She couldn’t even stomach the sight of him.
The triumph in his eyes.
It was just too much to contain, to control.
Raw, blinding, unstoppable rage fueled the monster that momentarily took over. She lost all restraint to her senses. She was no longer even in her own body when she drew back one arm and let it swing with the full weight of her strength. The crack resounded through the room with the brittle clap of thunder. The wrath behind it snapped his whole head to one side.
The burn in her palm was over shadowed by the horror of her actions. The realization was enough to send her back a full step. She stared numbly as his head turned slowly back in her direction. His gaze met hers, met her fire with his crippling chill. The steel in his eyes seemed brighter next to the vicious, red welt of her handprint.
“Leave. Now.”
He could have struck her back for the fear that flooded like ice water through her veins. The warning laced his terrifying calm with serrated daggers that left no doubt in her mind that she’d just royally fucked herself.
“I ... I’m sorry—”
“Now!”
With a frightened gasp, she darted past Nicholas and out the door. She didn’t stop until she’d tumbled down the iron stairs to her basement cell.
She shut herself inside.
Chapter Ten
He’d goaded her into it.
He knew that even as he willed his temper to cool.
He’d pushed her because he could.
He’d been an asshole because it was better than what he really wanted to do.
Having her there, soft and willing to do whatever it took to wash her father of his sins had spurred an animal awake inside him. It had fueled him with a perverse fire that scared even him.
If she’d stayed, he probably would have done something he’d never forgive himself for, and that terrified him.
He didn’t rape women.
He didn’t beat them.
He didn’t torture them.
But she made him want to do them all to her.
She made him want to hold her down and fuck her raw.
She had willingly given herself to him, had offered herself up like some sacrificial lamb in the place of a man who deserved to be fileted on a spit. He’d seen it in her eyes, her absolute submission to him.
She would have done anything he asked.
No man deserved that much power over another person.
Not a man like him, a man who was already teetering on a razor’s edge. He was already so dangerously close to the darkness. One slip and he didn’t think he could trust himself.
Not with her.
Not with anyone.
Christ, what kind of man wanted to strip a woman naked and tie her to the bed, and keep her there? No breaks. No peace. Just a never ending loop of fucking until she could never sit again.
That was what he wanted.
He wanted her to suffer.
To hurt.
To feel every ounce of pain Annie had felt.
He wanted to be that man capable of hurting another person to the point where death was their only option.
Then he’d looked into Cora’s eyes. He’d seen something there that had been worse than a dagger in the gut. Not trust. It would never be trust. Not love, or affection.
Acceptance.
She had already accepted her fate. She had accepted that he would hurt her and she would let him.
It was enough to make him hate them both.
“She put herself back.” Nicholas stood in the open doorway, brows furrowed over the disapproval in his eyes.
“She chose to stay.” James walked past his second and out the door. He didn’t pause to make sure the other man was following as he climbed onto the deck and the cold blast of autumn air. “She gave herself to me in exchange for her father’s pardon.”
Nicholas joined him at the railings, his arms folded. “What does that even mean?”
Fuck if even he knew.
“She wants me to take my revenge out on her, do whatever I want to her in exchange for letting her father live.”
Even in the dark, there was no missing the surprise that widened Nicholas’s eyes. “Seriously?”
James didn’t answer.
He stared out over the ocean and the approaching city line in the distance. On that shore, tucked away in his safe little home with his perfect wife and endless power was the man who had destroyed James. Or attempted to. For thirty years, he’d built his empire on the bodies of the innocent. No one had ever had the balls to take him down.
But James did.
He had the balls.
He had the girl.
What he lacked was the girl’s cooperation.
She was supposed to marry him.
He needed her to.
There wasn’t supposed to be another option. But somehow, they had gone from wedding bells to ... who the fuck knew what.
“Are we still turning around?”
He had the girl.
He had her.
She was his.
He could take her and go anywhere in the world.
He could keep her and she could keep his bed warm during the long, cold nights at sea.
He could teach her to accept him, to stay without being told to.
He could forget De Marco.
His promise.
His revenge.
Annie.
He could give it all up.
Maybe.
For her.
But Cora Harris wasn’t real.
She was an idea, an inspiration for a solution he’d been handed on a silver platter. Bishop may have made the improbable possible by hiring James to take Cora in the first place, but plans changed, especially when those plans involved the slaughtering of his crew.
No.
Cora needed to change her answer. She needed to accept that he would kill her father and not even the thought of her wrapped around him, warm and welcoming was going to deter him.
But not until he got rid of Bishop first.
“Captain?”
James peered at his best friend. “She needs to marry me. Without her, Bishop will be on us.”
“Did you try asking nicely?”
James ignored the sarcasm. “She won’t do it unless I convince her.”
Nicholas leaned into the railings, back against the ocean and squinted at something mid-point over James’s shoulder. “Ideas?”
“Just one.”
He had the weapon.
Now he just needed to change her mind.
“Call Mable. Get her a dress. I’m taking her out.”
Chapter Eleven
She waited for him to find her, to punish her for striking him.
She even nearly jumped out of her skin when her cell door swung open without warning. Her heart plummeted into her stomach with the severity of a giant rock being plunged into the ocean. But only Nicholas stood on the threshold, two pink gift bags dangling from his fingertips.
The relief over seeing him was momentarily masked by the familiar symbol stamped into the bags. The black lotus flower was the logo for one of her favorite boutiques. She would have recognized it anywhere.
“What’s that?” she asked.
He held it out to her and stepped back once she accepted. “Captain wants you ready in an hour.”
Cora blinked. “What? Why?”
Her answer was his stony silence. She didn’t know why she bothered.
“I need the bathroom,” she told him, not telling him that his captain’s come was still the only thing she could taste and needed to wash it out.
He helped her gather her bathroom things and led her from the room. He waited in the hallway as she ducked inside to quickly shower, brush her teeth, and pull out the stunning dress and shoes nestled beneath a cloud of shimmery paper.
The crushed velvet seemed to sparkle in the dim light. It glided beneath her touch, so soft she wanted to bury her face into it. The material sl
ipped over her head and rippled like moon rays dancing on dark waters. It settled perfectly down her arms and along the frame of her to stop about mid thigh. The deep cut bodice clung over the swell of her breasts and nipped in neat lines at the waist. The skirt clung provocatively to her thighs and the curve of her backside. Otherwise, it was simple, elegant, perfect to go with the black, Louis Vuitton heels.
But they’d forgotten a hairbrush, or makeup. She had to make do by leaving her hair down in damp curls down her back and pray the shower had brought some color to her cheeks.
Satisfied in her attempts with the little she had to work with, Cora ran quick hands down the soft material and opened the door. The cool breeze from the hall slithered down her bare legs and leeched all the warmth the shower had brought from her body. She shuddered as she stepped out and folded her arms under her breasts. Her teeth clenched together tight and hoped to God she didn’t catch a cold. That was all she needed.
Nicholas froze mid pace and blinked. Both eyebrows migrated north in his surprise. He held something in his arms that she was sure he hadn’t had with him when she’d gone in. It sagged a little as if his arms could no longer support its weight.
Cora bit back her grin, secretly pleased by his reaction.
Nicholas cleared his throat. He bunched up the thing in his arms and motioned her to follow him without saying a word.
She wasn’t taken to James’s cabin. Nicholas took a turn in the first bend before her usual destination and started up a series of steps to a new level, and a door. It was forced open to a flood of salty ocean mist and night. It swept into the narrow corridor to temporarily mask the rancid stench she was becoming accustomed to. It all vanished with a single, welcoming inhale.
“Are we going outside?” she asked the broad back of the man stepping over a high, metal lip.
He turned and offered her his hand. She accepted his warm touch and eased over.
He released her the moment she was sturdy again. He closed the door with a bang and continued walking without bothering to answer her simple question.
It didn’t matter anyway.
They stood on deck, beneath an iron awning overlooking miles of seemingly endless black. It yawned into the distance, a heavy blanket that made her feel like they were in a dark hole. Had it not been for the ship lights, she probably wouldn’t have been able to move out of fear of tumbling into the abyss.
But they rounded a single corner and the world shifted. Lights punctured the horizon in glittery strips of land and city. It seemed so close. Her past, her home, just within sight. But she knew it was still miles out of her reach. It was made worse by the knowledge that, somewhere in all those lights and buildings were her parents. Her family. All worried about her. All searching and never knowing what became of her.
This would destroy them.
“Ms. Harris?”
She turned at the sound of Nicholas and blinked at the tears clinging to her lashes. “Is that my city?”
Nicholas stood silent for a long moment. She was so sure he wasn’t going to answer. He seldom ever did. Only he nodded once and waved her ahead of him.
There was no missing him.
He stood in a thick halo of light, an ominous figure outlined in gold, looking more supernatural than man. His usual cargos and bulky coats were replaced by dark trousers and a wool coat. His hair had been combed back and the absence of shadows over his face emphasized the rugged lines of his jaw and the penetrating intensity of his eyes as he took in the skyline in the distance.
Cleaned up, he seemed even more breathtaking, even more dangerous. Every sinewy inch of him held sway over the shadows twisting around his ankles, practically the devil himself rising from hell to torment the mortals.
He was gorgeous, possibly too gorgeous for a man she was supposed to want to kill.
The crack of her heels on metal announced their arrival, but he remained transfixed in the rigid lines of his thoughts. It wasn’t until they were nearly upon him that he turned his head.
Lights lanced off the silvery surface of his eyes before they were obscured by dark strips where the lights didn’t reach. His chin lifted a notch, and despite the curtain of shadows concealing his eyes, she could feel them taking her in. Their phantom caress seared through her with the heat of an open flame. It burned through the material of her dress to sear flesh. All the places tainted by his touch prickled, a sweet tingle that hardened her nipples and tugged at the pit of her stomach.
Madness.
Absolute raving madness.
That was what it was. Either that or she was an idiot.
What woman in her right mind would want anything to do with a man who had literally cast her aside like she meant nothing? His dehumanization of her should have killed whatever feelings of lust she ever possessed for him, yet one look from him in the soft, misty night and she was right back to being the rabbit lost in his snare.
“Where’s your coat?”
It wasn’t the question she’d been expecting and had no answer. But Nicholas held out the bundle in his arms and James took it. He shook the material free to reveal a black, formal coat, a knee length frock with fat buttons.
He held it open for her, a chivalrous gesture that never failed to completely contradict everything she knew about him.
The back and forth never failed to fuck with her head, which was no doubt exactly what he was aiming for.
Nevertheless, she eased her arms through and stood rigid as the material was drawn up over her shoulders. It was settled into place.
“Button up,” he instructed when she continued to stand there, not breathing.
Her fingers never hesitated in following his command. They forced each disk through their proper holes until the last one.
James said nothing once she was done. But he turned her to him, making her painfully aware of how close he stood. She was practically nestled against his chest. Her face was level with his collarbone. It was an inch in distance. An inch where she could easily rest her forehead against the solid wall of muscle, close her eyes, and pretend she was somewhere else.
But her chin lifted instead. It tipped back her face until she was locking gazes with the monster keeping her prisoner.
He continued to remain mute, but his silence was a roar as loud as a winter storm. It howled and lashed around them.
Cora exhaled a shaky breath.
“I’m sorry I hit you,” she whispered. “But I—”
“Any apology where but is included isn’t an apology,” he remarked coolly.
“I’m not a whore,” she ground out through her teeth.
“But you are,” he reminded her in a silky purr. “You agreed to be.”
“Yes...” She swallowed audibly. “But I ... you could be a bit more respectful about it.”
Some of the hardness in his face eased, almost softened into what could have passed for amusement. His lips lifted at one corner.
“Does one respect a whore?”
“Yes,” she shot back. “Especially if I’m only your whore, and stop using that word if you’re going to make me feel dirty about it.”
He seemed to consider that a long moment.
But when he spoke, he didn’t speak to her.
“Is the car ready?” he asked over her.
Nicholas inclined his head. “Yes.”
“Are we getting off the ship?” she cut in, looking from one to the other. “Are we going somewhere? Where are we going?”
They both ignored her.
“Good.” James’s hand dropped to her elbow and held fast. “Come.”
Sucking in a breath that tasted of approaching winter, she followed him. The click of her heels seemed painfully loud in the graceful, almost silent movement of his strides across the pier. She cast a glance at his dress shoes, polished toes glinting, and wondered what happened to his scuffed boots. But more importantly, why they needed to be dressed up in the first place. Part of her hoped it was because he’d changed his mind and he was
returning her to her parents, but she doubted that. He wasn’t the sort to admit defeat that easily. Wherever he was taking her, she already regretted it.
“Where are we going?” she asked again as the pier ended and the concrete loading docks began. It was empty, which made it all the more threatening in the dark. “Are you taking me to my parents?”
“Get in the car.”
The car was a sleek, black muscle car hidden in the shadows. She never would have seen it if he hadn’t maneuvered her towards it with a subtle nudging of his hand against her lower spine.
He yanked open her door and waited for her to climb in before shutting it behind her.
He never said a word during the entire drive. Cora kept slanting glances his way, trying to catch a glimpse of what he was thinking, but even with the help of the street lights, his features remained stubbornly concealed in the shadows. The best she could do was watch the buildings pass and gage their estimated destination.
It wasn’t her parent’s estate.
It wasn’t even her apartment.
He pulled up across the street from a restaurant she recognized as one her father owned. It was a favorite of his, a play on Italian and Greek food, because her mom loved both.
The familiar brick face with its glossy windows and red and white striped awning had never looked so welcoming. All she could think was maybe he really was going to take her back.
Maybe her parents were inside.
Maybe they were going to meet them there.
The possibilities made her heady foggy. She would have wept, except James was climbing out and she had to scramble to do the same.
They didn’t go into the restaurant. Not through the front like everyone else. They cut through the narrow alley to the back and took the delivery doors. They passed the stock room and the staff room, and were passing through the muggy kitchen when Cora felt something in her shift.
An inexplicable tingle that started up her spine and spread through every muscle in her body. Time itself seemed to slow, accompanied by the vicious pounding of her heart as she realized what she was about to do.
“Don’t.” James’s warm breath whispered directly into her ear, smothered all other sounds in the room, and snapped her back from the edge of the cliff. “There are six innocent men in this room. I will kill each one of them if you don’t behave.”
Blood Script Page 13
