful I looked. Then he slid it out, turned it off, and put it back in his pocket before scooting me forward enough to unbuckle his belt. “I should take you back in to fuck you properly in a bed but if I don’t have you with this as your backdrop, I’ll never forgive myself.”

With that, he plunged into me, one hand on my breast, the other on my hip. I gasped at the sensation, realizing right at that moment, we had no barrier between us.

I couldn’t stop though, the feeling of my husband’s cock bare in my pussy was too much. I rode him hard and met his deep thrust over and over again.

“You feel that?” He murmured against my ear. “That pussy belongs on my dick, nothing between us. I’ll make an empire with you, ragazza. Give me a baby, huh? One I’ll love just as much as you.”

I froze and turned to search his gaze over my shoulder. “You mean that?”

His mouth lifted to a smile. “You said at that theme park a long time ago you wanted one.”

I bit my lip. “You’re giving me what I want?”

“Well, what I want too.” He leaned in and kissed my cheek. Then he squeezed my thigh and flexed his dick in me. “Let’s make a baby now, Morina Armanelli.”

I bit my lip and rolled my hips on him.

“Fuck,” He ground out and pulled my hair so that my ass arched harder into his lap. “Scream my name, ragazza.”

His words sent me over the edge. He’d made the quick decision to make a baby with me, one he knew I wanted. I hit a high out there on the balcony that night with the man I loved.

“Sebastian Armanelli.”