Meg shivered, even though the fire was crackling nicely. Beck had spent the better part of an hour building it. He stoked it until the orange and red flames flared and gave a warm glow to their little camp. She was all alone with a complete stranger. Oh sure, they’d had a couple of sexual encounters, but she didn’t really know him. She sat back against the trunk of a huge tree and watched the man who had claimed her.
True to what Dante had told her, Beck had let her do absolutely none of the work. He’d helped her off the horse and settled her carefully on her feet. His first task was to make a comfortable place for her to sit. He’d taken two blankets out of his saddle bags to make a little nest for her while he gathered wood for the fire.
She removed her boots and pants before wrapping up in the blankets. He was never out of sight. After he started the fire, he’d pulled out bread, some cheese, and what looked like beef jerky. Meg’s stomach rumbled. She decided not to honor her New Year’s Resolution to avoid meat and dairy.
Beck hadn’t touched a thing until she declared herself full, and then he ate everything she hadn’t eaten.
He was such a puzzle to her, sweet one minute and completely shut down the next.
“I need to know something,” he said quietly as he sat down across from her.
Meg nodded, not trusting herself to speak. He was heartbreakingly beautiful by firelight. The soft light of the fire delineated the lines of his face. His jaw was carved from granite, but his eyes were soft. He was a real, actual faery prince, and according to him, he was hers. Even after the way he treated her this afternoon, she wanted nothing more than to throw herself into his arms.
She never, ever learned.
“Did you leave a husband behind?” Beck asked. “Do you have babies who wonder where their mama is?”
All she had to do was say yes, she realized. If she said yes, cried prettily, and talked about her sweet babies, he might try to get her home. She could say she had two, a boy and a girl. She could also tell him about the husband she loved more than life itself.
“No,” she admitted quietly. “I’m alone.”
He seemed confused by the statement and moved to sit beside her. He pulled the blanket up around her. Beck carefully placed his arm around her shoulder. “Did your parents die before they could find a husband for you?”
Meg laughed abruptly at the thought. Her parents couldn’t be in a room together for more than two minutes before a war broke out. They hadn’t even attended her wedding, much less tried to advise her on who to marry. “No. My parents divorced when I was twelve. Mom remarried roughly six months later. She married the guy she had been having an affair with. Dad married his secretary, excuse me, administrative assistant, two months after that. Neither one of them wanted to deal with a teenage girl, so I got shuffled around. I’d stay with Mom until she got tired of me, and then I’d get shoved off on Dad. Casey, his ten-years-older-than-me wife, didn’t like me very much. They both had new children with their new spouses. Needless to say, everyone was happy when I left for college. So, to answer your question, no, they didn’t bother to find me a husband.”
Beck’s eyes were dark in the firelight. There was an unmistakable air of confusion in them. “What is divorce?”
It was Meg’s turn to be shocked. She studied him for a moment to see if he was pulling her leg. “You really don’t know?”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand your story, love. Your parents did not die? They left each other and formed bonds with other people? They had children with people who were not their spouse?”
“Well, they were at the time,” Meg tried to explain. “You don’t have a way to dissolve a marriage?”
“No. Why would we have that?” Beck asked, his face showing no signs of teasing. “Marriage is sacred.”
“Okay, how about if the husband abuses the wife? Is she supposed to stay in the marriage?” Again, he looked blankly at her. “What if her husband smacks her around? What if he cheats on her with the local floozy? What if he calls her names and is generally unpleasant to be around?”
Beck nodded, finally getting her point. “If this happened in a Fae marriage, then the female would beat the male into submission. If she is too small to beat him properly, one of the larger women of her family would perform the task for her.”
“And the man just stands there for the beating?” Meg asked incredulously.
“If he has any honor at all,” Beck replied with a frown. “If his abuse of the wife continues, the males of her family would take care of him. As I said before, the only way out of a Fae marriage is death, but that can be arranged.”
Meg couldn’t help but smile. “I kind of wish those rules had been in play when I got married.”
Beck turned her to look at him. His lips were turned down in a scowl, and his eyes pinned her. “They were in play when you got married, love. I assure you, our marriage was properly witnessed. I signed the paperwork with the gnomes before we left.”
Meg went very still. “Marriage?”
“Yes, love, what did you think I was doing with you? I told you I needed a bondmate. You’re my wife now, and there is no divorce.” He said the word as though he found it distasteful.
“I thought you were buying me,” Meg stammered, trying to wrap her head around the fact that she had apparently gotten married, and no one had bothered to tell her. She looked at Beck, a little panicked at the thought. He was her husband? “You know, like a slave.”
“You have strange words, wife. I don’t know what a slave is, but we’re married, and nothing is going to change that.” He took a deep breath. “If you are angry with me for what I did today, you have my permission to hit me. It might make you feel better. I can only promise I won’t do it again. I was a little overwhelmed.”
An alarming thought struck her. She wondered if the whole beating thing went both ways. “So if I step out of line, you’ll hit me?”
The faery looked extremely offended. “I would never beat you, Meggie. It’s different for a man. We’re bigger. We could hurt you. I know after what I did to you earlier you must think me a man of no honor, but I would never, never beat my woman. I might put you over my knee if I thought you were stepping out on me, but I would only use my hand.”
“You would spank me?” It was supposed to come out as an outraged question. It was supposed to show that she would never put up with such a thing. Instead, it kind of came out as a breathless, curious query. The thought of being put over his knee, completely naked and open, and having that big hand smack her ass was really stimulating. She thought about the one time she’d asked Michael to spank her. She had been curious. He’d rolled his eyes and called her a pervert. Beck might think the same thing.
“If I had no other choice, I would spank you,” Beck said grimly.
Meg nodded, trying not to think about how he would trace the line of her spine while she was across his knee, open and vulnerable to him. She turned back to the fire so he wouldn’t see how her cheeks were flushed as she thought about how she would wait, anticipating the blow, her pussy getting wet at the thought.
“You talked about marriage and the Fae rules being in play when you got married. What did you mean if you weren’t talking about our marriage?” Beck asked quietly. There was suspicion in his voice, like he already knew the answer.
It was an effective way to shut down her arousal. Thinking of Michael Starke immediately made her think of humiliation. Despite his assertion that she was a pervert, humiliation wasn’t her thing. “I was married once. We got a divorce.”
“He allowed you to get away from him?”
Meg laughed, but it was a bitter sound. “Honey, he packed my bags and shoved me to the street. He literally did that. He needed me out of the apartment before his new girlfriend showed up. She was a nurse. She made more money than I did, so she could take better care of him than I could.”