The Billionaire’s Twin Bride

Chapter 6 — The Rule and What It Costs

Calla POV

I understood the rule before he finished saying it.

That was the terrifying part — not the rule itself, but the rawness of how he’d said it. He said Your eyes should be open. On me. The entire time I’m inside you—every thrust, every time I make you come, every second I’m f*****g you slow or hard or deep enough to bruise. If those pretty eyes close—even for a heartbeat—I stop. I pull out. I wait until you’re begging with them again. Something in my chest responded before my brain caught up, like the instruction was meant for me specifically, like he'd reached past the performance and given it directly to whoever was underneath.

I stand in the center of a hotel suite I don't belong in and I look at this man I married four hours ago and I try to remember that I am here for a reason that has nothing to do with what's currently happening inside my ribcage.

"Okay," I say.

He looks at me a moment longer. "You're not going to ask why."

"No."

Something shifts in his face — barely, a small adjustment, like a calculation revising itself. He nods once, and turns to pour himself more Scotch, and I take the four seconds his back is turned to breathe.

This is what I know about navigating impossible situations: you take them in small sections. You don't look at the whole staircase; you look at the step in front of you. One step, then the next, then the next.

The step in front of me right now has very dark eyes and a rule I already understand too well.

He turns back around.

****

I will not write a detailed account, even in my own head. What I will say is this: Rhys Alderton is not what I expected, and nothing in Lenora's two-hour briefing prepared me for the specific problem of him.

I expected the controlled boardroom version — distant, managed, transactional. The man described in every profile and every assistant's communication note: systematic, contained, a person who runs his private life the way he runs a company.

What I get is something quieter and more dangerous than that.

He is patient. Devastatingly, precisely patient, in a way that strips every defense I brought into the room because I built those defenses against people who push and he does not push, he simply waits, and waiting is so much harder to hold out against.

He negotiated the s*x immediately, Remembering Lenora’s warning and the plan, I gave in.

I keep my eyes open. I keep them on his face.

Rhys doesn’t look away either.

Not once.

After making me wet, He holds my gaze with that steady, unrelenting focus, watching me while he’s buried inside me, thick and hot and stretching me so wide I can feel every ridge, every vein, every slow, deliberate drag of his c**k as he pulls almost all the way out and sinks back in to the hilt.

Nobody has ever looked at me like this.

Not like I’m decoration. Not like I’m an obligation. Not even like I’m someone they’re performing for.

Like I’m the only real thing in the room.

My cunt clench hard around him—tight, greedy, fluttering so violently he groans low and ragged, hips stuttering as he fights to keep the rhythm.

“f**k,” he breathes, voice wrecked. “You feel that? How f*****g tight you get when you’re looking right at me?”

I nod—barely—because words feel too dangerous, too close to admitting I’m already lost.

He doesn’t speed up. He f***s me slow, deep, measured—he hooks one of my knees higher over his hip, changing the angle so every stroke hits deeper, harder, until I’m gasping—silent, desperate little sounds I can’t swallow; every thrust dragging the swollen head of his c**k along that sensitive front wall until my thighs tremble. My c**t throbs against the base of him every time he grinds in, and I can feel how obscenely wet I am—how my arousal slicks us both, dripping onto the sheets beneath me.

My hands slide up his back—fingertips tracing the hard flex of muscle, nails digging in just enough to leave faint red trails as he rolls his hips. I need to touch him, need to feel the heat of his skin, the way his body moves inside mine like he’s claiming every inch.

Rhys leans down, mouth closing over one n****e—hot, wet suction pulling the tight peak deep. He sucks hard, tongue swirling slow circles around the sensitive bud before he flicks it rapidly with the flat of his tongue. My back arches off the mattress; a silent cry parts my lips. His hand comes up, fingers capturing the other n****e—pinching, rolling, tugging just hard enough to sting, then soothing with a gentle thumb flick that sends sparks straight to my core.

He switches, mouth on the other breast now, sucking deeper, teeth grazing the edge before he soothes with slow licks while his fingers keep working the first one—pinching, twisting, flicking in time while he keeps f*****g me with that same punishing rhythm.

My p***y flutters wildly around him, walls rippling, trying to pull him deeper. I’m so close—teetering on the edge, thighs shaking, c**t swollen and throbbing against his pubic bone.

“Eyes on me,” he growls against my breast, voice gravel-rough and commanding. “Don’t close them.”

I obey.

I stare straight into those gray eyes as the orgasm crashes through me—silent, violent, my whole body locking and pulsing around his thickness in long, greedy waves. My vision blurs at the edges but I don’t blink, don’t close, don’t let myself disappear. I let him see it all: the way my mouth opens on a soundless cry, the way my thighs tremble and clamp around his hips, the way my cunt milks him in desperate spasms, soaking him, dripping down his balls.

He watches every second of it—eyes dark, pupils blown, jaw clenched like he’s fighting his own release.

Then he follows—hips slamming forward once, twice, thrice burying himself as deep as he can go. His groan is low, broken, almost pained. I feel him pulse inside me—hot, thick spurts flooding my p***y, spilling out around his c**k as he keeps rocking through it, grinding against my oversensitive c**t until I’m whimpering, shaking, too full, too much, too everything.

When it’s over he doesn’t pull out.

He stays inside me, softening slowly, still thick enough that I feel every lazy twitch. His hand moves to my face—thumb brushing my cheekbone with a gentleness so specific, so unhurried, that I have to lock every muscle in my body to keep still.

"You're different," he says quietly. His voice is low, almost conversational, like he's noting the man that just f****d me.

I don't breathe.

"From how I expected," he adds. A pause. "I'm not sure I can explain it."

Say something. I need to say something Cara would say—something measured and slightly deflective and gracious. I have the line ready. I had it ready before I walked in here. Something about nerves and new beginnings and the adjustment of the first night.

But he's still touching my face, his thumb still moving, and his eyes are open in the dark and I can see him thinking, and the line I had ready feels like wearing a coat three sizes too large.

"It's been a long day," I manage. Neutral. Safe.

He makes a small sound that isn't agreement or disagreement. His hand stills against my face.

Then: "I think I prefer it."

The room goes completely quiet.

I lie there in the dark next to Rhys Alderton, who has just not only f****d me but told me he prefers the version of his wife that is not his wife, and I stare at the ceiling, and I count all the ways this is already going wrong.

He doesn't know he said it. He doesn't know what he said it about.

But I do.

And the most dangerous thought I've had since I put on that dress—worse than the altar, worse than the rule, worse than any of Lenora's instructions in the anteroom—forms slowly and completely in my chest.

I need to find that evidence before he figures out that what he prefers is me.