The Guardian Read online

  After it passed I was back in fighting form, there he sat, so stoic, so removed. I would be damned if I was going back to the way things were between us, so distant, and him flaunting that wildebeest in my face.

  "What does it matter to you anyway, you don't want me you made that obviously clear the last time I stupidly threw myself at you. So why don't you go back to your blonde bitch and leave me alone?"

  "Isabella, I'm warning you; don't push me. I suggest you keep your mouth shut until we reach where we're going."

  And where was that I wondered? Maybe I’d finally pushed him too far and he was going to pack me off to boarding school. But no, I was too old for that now surely.

  I’d talked him into letting me apply to the local university so that I wouldn’t have to go move from him. Would he still keep his word or had I fudged that up as well? There was no telling what form his anger would take, I have seen him angry before usually at others though and never me. Not even when I’d gone as far as I could on that tight leash he had around my neck.

  He opened his ever-present briefcase and pulled out some papers to read. I guess that meant there would be no more conversation until we reached wherever it was he was dragging me off to.

  “If you take me away I’ll just run away and you’ll never see me again.” I don’t know where I got the gumption. His only answer was to pick his head up and glare at me before returning to what he was doing.

  I settled back in my seat and fought back the tears that were my constant companion lately, whenever I had any dealings with the infuriating jackass. My body finally relaxed from the tension of the last few days and I was soon fast asleep. Subconsciously knowing that I was safe, as always with my Zared.

  ***

  We landed...somewhere, I don't know, it looked like an island or something, but not one I’d been to before.

  There were palm trees and I could see a beach in the distance.

  "Where are we?"

  "Praslin." He didn’t seem so angry anymore though there was still a bit of a bite in his voice.

  "What are we doing here?" I knew it was some island in Seychelles where he owned property, but that’s about as much as I knew about the place. When we still took trips together it was usually on his yacht, and the farthest we’d gone was the Greek Isles.

  "You'll see."

  Cryptic much?

  We headed to the waiting limo that took us to a villa on the beach. There was a very official looking man waiting there as soon as we got out, with a book in his hand.

  "Good afternoon Mr. Costakis, Miss." He nodded to me.

  "Are we ready?" Zared walked us over to stand in front of him.

  Ready, ready for what? I looked at Zared, waiting for him to explain but he didn't say a word, just told the man to begin.

  Chapter 4

  I'm...married, let me say that again, I'M MARRIED TO FUCKING ZARED COSTAKIS.

  Okay, so the guy who did the deed just left and I'm all alone with my new husband. I’m still not sure what just happened, did I just get my every wish? Could it really have been that easy? I turned to him expectantly as he closed the door behind us and…

  "Okay Isabella, let me introduce you to the man you married."

  What, what was he talking about? He took off his jacket and threw it across a chair while kicking off his shoes. My eyes followed his every move. Were we about to have sex? We hadn’t even kissed yet, shouldn’t we…?

  I didn't have long to think about it before he pulled me over to the couch and over his knees.

  I was too shocked to utter a sound at first, but when he lifted my dress and brought his hand down across my ass I screamed.

  "Don't, you, ever, defy, me, again."

  These were not love taps people, these were ass reddening, you will not sit down for a week slaps.

  I felt the tears rolling down my cheeks as I finally got enough sense to try to get away.

  “Hold still or it will be worse for you.”

  Worse, how could it be worse? This was humiliating and degrading and everything other ‘ing’ I couldn’t think of at the moment.

  “Let me up Zared, you can’t do this. I hate you.” My screaming did nothing to stop the rain of blows that fell on my poor abused ass. I was too embarrassed to look up at him when he was through, all that could be heard in the room were my sniffles and his loud breathing.

  I guess the asshole felt guilty after abusing my ass because the next thing I felt was his hand rubbing the spot he’d just heated up. My brain was trying to play catch up, while my traitorous body was all but purring beneath the soothing warmth of his hand.

  “Do you promise to be a good girl if I let you up?”

  “Yes.” Was that my voice that sounded so pitiful? He sat me on the seat next to him and I scotched onto one butt cheek, since the sting was still very much there where he’d wailed me.

  “What did you do that for?” I rubbed my ass and scowled at him. Even now, as I wanted to scratch his eyes out for treating me like a child, he still made my heart sing. He sat there looking like the world’s foremost leading man. His dark hair cut short, those spellbinding eyes, that I swore saw through to my very core, and that face that had been haunting my dreams almost since the first moment I’d met him.

  His pristine white shirt under a black jacket and his Hermes tie made him look like what he was, a suave and debonair businessman. No one would ever believe he’d just got through spanking my ass.

  “I’m not staying here with you if this is the way you’re going to treat me.”

  “Isabella, I see I’ve let you get away with too much for too long, it’s given you a false sense of your own independence. Get this through your head.” He grabbed my chin with one of his manly hands and turned my face towards him.

  “I own you. That’s right.” My eyes had widened at his proclamation. “I let you run wild to give you a taste of freedom, but make no mistake, you’ve always been mine. Now that rock on your finger makes it official, that means from now on you do as I say without question, or every time you disobey me I’ll turn your little ass over me knee. Do you understand me?”

  “You…” this was too much, the damn tyrant thought he was going to be the boss of me. It was just more of the same; he’d only married me to control me, not because he loved me, but to keep me from running wild, and blemishing his precious name by association. I took a swing at him but he was prepared, the bastard.

  “Uh-uh-uh, none of that now, unless you want me to tan your little ass again. Now sit there like the young lady I raised you to be and behave while I make a few calls.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that and it stopped me in my tracks. I didn’t know exactly what it meant, but I know Zared, and that tone meant trouble for someone. Since he’d already got me in his clutches, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know who the calls were going to be about.

  I watched him as he crossed the room and headed out to the patio. I was about to get up and follow him but he turned just outside the door and caught me with his eyes, trapping me there with the heat in them.

  “This is Costakis, I want his legs and his arms broken.”

  I jumped up off the couch and ran towards him. Okay Paulo was a prick, but it was because of me that he was in this fix. I’m the one that went after him, well that wasn’t entirely true, but I’d used him to make Zared jealous.

  “You can’t…” he pointed his finger back towards the couch but I wasn’t about to be stopped. It was one thing for him to punish me, but to punish someone else for my stupidity was wrong, I couldn’t let him do it.

  “Please Zared it was my fault, you have to call them back and…”

  “Don’t you ever defend that filth to me again.” He seemed to have a fondness for grabbing my chin one handed as he was doing it again now.

  “I told you didn’t I? Now go sit down until I’m done here then we’ll talk.”

  I slinked back to the couch, but the damnedest thing happened on the way there. In
the mirror across the way, I happened to catch the way he was looking at me as I walked away and, oh my.

  My knees grew weak and I dropped, more than sat, on the couch. What did it mean, that look? What does it mean when a man looks at your ass and bites into his lip with that hot gaze that could melt steel, or in this case the panties off my ass?

  My heart was racing again and I forgot all about my stinging ass as my mind raced with the possibilities. I’ve never seen that look on his face before. In the last few years, we’d hardly been alone together long enough for anything more than him to lay down the law or me to scream something at his head for the last asshole jerk thing he’d done to make my life miserable.

  I still didn’t know how he always knew when I’d fucked up, but he always did. There had been times when I’d been glad for it though, like today when I’d been about to make the biggest mistake of my life.

  I missed whatever else was going on with him because I was so preoccupied with this new turn of events. That look had to mean something, didn’t it?

  “As for you…”

  “Huh, what?” I looked up at him as he towered over me. Did he have to be so beautifully perfect all the time? I don’t remember ever seeing him looking anything but hot. It didn’t matter what he was wearing, whether jeans and a polo or a suit like he wore now. Even at home in the mornings, when I would pass him in the hallway and he was coming out of his room fresh from his bed, his hair wild and face sleep soft, he was always the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

  Chapter 5

  ZARED

  If she knew the thoughts that were running riot through my head right now, she wouldn’t look at me like that. I’d made the move, so there was no turning back now, but there were still some things that needed to be said before I took this any farther.

  The question of whether or not she could take me or handle me was no longer on the table. I let my eyes travel over her small frame; it was going to be a tight fit that’s for sure. My cock was already on board, had been for a long fucking time. I’d been willing to give her time, or so I’d told myself, but she’d forced the issue and I hope to fuck she was prepared for what was coming.

  She was mine now; all the way mine. I was sure there would be some murmurs and maybe a few detractors when we got back to the states. I was still her guardian after all, but not even that could put a damper on the fire that burned just beneath the surface; but first things first.

  “I warmed up your ass for what you almost did today, but there’s still the issue of how things got that far to begin with. Didn’t I tell you to stay away from him?” I saw the flash of defiance in her eyes before she blinked it away. Always my little fighter; I guess it was going to take a while to tame her little ass to where I wanted her to be. Now that things had changed it was going to be fun taking the gloves off once and for all.

  She thinks she knows me, but she’s only known one side of me, the guardian-the protector. She has no idea what it means to be my woman; to wear my mark on her day and night, to carry my scent from being under me constantly.

  She’ll learn soon enough, or her ass will pay the price. I have no intentions on taking it easy on her, she had more than enough opportunities to find a nice safe boy her age to play with, instead she did everything in her power to reel me in.

  Not that she needed to do too much, I was already on the line, but for her sake I’d been willing to let her…who the fuck am I kidding? I would never have let her marry anyone else, no matter what it took. I would’ve stood in her way because I’m a selfish bastard and the truth is, I’d been fighting myself as well as her, putting a wedge between us because I was afraid had I not done that, I would’ve taken her before the time was right.

  There had been many a night in the last year when I’d had to lock myself in my own bedroom to keep from going down the hall and taking her. Or how about the nights I’d purposely stayed away because the hunger and the need for her were too strong? And the closer it got to her eighteenth birthday the harder it became to resist the lure.

  “Answer me Isabella, what were you doing with Paulo Amici after I told you to stay away from him?”

  “You can’t tell me who to talk to Zared, I’m a grown up remember, eighteen.”

  “You think so do you? In a little while I’m going to fuck you, hard, we’ll see how grown up you are then, but that’s beside the point. I told you to stay the fuck away from that whole family and why.”

  Her eyes had gone light then dark when I told her I was going to fuck her, and she looked at me with the same hunger I’d seen there so much lately. It was all I could do not to drag her off to bed right this minute, but she needed to hear some truths first so there was no mistake as to where this new relationship of ours was headed.

  ***

  “Well?”

  “Well what? I liked Paulo he was fun, and besides I can’t tell you who to fuck so…”

  I had her up off the couch in a second. “Hey.”

  “Did he touch you?” Her eyes had gone wide as she realized I wasn’t fucking around. The thought of him or anyone else taking what was mine made my head spin and the blood sing in my veins. I had visions of tearing his fucking head from his shoulders as I awaited her answer. I shook her until she opened her mouth.

  “No he didn’t, what’s wrong with you?”

  “Has anyone?”

  “That’s none of your business, you were fucking Sonja and your bevy of bimbos before her.”

  “Answer the fucking question.”

  She finally backed down and her shoulders fell as she looked down at the floor between us. “No, no one.”

  “And no one else ever will.” I pulled her to me then and kissed her the way I’d wanted to for far too long. She was soft and sweet, just as I’d imagined; her mouth might give me hell but her body knew its master. She clung to me and purred into my mouth as I took her tongue.

  Her innocence shone through loud and clear in the shy way she used her tongue in my mouth until I showed her how.

  It felt like hours later when I finally lifted my mouth from hers. Her lips were swollen and red from my assault on them and her nipples pushed against the fabric of her dress. The dress she’d worn to marry another man in.

  “Take that off.”

  She looked down at herself. “What here?”

  “No the bedroom’s through there.” I pointed her in the direction and went to pour myself a stiff drink. I wasn’t quite sure how to progress from here. I’ve never had to explain my likes to a woman before they usually came to me knowing what I liked.

  But this was my babygirl. I’m pretty sure even with all the shit she’s gotten up to in the last couple of years that she’s innocent of such things. Not sex itself, but the kind of sex I craved. It’s a sure bet that she’s the least likely candidate for what I have in mind.

  She’s opinionated, strong willed and feisty. I didn’t want to break her in anyway, but I neither could I give her up. After tonight, I guess we’d both see if she was strong enough.

  Chapter 6

  She came out of the room wearing one of my shirts and I assume nothing underneath. She wouldn’t have found the clothes I’d ordered for her that were now tucked away in the walk-in closet.

  As soon as I’d heard of her plans I’d set mine in motion knowing that there was no way in hell I would let this day end any different. I cleared my calendar for the next two weeks. I planned on spending everyday of that buried deep inside her sweet body until this infernal lust was assuaged.

  “Come sit over here.”

  She walked towards me as I held my hand out to her, pulling her down on my lap. “Now there’s a few things we have to get straight now that you’re my wife. Listen very carefully babygirl because any infraction can be cause for punishment and trust me, what you’ve tasted so far today was child’s play compared to what I can and will do to you if you disobey me in the future. Shut it.”

  She’d started to open her mouth, no doubt to argue,
that was number one on my list. As my ward, she’d been allowed to get away with a lot. One: because she was so young, and also because she was free then, free to do as she pleased within certain boundaries. That no longer held true.

  “Look at me babygirl.” I turned her face towards me so she could see into my eyes and judge the seriousness of what I was about to say.

  “First, remember that this is what you wanted. We both know I did everything in my power to try to save you, but it’s too late now. I don’t know how much you know about marriage outside the one your parents had. Ours is going to be different.”

  “Different how?”

  “Do not interrupt me when I’m speaking to you. That’s first on the list; you will no longer talk back to me at any time about anything. I love your feistiness yes, but with me it will only be allowed to go so far. In the future when I tell you to do something you will do it without question.

  As of today your thoughts your dreams your plans, are no longer yours they belong to me.” I could see from the look on her face that she had no idea what I was talking about, I wasn’t surprised, it was a lot for someone that young to take in.

  “I will decide what you wear, what you eat and where you go from now on. Those friends of yours that have been encouraging you in your nonsense are out. While we’re on the subject, if I even see you look at another man I will give you a whipping that you won’t soon forget. If you want something you will come to me and I will decide if you may have it or not.”

  I didn’t try to stop her when she jumped up off my lap. I hadn’t expected her to docilely accept my dictates, but she was going to adhere to every last one of them before we left this island, of that I was sure.