Given to the Groom Read online

  I look into his eyes for a long, tense moment, and then I blink and exhale as I suddenly get it, suddenly understand why I’m turned on by an attitude that’s always turned me off in the past.

  It’s because Brakos’s arrogance is oddly natural, strangely genuine, not put on or faked. It’s not a facade or a front. No pretense. No masquerade. No effort.

  This man isn’t trying to be some alpha beast who needs to control and command . . .

  He simply is that alpha beast.

  And I’m on his bed, wearing his ring, imagining things that just don’t make sense, just can’t make sense. Not in the real world, at least.

  I glance towards that piece of paper in his hand that’s totally fake and would be meaningless in a court of law but for some reason feels so damned real right now, so damned meaningful right now.

  That strange sense of fantasy washes over me again . . . that weird feeling that made me get into that car yesterday, made me walk down the aisle, made me make choices that no sane woman would ever make. I’m almost in a trance as I look into his eyes, wonder what’s going to happen next, what choice I’m going to make next.

  And as my mind spins in circles, I watch Brakos step to that table near the bed and reach for that glass. He holds it up, that lazily confident smile still on his face. Then in one smooth motion he brings it to his lips and downs half of it.

  “Your turn, Bellanca,” he whispers, holding it out for me. I blink at the glass and then into his eyes, cocking my head as I feel a chill go through me. Somehow I know that drinking that simple glass of what’s probably just spring water with lemon is deeply meaningful, supremely symbolic. It’s like it’s an act of trust, an act of partnership, an act of . . . of marriage?

  “This is my signature on that line, isn’t it,” I mutter to myself as I slowly rise to my knees on the bed and reach for the glass. It sounds so dramatic and silly, but the feeling is so deep and real I can’t deny it. Won’t deny it.

  My mind swirls like the lemon in the glass as I remember that I still have no real idea what’s going on here, that my best guess is still that it’s a case of mistaken identity, that for heaven’s sakes it has to be a mistake. But there’s something about how sure Brakos is of himself, so sure of this weird-ass marriage which he says is not “that” kind of marriage—whatever the hell that means . . .

  Yes, there’s something about him that’s drawing me in, that’s perhaps been drawing me in before I even met him, before I even looked into his green eyes, before I even fainted in his strong arms like some lovesick damsel.

  I hold the glass to my lips, the fresh lemon scent drifting through the air like music. I think back to Grandma’s final years, the way she’d holed herself up in her home like some weirdo. I loved her like nobody else on earth—shit, I had nobody else for most of my childhood: Mom and Dad pretty much worked themselves into early deaths, going sleepless nights and holding down two or three jobs each just to pay the rent and the credit cards. I spent most of those years playing in Grandma’s living room while she went on about “the old days” and “what could have been” . . . maybe even what should have been . . .

  Could it be real, I wonder as I think about how Brakos knew Grandma’s name, knew my grandfather’s name, knew my name. My Greek name that not even some of my friends know! How do I explain that away? There’s something here, isn’t there? It might still turn out to be a mistake, of course. It almost certainly is a mistake. But . . .

  But what if it isn’t a mistake.

  What if it’s real?

  What if it’s . . . forever?

  “This is ridiculous,” I mutter, shaking my head as I stare through the murky glass. I can see the blurry outline of Brakos through the misty water, like the only way to get clarity is to step into this madness, sign my name on the dotted line, drink the magic elixir this Greek beast just handed me like it’s a symbol of my choice, a symbol of my decision, a symbol of . . . of . . .

  “A symbol of my madness,” I whisper to myself. “That’s really what it is. Hah. Maybe the only thing Grandma handed down to me was her freakin’ craziness, her ability to live in her own head, live in a fantasy, a world of could-have-been and should-have-been.”

  But just then I feel a cool breeze around my bare neck, and I shiver. I wonder if a window’s open or if the air-conditioning just turned itself on, but the room is silent like a graveyard, almost eerily silent.

  I shiver again as I go back over the strange choices I made yesterday—getting into that car, stepping into that ballroom, taking the flowers that someone handed me, and walking down the aisle alone.

  Except maybe I didn’t walk down the aisle alone, I think as I feel that cool, otherworldly breeze swirl around me again like it’s alive, like it’s pure living energy.

  Maybe I was being walked down the aisle by the person who’d have given me away if she’d been alive.

  Maybe she did give me away.

  Gave me to the groom.

  Gave me to him.

  And then I just stop thinking, and with no more hesitation I drink the remaining half of the glass Brakos handed me, feeling the cool lemon-water bring forth a burst of clarity, a feeling of freshness, a sense that I just left the real world behind and stepped into a world of could-have-been and should-have-been . . .

  4

  BRAKOS

  “This should not be happening,” I mutter to myself in Greek as I feel a strange breeze in the room, an energy that I swear is alive but invisible, like the gods themselves are intervening in human affairs just like in the old Greek myths. “It has been one day and already I am breaking. Already I am feeling the temptation defeating my will. Already the needs of my body are taking over, rendering me helpless, reminding me that I am an animal and not a man, a creature of flesh and not the god I arrogantly claim to be.”

  “You sound like Grandma, muttering to yourself in Greek,” Bellanca says as she licks her lush lips in a way that makes me yearn to kiss her again, to taste those lips, push my tongue inside her warm mouth. I lick my own lips as I take in the sight of her kneeling on the bed, her wide hips perfectly proportioned for my big body, her magnificent round buttocks designed for my meaty paws. I sniff the air and almost groan out loud when I catch the aroma of her sex, and my knees almost buckle as I imagine pushing my face between those thighs, tearing her wet panties off with my sharp teeth, licking her slit with long, hard strokes, sucking her clit until she screams, fingering her asshole until she comes into my goddamn mouth.

  I’d drink from her like her pussy is a magical fountain, I think as I feel myself slipping into a world of fantasy that I swear is more vibrant and vivid than even the highest moments of my “real” life.

  Bellanca is saying something, but all the blood has left my head to fill my cock, and all I can think about is her naked like a sunrise, spread like a sacrifice on the altar of our wedding bed. The scent of her sex is so heavy in my nostrils that I have to clench my fists and screw my feet into the carpet just to stop myself from pouncing on her, ripping her clothes to tatters, holding her beautiful body down, pushing my thick cock inside her warm cunt and filling her, claiming her, owning her . . .

  Even if I lose myself in the bargain.

  I mutter in Greek again even though I know I must sound like a madman. But my need is overwhelming, my arousal so strong I am even more convinced the gods are behind this, that they have sent this siren down to earth to show me that I am animal through and through, nothing but a beast destined to roam the earth and satisfy his most basic, most primitive, most primal needs. Because without self-control we are animals, are we not?

  Maybe I say to hell with self-control, I wonder as I bite my lip so hard I taste blood in my mouth like it’s a brutal reminder that I am a creature of flesh and not divine light. To hell with this obsession to rise beyond the needs of the flesh. After all, every Greek god of the old pantheo
n fathered a child with a human, did he not?

  Of course, each time a god succumbed to the beauty of a human woman it unleashed chaos and destruction, I think as I lick the blood from my lips and take a step towards my temptation, my test, my trial.

  Towards my woman.

  Towards my wife.

  Chaos and destruction, comes the thought again as I unbutton my shirt and rip it off, stretching my arms out wide as Bellanca gasps at the sight of my thick biceps, heavy pectorals, massive shoulders, hard, flat stomach with muscles that look like the foothills of Mount Olympus.

  “Brakos, what are you . . .” she whispers, touching her neck and moving back on her knees until she’s against the padded headboard of this bed that I don’t think is going to hold up to the furious arousal that’s rising in me like a volcano building to critical mass, slowly but surely heading for a climax so explosive it will bury the towns and villages in lava and ash, burn down the past and open up a path to the future, to what could be, to what should be.

  A path to forever.

  “Things have changed, Bellanca,” I growl as I unbuckle my heavy leather belt and slide it out. She glances at my peaked black trousers and lets out a soft, silent moan. Her eyes almost roll up in her head, and I swear she just imagined me entering her, invading her, claiming her. I know this is a bloody mistake, but I’m too far gone now. My mind is made up. Hell, my mind has given up!

  “Um, yeah, things have changed,” she stammers, blinking and smiling weakly as she presses her ass against the headboard and places her hands flat by her hips like she’s preparing for the onslaught, preparing to be taken, preparing for her . . . husband. “Things have most certainly changed. Yesterday I was planning an evening with free shrimp and cheap wine, and now it’s morning and I’m . . . I’m . . .”

  “You are mine,” I say firmly, finishing her broken sentence as I step out of my trousers and slowly get on the bed, my weight making the mattress bend, the bedframe creak. “Now it is morning and you are mine, Bellanca. My wife. My woman. My forever.”

  “Brakos, listen,” she mutters, brushing a strand of her brown hair from her forehead as I move towards her, my massive fists clenching and releasing, my cock almost ripping through my black silk underwear that’s glistening with the pre-cum that’s already soaked through. “Listen, Brakos. I still think there’s been a mistake. I’m not who you think I am.”

  “And I am not who I thought I was, Bellanca,” I growl as I finally get to her and run my hands down along her sides as I take in the sight of her heavy cleavage, inhale her scent, kiss her forehead gently just to get a taste of her sweetness. “I thought I was a god, but you reminded me I am still an animal. I thought I was destined to rule alone, but you make me want to bow down, to kneel, to give you everything. I thought this marriage was a transaction, an economic alliance, just business, fake like plastic flowers or artificial sweetener. But instead it feels more real than anything in my life, Bellanca. The work of the gods. The machinations of the angels and the demons working together.” I’m babbling like a bloody idiot, but I believe every word that comes from my bleeding lips. I slide my hands down her thighs and then up her dress, groaning as her lustrous ass fills my big palms. I yank her panties up until they’re deep in her asscrack, pressing my erection against her wet crotch and holding myself there as I lean in and gently kiss her lips even though my body is straining to take her hard and deep, with fury and force, with all the animal and the god in me. With all the man in me.

  “You sound as crazy as I must be to still be here,” she murmurs. “Plastic flowers? Artificial sweetener? Who talks like that?”

  I grunt as I kiss her again. Fuck, she tastes like sugar. She smells like flowers. “You know,” I say with a grin as I bring my hands out from beneath her dress and stroke her lips, caress her smooth round cheeks. “We have not even been married a day and already you have called me stupid, idiotic, and now crazy.” I snort and glance off to the side for a moment. “Gamó, Bellanca. Last week I executed two men simply because they—”

  “Wait, what? You . . . you executed someone?! What do you mean you executed someone?” she says.

  “Did I not speak clearly enough, Bellanca?” I say. “I may have a thick Greek accent, but I spend half my time in London and my English is impeccable.”

  She blinks and tries to move her head, but she can’t because of the way I’m cupping her face in my big palms. “It’s not your English,” she says. “It’s . . . I mean, you’re just messing with me, aren’t you?”

  “If by messing you mean am I joking, then let me be clear, Bellanca: I am not messing with you. I am not making a joke. What am I, a clown?” I say through gritted teeth. “Who do you think I am, Bellanca? Who do you think we are?”

  “I don’t know who you are, Brakos!” she says, and I see a hint of panic in her big brown eyes, like the fear she’s been closing herself from is pushing its way back into her, pulling her away from me.

  I take a slow breath as I remind myself that best I can tell, this woman does not know the meaning of heritage, the responsibility of a bloodline. She does not understand that blood and destiny are the same thing. “Do not pretend, Bellanca,” I say as I smell her hair, feel my cock pressing against her mound in a way that almost makes me explode. “I know your grandmother passed away before she could see the wedding through, but surely she told you what was happening, what this is, who I am, who you are.”

  “Um, my grandmother spent most of her final years in her freakin’ attic, babbling away in Greek, all right?” she snaps at me, an incredulous expression on her pretty face. I see a flash of innocence in those eyes, and I bite my lip again. “I mean, she wasn’t senile or anything. But she just kinda lived in her own head, in her own world, always talking about the past, the old country.”

  “And you were not paying attention,” I say, shaking my head. “You bloody Americans. Self-centered. Insular. Closed off from the rest of the world. Closed off from where you all came from.”

  “Um, that’s the point of America, you Greek dinosaur,” she says, and now I see the fire in those eyes that were just wide with fear and innocence. “When you come to America, it doesn’t matter where you came from, who you were in the old country. You can be anyone in America. You’re not bound by bloodlines and ancestors and whatnot. You choose who you want to be. That’s the idea. That’s the point of freedom, of democracy.”

  I snort and shake my head. “Do not lecture me on democracy, Bellanca. The Greeks invented democracy.” I shake my head again. “All right. I understand that your generation has no patience for the stories of their grandparents. But the letters and documents I got from Bernice Belitrios were perfectly preserved, beautifully organized. It was not the work of some senile old woman.”

  “I told you, Grandma wasn’t senile,” Bellanca says. “She was just . . . just weird. She watched movies all day and all night.” She sighs and shakes her head. “Mostly gangster movies. Actually, only gangster movies.” Then she blinks and frowns. “I mean, yeah, there was this one recent outburst where she insisted she was a mafia princess and her family had been wiped out in Athens so she fled to America. But it was just one time, and so I just laughed it off because she’d been awake for like three days watching the entire Godfather series while smoking filterless cigarettes and drinking Greek wine.”

  I stare at her as now I wonder if she is messing with me. “You . . . you laughed it off? You cannot be serious! Your grandmother tries to tell you about your heritage, your bloodline, your ancestry, and you laugh it off?”

  “Well, when you spend all your time alone, immersed in some fictional world, it’s easy to lose track of what’s real and what isn’t,” Bellanca says, blinking again as I see the first shadow of doubt in her eyes. “And it’s not like she’d been talking about it for years or anything. It was just last year that she went off the deep end about the old country and what should have be
en and could have been and whatever. I mean, my parents never said anything about it before they died, either. And like I said, Grandma only started talking about it last year. She was already pretty old, Brakos. Already fading.”

  Bellanca’s voice goes soft, and I loosen my hold on her cheeks, caressing her smooth skin gently with the back of my fingers. I try to put things together—which is damned hard when most of the blood has abandoned my brain for my balls.

  “Brakos, if all this were true, why would Grandma kept quiet about it for so many years?” Bellanca continues, her voice trembling as if she’s starting to second-guess herself, second-guess everything.

  I grit my teeth as I think back to what I know about the history of the Greek mafia. The Belitrios Family was strong, brutal but fair, offering protection to those who needed it, justice for those who paid for it. But their downfall was sudden, was it not? The records are sketchy—after all, all of this occurred well before everyone and his pet Chihuahua had their own Instagram live-stream or whatever bullshit the kids do these days with their phones.

  “Fear,” I say absentmindedly. “Denial. A need to bury the past and start a new life in America, just like you said.” Now the pieces begin to come together—not all the pieces, but enough that I slowly nod my head and narrow my eyes as I stroke Bellanca’s cheek. “Her parents and siblings were killed, Bellanca. She must have barely escaped with her own life. She was just a girl when she fled. Of course she wanted to have nothing to do with that world, with that life. Maybe at some point she even stopped believing it was real, like it was just a dream—probably a nightmare, actually.”

  “So what happened suddenly at the end of her life to change her mind?” Bellanca says, her voice peaked with disbelief, but the kind of disbelief that happens when you know that what seems insane might be the truth. “She got wasted, binge-watched some gangster movies, thought about the old days and decided hey, let’s set my grand-daughter up with some Greek mafia kingpin so she can live the life that was taken from me? You think that’s a reasonable fucking explanation for what’s happening here?!”