THE CONTROL: An Arranged Marriage Romance by Elena Monroe (best big ereader txt) 📗

Slowly revealing the folder, I opened it to all his red pen marks that took issue with everything except the prepositions in the document. Rolling over onto my stomach with the folder under me, I started reading it out loud, knowing I was only going to make it worse.

“The fundamental purpose of this contract is to act as a binding agreement between Bowen Adonis Astor, The Clave, and the stock in question…” Dancing around the meaning of the words, I kept reading just to annoy him. “The following are agreed upon terms, standards, and conditions. One, the said stock in question will adhere to-” cutting off my words and stealing the air from my lungs, I could feel the bed shift behind me. Bowen’s legs hovered over mine, boxing me in under him and his long arms reached for the folder I tucked further down between myself and his black duvet.

I wanted him to have to touch me, have to remember me—have to pay attention to me. I felt like I was a product of a broken home and in desperate need of being loved.

I mean, I was… 

“Give me the damn folder, Eve. This isn’t cute,” his hands reached for my wrists, gaining too much of an upper hand at my own game.

Still trapped between his long, lean, legs I wiggled my way to face him. I finally caught his eyes glimmering with a dark kind of glow that seemed equally worth it as it was sinister. Wrapping my legs around him, I pressed my hips up into his and held back a moan at the friction I had been longing for. I let my lips pout like I was a sore loser when losing wasn’t even possible under this man.

“Feels like it’s cute,” smirking up at him, I held the folder to my chest. His blonde mop top that used to be the color of milk chocolate fell into his eyes as he stared down at me.

Leaning down, pressing his weight into his palms that sunk into his bed, I could feel the heat of his anger inches away from my lips when he delivered more indignant words my way. “You haven’t felt anything.”

Wrapping my legs around him even tighter, I dropped my hands away from my chest leaving the folder up for grabs when his fingers brushed against my breast through the sheerness of my top, making me shudder. Chills broke out along my arms as I watched his tongue swipe along his bottom lip.

He was wound as tightly as I was, and I could see the tension between us with my bare eyes. Tossing the folder to the other side of the bed, I expected him to climb off me, but instead I felt his hands smooth up my arms and his rings dig into my unblemished skin.

The proximity closed between us and made me gasp out for him to give in when all he did was look at me like he was taking inventory—sorting all my good and bad traits into categories.

Bowen didn’t care if my bad outweighed the good—he was going to deface me until it all bled red. 

“You don’t know what you’re asking for. I can’t be the one who gives it to you,” unlike his normal tone, his voice dropped down into a smooth melody. He was being vulnerable. How could I push for more when he was actually being my Bowey in this moment.

BOWEN

The Clave wasn’t somewhere I wanted to be when I wasn’t forced to be here for work. It was more ominous when vacated and that kind of environment only provoked my demons to come out to play.

Eve walked behind me, trying to keep up in her heels, wearing a clear Louis Vuitton raincoat barely covering up a small dress that was clinging to every bend in her body.

She was a distraction that I knew was only going to send me into the arms of my demons.

Her smooth legs beg for my hands, her big blue eyes only see the best in me, and her full lips are downright pumped full of sin.

Carrying the contracts in my tight grasp, I pushed the button inside the elevator to the floor that we needed.

I hope she was ready to damn her soul right along with mine because once we sign on the dotted line there is no going back.

She’d be Clave… and mine. Forever.

Leaning against the wall, the elevator was dark enough to already start whispering to my demons. Stirring awake, I caught her reflection in the glossy surface huffing. She was begging for my attention, my words, and my dick all at once and I couldn’t decide which was going to be the first to respond.

“Problem, Princess?” I didn’t attempt to face her while I watched the numbers climb with each floor we passed.

Another sigh later, she finally let the words slip off her tongue, “You haven’t said one word to me tonight.”

“Word,” I offered her with a quirked smirk knowing that I gave her three in the demand for one.

I watched her untie her rain jacket, letting it fall open to show off the nude-colored dress that displayed every delicate curve of her body. If you weren’t looking hard enough, you’d miss them.

That was her response to me being an asshole—fight fire with fire. 

Only her version of fire was the way I wanted to burn.

The elevator doors opened, and she breezed by me with her long dark hair flowing behind her, forcing me to watch her ass leave when she casually said, “Don’t be an asshole.”

“When did the Princess get teeth? Can we keep her around?”

Following her out, I saw our parents almost immediately, waiting for us to arrive with what looked like bated breath. There was a