Sweet Revenge Read Free Page A

his white
throbe
. “Please.” Though she knew they were useless, the tears started. “Don’t do this.”
    “A woman has no right to refuse her husband what he wishes.” Just looking at her, at the way her ripe body quivered against the pillows, he felt powerful, in charge of his own destiny again. Whatever else she was, she was his property—as much as the jewels on his fingers, the horses in his stables. He grabbed her by the bodice of her nightgown and dragged her back.
    In the shadows by the bed, Adrianne began to tremble.
    Her mother was crying. They were fighting, shouting words she couldn’t understand at each other. Her father stood naked in the moonlight, his dark skin gleaming with a film of sweat that sprang from lust rather than the sultry heat. She had never seen a man’s body before, but wasn’t upset by the sight. She knew about sex, and that her father’s manhood, which looked so hard and threatening, could be used to dig into her mother and make a child. She knew there was pleasure in this, that the act was something a woman desired above all else. Indeed, she had heard this a thousand times in her young life, for the talk about sex in the harem was incessant.
    But her mother could have no more children, and if there was pleasure here, why was she crying and begging him to leave her?
    A woman was to welcome her husband into the marriage bed, Adrianne thought as her own eyes filled. She was to offer him whatever he desired. She was to rejoice to be desired, to be the vessel for children.
    She heard the word
whore.
It wasn’t a word she knew, but it sounded ugly on her father’s lips, and she wouldn’t forget it.
    “How can you call me that?” Phoebe’s voice hitched with sobs as she fought to free herself. Once she had welcomed the feel of his arms around her, delighted in the way his skin would gleam in moonlight. Now she felt only fear. “I’ve never been with another man. Only you. It’s you who’ve taken another wife even after we had a child.”
    “You gave me nothing.” He wrapped her hair around his hand, fascinated by it yet detesting its fire. “A girl. Less than nothing. I have only to look at her and feel my disgrace.”
    She struck him then with enough force to snap his head back. Even if she’d been faster, there would have been nowhere to run. The back of his hand smashed across her face, sending her reeling. Driven by lust and fury, he ripped the nightgown from her.
    She was built like a goddess, every man’s fantasy. Her lush breasts heaved as terror sent her heart racing. In the moonlight her pale skin glowed, already showing the shadow of bruises from his hands. Her hips were rounded. When passion filled her they could move like lightning, meeting aman thrust for thrust. Shameless. Desire was like a pain in him, like a devil clawing. A lamp crashed onto the table as they struggled, showering the floor with glass.
    Frozen in horror, Adrianne watched as he dug his fingers into Phoebe’s full white breasts. Her mother was pleading, struggling. A man had a right to beat his wife. She could not refuse him in the marital bed. That was the way. And yet … Adrianne pushed her hands hard against her ears to block out Phoebe’s screams as he rose over her, as he plunged into her violently, again and again.
    With her face wet with her own tears, Adrianne crawled under the bed. She pressed her hands against her ears until they hurt but still she could hear her father’s grunts, her mother’s desperate weeping. Above her the bed shook. She curled into a ball, trying to make herself small, so small she wouldn’t hear, wouldn’t even be.
    She had never heard the word
rape
, but after this night she would never have to have it defined for her.
    “You’re so quiet, Addy.” Phoebe brushed her daughter’s waist-length hair with long, slow strokes. Addy. Abdu despised the nickname and only tolerated the more formal Adrianne because his first born was a female of mixed blood.