“One,” he said, finally taking his hands out of his pockets and ticking the items off on his fingers. “You have to move in with me, because I sure as hell won’t live with your parents.”
“It’s a guest house,” I groaned, but he ignored me, pushing on.
“Two. You can have access to all of my accounts, but I want nothing of yours. You understand? Nothing.” He took a step toward me, then another. “I’ve worked hard for every single thing I’ve earned. I don’t need a handout—”
“Understood,” I cut him off, tipping my head back to meet his eyes. He stood so close I could smell him—a sharp, almost mossy green scent, edged with a lighter hint of citrus.
He cocked a brow at the interruption, but a lick of fire churned in those dark eyes, some sense of relief that I’d brought my bite back.
“Three,” he continued, not bothering to move back an inch. “The only people from my family invited to this wedding are my sister and my nephew—”
“Of course,” I cut in again. “I adore Lillian and would love to meet her son.”
A low huff, and I’d sealed my lips again. “Four,” he said, his eyes doing their best to scorch every inch of my body. A modest yet elegant sundress allowed my skin to breathe during the sweltering southern summer, but the way he looked at me? I may as well have been naked. Those damn eyes saw straight to the heart of me. “Don’t go falling in love with me, Princess. Because I’m sure as hell not your happily ever after.”
I glared up at him, my fingers trembling as I gripped the back of the chair even harder. “Not an issue,” I snapped, but instantly regretted it. Damn him. He knew how to get under my skin. Knew how to make me hiss. And it wasn’t fair to him. Because I could see it in the settled, broken pieces in his eyes, those jagged edges I don’t think anyone ever noticed because they were too afraid to get that close to him—I could see it. The truth he believed—that he wasn’t worth loving anyway—and some deep, aching part of me lurched at that notion. Again, I wanted to reach between us, wanted to touch him, hold his hand, or simply wrap my arms around the beast and tell him he was worth more than he allowed himself to believe.
“Five,” he growled, likely noting my train of thought with his infuriating ability to read me. “No sex. Zero sex.”
My lips popped open.
“Six,” he pushed on. “No sex with anyone else either because—”
“Won’t be difficult,” I grumbled.
He tilted his head. “I mean it, Princess. Just because I don’t scratch your itch doesn’t mean that trust-fund-douche is allowed to either.” The primal ownership in his tone uncoiled something hot and hungry in my core. I backed away from the safety of the chair, folding my arms over my chest. “Persephone.” He growled my name, and every nerve ending in my body stood at attention. “This is a deal-breaker for me. If you think you can’t handle not—”
“I haven’t had sex for twenty-four years, Cannon,” I cut him off, the breath rushing from my lungs. “I think I can handle another few months!”
Cannon’s lips parted, and he took a step away from me.
I held his gaze, not daring to be ashamed.
“You’re a…you’ve never had…” The words stumbled from his lips in the first show of shock and vulnerability I’d ever seen from him. The sight made a chuckle burst through my lips.
“A virgin, Cannon.” I grinned at him. “Not a bad word,” I said. “Certainly not foreign to you, I’m sure.”
“You’re a virgin.” The words were a whisper. “I thought that trust-fund—”
“Oh, Michael has tried,” I said, waving off the declaration. “But I don’t love him. Barely even like him.”
Could big scary NHL stars break? Because the way Cannon froze, the way he couldn’t gather his words…it sure looked like I’d broken him. I boldly took a step forward, so close I could’ve touched him if I wanted to. “When I do give myself to someone?” I mimicked his earlier appraisal of my body, taking in all the gloriousness of his. “It will be because I trust that man. Because I want that man more than I want myself. When I get that hungry? Then I’ll know the man I choose will be worth it.”
The bob of his Adam’s apple was his only response.
“Any other rules?”
A subtle shake of his head.
“Good, I agree to those rules. Now, I have a few of mine.”
“You’re not really in a position to be making rules here. I’m doing this for you—”
“And I appreciate that,” I said honestly. “I don’t know if I made myself clear in the locker room, but this will mean the world to my mother. And I’ll do whatever it takes to bring her joy in her last months on this earth.”
Cannon’s tense shoulders loosened just a fraction. “I do,” he said the words so softly I almost didn’t hear him. “I do understand,” he spoke up. “More than you know.”
I bit my bottom lip, studying the well of pain in his eyes. “Did you lose someone?”
A muscle in his jaw ticked, and that familiar iron wall dropped over his eyes. “What are your rules?”
I sighed. Fine. Fair enough. He wasn’t obligated to share, to open up. That didn’t mean I’d stop trying, though.
“You can’t get into any fights,” I said, ticking the first item off on my finger. The mimicked position from his earlier stance earned me the tiniest, if not briefest, of smiles. “No public scenes, violent or otherwise.”
Cannon folded his massive arms over his chest.
“And you can’t have sex with anyone else either.” The final rule came out firmer than the other two, and it dawned on me how this rule held more importance. To me, this one was the deal-breaker. The idea of him with another woman…I cringed. That inward swirling mount of jealousy is what urged me to buy him in that damned auction in the first place. I didn’t take one more second to ponder on it and instead pushed on. “Because, Cannon, for all pretend purposes, you’re mine.”
His lips curved at the edges—more bite than smile.
“And I do ask if you feel the…urge…feel like you might be on the brink of breaking that rule, that you ask me to satisfy it first.”
His eyebrows perked up at that, and the look made me tremble inside.
“I’ll be just fine without it,” he said. “And I won’t break my own rules. No sex.”
“Perfect,” I said, though a bit of disappointment fluttered through my chest. Not that I particularly wanted him to fight for the right to come between my thighs, but…
Well, it didn’t matter anyway.
This was clearly business, and at least on this end, we knew why we were going through with another marriage.
For the life of me, I wished I could remember my reasoning for the first time.
“So, we have a deal?” I offered my hand between us. Cannon eyed it for a few moments like I might have hidden some sort of taser between my fingers. “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” I said, and grabbed his hand.
A jolt of heat pulsed through me at the contact of his skin on mine—the roughness against my smoothness, the strength in his fingers yet the gentleness in which he held my hand.