by Harlow Grace
“Because I can. All these years I’ve watched you act like a slut around other boys. I watched them kiss you. Touch you. I watched you put your lips around another man’s dick. But now—now it's my turn and you’re my slut. Your life belongs to me.” The tips of his fingers brushed over my lips. “Hell, all of you belongs to me—these lips,” the back of his hand traced down my neck to my chest. He cupped a breast in his palm and squeezed. “These tits.” His hand slid downward over my ribs. “This pussy, your ass. Mine.” His hand slid between my thighs, cupping my mound. It felt warm, even as it sent a cold shiver up my spine. He rubbed his fingers against my pussy, the friction driving me crazy. I wanted to scream; instead I clamped my legs together.
His tone softened. “Don’t fight it, little bee. It's going to happen—just go with it; accept it. There is no escape.”
His mouth came crashing down on mine, bruising my lips as he stole the breath from my lungs.
Chapter Twenty-One — Maya
PRESENT
We drove home in silence. My mind scrambled around frantically trying to come up with a way out of this dilemma. There had to be something I could do or say that would make my stepbrother change his mind.
Peering at his face with a sideways glance, I stiffened. Oliver’s jaw was set, his expression hard and unrelenting. I’d need a fucking miracle to get out of this.
“I have a boyfriend, you know. He won’t be okay with this.” My comment was met with stony silence; for some reason it frightened me more than if he ranted and raved. In my peripheral vision I could see him purse his lips even tighter. “Even Daddy approves of him,” I offered, as if I was trying to convince him that Gerard was real.
Both hands tightened around the steering wheel as if he was trying to strangle it. I was pretty sure he was picturing me. Or maybe Gerard? I didn’t peg Oliver for a jealous man. His reputation as a ladies’ man still hung around college, even though he’d left several years ago. I'd heard he often shared his women with his friends, so I assumed he didn’t have issues with screwing around.
“That ends now. Text him. Tell him it’s over.” His voice was gruff and demanding.
Crossing my arms, I snorted. I seriously didn’t care if it was unladylike. “Are you fucking crazy? I happen to like him. It's not always about you, Oliver King.”
He turned his head and gave me a smile that knocked my breath away. “Oh yeah, it is. It's all about me, baby. You’re going to find that out soon enough.” His hand went to his crotch, cupping his package.
I rolled my eyes. What was it with men and their balls? “You’re obsessed with your own dick. And no, I’m not going to break up with my boyfriend.” I paused for dramatic effect—and to give it time to sink into his think skull. “Certainly not because you told me to and never via text. That’s just rude.”
“Oh, and slitting your wrists and bleeding out on the bathroom floor isn’t?”
His words stung. I should have known he’d have some smart ass comeback. He always did. I leaned over and punched him in the arm. The impact made my wrist ache, but punching him gave me a weird satisfaction. “I hate you,” I said, rubbing my wrist.
He chuckled softly. “I bet you do. That still doesn’t change anything. I’m looking forward to first, punishing you, and second, teaching you. And the best part? You’ll beg me for more.”
Never was there a man more conceited than my stepbrother. He needed taking down a notch or two. “Oliver King, if you were the last man on the face of the earth, I wouldn’t want to fuck you.” I pulled up my nose in disgust. “You think banging a woman so hard she screams is the only way to fuck. You have no idea. Not every woman wants to be treated like a whore. Until you act like a man—a real man—I doubt there is much you can teach me. So quit this little game you’re playing because I’m really not interested.”
I turned in my seat and stared out of the window. I’d cried way too many tears over my stepbrother through the years and I was done with that. “I never asked you to save me.” My voice had a bitter edge to it that I couldn’t conceal. “All I want from you is to be left the fuck alone. Stay away from me—you’ve been damn good at it in the past, so I don’t really understand what’s changed now.”
The SUV pulled up into the driveway. I clicked my seatbelt and pushed the door open, jumping out the second the vehicle came to a stop. I nearly stumbled and fell, but I managed to right myself and storm up to the house as fast as I could, running from the man who could ruin me with his demands and break me with his words. I cursed the day my stepbrother came into my life. Nothing had been the same since.
I rang the doorbell, hoping to God that Miriam, the housekeeper, would open the door and not Daddy or my bitch of a stepmother. I glanced back while waiting for the door to open. Of course I didn’t have my key or purse with me. One does not plan for an emergency hospital visit, and all Oliver had brought me was a long sleeve shirt to pull over my wrists to hide the bandages.
Oliver appeared behind me, his warm breath on my neck.
“Nobody’s home. It's Saturday and they’re away for the weekend. Miriam has the weekend off. I promised our parents I’d look after you when you got back, so I guess I have to stick to that.”
I turned on my heels and faced him, leaning back against the front door. I lifted my chin and met his gaze. “Just tell me why? Why are you so damn intent on torturing me? I thought eventually you’d get over it and move on. Surely you have better things to do than waste your time on me?”
My words must’ve shocked him, because his eyes widened and his mouth hung slightly open. For the second time since I’d know him, he didn’t look at me with contempt. He leaned forward and placed a hand on each side of my head, caging me in. He stared at me for a long moment, his eyes searching my face.
“You don’t get it do you? I've waited years for this moment.”
I sucked in a breath. “What do you mean?”
“Since that day at the pool, I've felt the pull you have on me. You draw me to you like a fucking magnet.”
“I . . . I do?”
He placed a finger under my chin and lifted my face to his. “I’ve waited all this fucking time for you to grow up. I've held off—been a fucking saint when all I've wanted to do was to claim you.”
“What?”
“You heard me. I've been fucking obsessed with you since the day you grew a pair of tits. I want you. I crave you. And now . . . finally . . . I own you.”
Chapter Twenty-Two — Maya
It was just the two of us, Daddy and me, since I was a baby. I’d never really known a mother—mine had committed suicide when I was eleven months old. Daddy told me it was “the baby blues” that took her to heaven. At the time I didn’t know what exactly that was, but it didn’t sound too bad if it had anything to do with music. I loved music, and Daddy always listened to blues, so I presumed he was thinking about her when he listened to it with that faraway look in his eyes.
Imagine my shock when I discovered she’d slit her wrists because she couldn’t handle having me. I’m the reason she couldn’t cope. I’d caused her to take her own life to escape me. I’d read all about it on Google. Quinn had helped research it.
As I grew up, I became morbidly fascinated with suicide and cutting. I wanted to know firsthand what my mother’s pain felt like. Experience her suffering and anguish. Maybe it would make me feel closer to her if I understood what she went through.
I never got it, though. Megan Childs stayed as much a mystery to me as ever.
My flesh hurt, sometimes it bled, but I never felt close enough to her. Each time I tried to make some sort of connection with her I’d cut just a little deeper in the hopes of sensing her agony. After all, if it weren’t for me, she’d still be alive.
And Daddy? Even though he had Larissa, I still caught him with the same forlorn expression in his eyes when he thought nobody noticed. I did, because I’d known it so well for as far back as I could remember.
“Princess Maya,
you’re growing up too fast. Every year on your birthday, it's as if you look more and more like your mother . . . it's spooky.” Hurt radiated from the gentle man’s eyes as he rubbed at the ache in his chest. If only I could take his pain away. Change the way I look. I was causing the only person I loved on the face of the earth more distress than he could bear.
I’d always been Daddy’s “princess Maya.” But then it changed on my thirteenth birthday and he stopped looking at me. He seemed relieved when I said I was staying at a friend’s house. And he hadn’t called me princess Maya in a long time before my birthday . . . not since he met and married Larissa, the bitch who thought she could take my mother’s place in my father’s heart.
Knowing that I looked so much like the woman who caused my father so much pain, I hated looking into a mirror. Unlike Larissa—that woman was freaking obsessed with her looks. She spent a fortune on new clothes, hair, treatments, whatever she thought would make her look young and pretty.
Yet here I am, staring into the goddamn mirror. What the fuck happened to me?
First, I’d been channeling a dead woman’s pain to no avail.
Then Oliver happened. Before he left, I’d only ever thought about it as a way to feel closer to my mom. After he’d left, I needed it to take my pain away. I thought trying to get closer to my mom would help. It was the tipping point—the last thing that stood between me and the blades slicing through my skin, driving me to harm my own body.
And now?
I’d become an object of . . . payback. Someone else’s way to escape their pain. I had no illusions about Oliver’s motives—he was as damaged as I was, and he was merely trying to find ways to escape his own agony. But why does it have to be me he’s picking on? Was I such an easy target? I never thought of myself as weak, not until Oliver crashed my life. Something about him just got to me. Every time.
My brain scrambled to work it all out. Flashbacks from things I hadn’t understood before rushed through the jumbled mess that was my mind. I remembered a conversation that hadn’t made any sense at the time. I’d overheard our parents talking just after they got married, Larissa pleading with Daddy.
“Please Alec, give the boy a chance. It’s because of his own demons that Oliver is acting up. Once he grows up and understands it better, he'll outgrow it,” she’d said in her sugar sweet voice.
“Larissa, he’s a wild card. He’s sixteen, on the edge between being a boy and man. Oliver needs to accept what happened.” My father’s voice was grim. “And he better stay away from Maya. If he hurts one hair on her head, God knows what I’ll do.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Alec. Why would Oliver even look at Maya? For God’s sake, she’s his little stepsister. He’s had a girlfriend already. You have nothing to worry about.”
That was all I could hear from their conversation before I had to move away from the door. I didn’t understand half of it because I’d only just met Oliver.
I was still trying to put all the pieces together, figure out why Oliver would be as obsessed with me as he said he was. It didn’t make sense. He had access to as much pussy as he wanted. His face, his body, his cock, everything was perfect. It was only his eyes that gave him away. Angry. Determined. Set on revenge for a wrong done to him. And I was the one who was going to pay the price.
He was as fucked up as ever.
He’d come for me—like I always knew he would. I wanted to scream.
For the first time in a very long time, I really looked at myself. At what I’d become. On the outside I looked like Snow White—my favorite childhood fairy tale and the one I used to insist Daddy read to me just about every night before I went to sleep.
The similarities between us were uncanny: I had the same long black hair and the palest of skin if I didn’t get out into the sun for a tan. My full lips were stained red, and I even had the evil stepmother who wanted me dead. But it was so very obvious that Prince Charming was nowhere to be found.
Instead I’d been delivered into the hands of a monster. An ogre who wanted to devour my fucking soul.
And the fucked up thing about it all? I wanted him too. Because I, Maya Christina Childs, craved to be owned by my depraved step brother. I wanted him. Needed him to take my pain away. Because if anyone could erase my constant sorrow, it would be Oliver King.
I didn’t understand it; I simply knew it to be true. How? I don’t know.
All I did know was this—I needed him like I needed air.
We were using one another to fix our damaged souls.
Jolted from my thoughts, I jumped when Oliver’s arm slid around my waist and pulled me back against his chest. Like a ragdoll, I went limp. There was no point in fighting this. I’d known it was coming since the first time he looked at me with that scowl between his brows and lust burned in his eyes. It was still there, and had only grown more severe.
Everything about this man was intense. Dark. Forbidden.
It only made me want him more.
Crave his touch on my skin.
His lips on mine.
Him buried deep inside me.
Maybe then I'd know what it felt like to belong. To be owned. Completely.
My mind fought it. Struggled for control. Told me what I wanted was so wrong. Yet every cell in my body screamed for him. I was finally going to belong to someone again.
Our gazes met in the mirror. His face was deadpan and unreadable. But in his eyes burned desire like I’d never seen before.
Dropping my head back to rest on his broad chest, his hand gripped my throat and squeezed, marking his possession. Words weren’t necessary. We both wanted this. Craved it for redemption from our damaged souls and shattered hearts.
He breathed heavily. “Maya. Finally.” Oliver’s chest heaved and warm breath dispersed across my skin, scattering goose bumps over the entire surface.
The moment I’d waited for all my life had arrived. The moment I’d belong to someone who wanted me as much as I wanted him. Because in spite of all the fucked-upness of what was happening, there was no doubt in my mind that we truly wanted one another, no matter how unclear or impure the reasons. Eyes wide open, I wanted to soak every minuscule detail in—I wanted to remember this moment forever.
The air in the room sucked out leaving a vacuum—it was just us.
Tainted. Deviant. Beyond saving.
Chapter Twenty-Three — Maya
“Oliver, stop. This is so wrong.” The despair in my voice was palpable. I was torn in two between my need for this man and what I thought was right. Or let me rephrase: what I knew was wrong.
As far as I knew, Oliver King had his shit together and a shiny future ahead of him in the IT industry. Several years ago I’d learned that he was, in fact, a genius sought after by major corporations. Yet he was far from being nerdy; my stepbrother could pass for a male model any day. He had the face and the body, not to mention the cocky attitude. By comparison, I was a fucking mess. My very identity hung by a thread.
“I've wanted you for all this time. Nothing is going to stop me any longer.” He tilted his chin up slightly as if he was waiting for me to challenge him. “You owe me your life. I'm simply taking what is rightfully mine. There is nothing wrong with that.”
Buttons scattered over the bathroom tile as he ripped the front of my shirt open, exposing my swollen breasts. He gripped a fist full of my hair and pushed my face forward, closer to the mirror. “Look at your face, little bee. So fucking beautiful. I don’t think you have any idea just how gorgeous you are.” My gaze shifted to my face. “It's mine. Those eyes that punish me, those lips that taunt me. Mine.”
All I saw when I looked into the eyes reflecting back at me was my own arousal. Pupils dilated, eyelids heavy with lust. My lips full and dewy. Sweat breaking out over my skin from desire. I bit into my bottom lip, desperate to stop it from quivering.
The back of his hand caressed my skin—down my jawline, across my throat, lingering where my breasts were spilling over the cups of my bra
. Mesmerized I watched in the mirror as his fingers stroked over the fabric, his thumb circling my nipple until it was on fire.
“Mine. These fucking tits are mine. Yet you let other boys touch them, suck them. I could kill you for that alone, little slut.” He pinched the nipple between his fingers, twisting until I cried out. Oh God!
Both hands slid down my ribs to my hips, his thumbs pushing into the small of my back, pressing into my skin. “Undo the zipper,” he commanded. Though his voice sounded calm and even, there was a definite undertone of power.
With shaky hands, I pulled the zipper down. The skirt fell away from my hips, dropping to the floor. “So fucking beautiful,” he murmured, his calloused hands skimming over my hips, pushing my panties down, exposing my pale skin inch by inch. He bent down and removed the skirt and panties, sniffing my skin as he slowly straightened up again. “You smell so fucking good. I just want to eat you.”
My thighs clenched together. God, I was sure my pussy was dripping. Every word from his filthy mouth was making me wetter and wetter. His hand caressed over my pussy. “So soft. So smooth. Just the way I love it. Mine. My pussy.”
He pulled my head back, gripping my hair hard until my eyes watered from the pain. His lips were on my ear, hot, panting, delicious. “No other man will touch you again. You are mine and only mine. If you want to be a slut, you can be my slut. Are we clear on that?”
His half crazed gaze met mine in the mirror as he waited for my answer. My throat burned and my chest heaved with pent-up emotion. I swallowed hard.
“Say it. Say you're mine.” Why was it so damn important to him? So he could use me and throw me away when he was done? Was that his ultimate plan of revenge?
I closed my eyes. I couldn’t say it. I wasn’t any man’s slut—yet I wanted to be his. My head screamed that this was wrong. A bad mistake. Yet I craved this, couldn’t wait to find out what he’d do next.
“Little bee, I’m waiting for you to say it.” His voice had an agitated edge to it.
