Ruthless King

by Meghan March

  His polished black leather shoes come into view as his fingertips grip my chin, forcing me to meet his stare. “Your orgasms belong to me. If you ever touch yourself without my permission, I will spank that pussy of yours until you’re begging to come.”

  What kind of barbaric—

  I yank my chin from his grip, no longer caring about my personal safety. He’s already staked his claim. What else could possibly happen? Besides, if he thinks I’m going to make this easy . . .

  I stride in the direction of the far bookshelf-covered wall, because I do my best ranting while pacing.

  “You don’t get to be the only one making the rules here. I have stipulations. No one can know. My family. My employees. No one. I don’t ever want my name linked to yours.”

  I don’t pause to consider the intelligence of what I’m saying, because I’m too pissed to hold back the rest. Furious, I spin and walk in the other direction, keeping my gaze on anything but Lachlan Mount, at least until I’ve finished making my demands.

  “We decide on a mutual time and place to meet. No more of this driver and being collected and hooded. I refuse. You won’t leave marks. You won’t hurt me. And you sure as hell aren’t going to make me disappear when this is all over, because I swear my family and friends will never let you get away with it.”

  I spin on my stiletto to see just how angry my speech made him . . . and find myself standing in an empty room.

  He’s gone.

  The bastard left? Just like that. Not one fucking word from him?

  That motherfucker. I clench my teeth so hard, my jaw aches.

  In my anger, I bolt toward the torn paper on the floor and snatch it up. Holding the two pieces together, I read the words beneath the large, bolded title.

  * * *

  Keira Kilgore will never sign the rights to her company over to Lachlan Mount because she is stubborn, bullheaded, and entirely too loyal to the concept of family tradition. And what’s more, he doesn’t need her business establishment because he will own her.

  * * *

  That lying piece of shit.

  He didn’t offer me a real way out.

  Or he knows me well enough to realize it would never be a viable option. That possibility might be even scarier. I contemplate the deal I’ve made with the devil.

  What choice do I have? How can I face my father and tell him I lost the company his father and his father’s father before him built with blood, sweat, and sacrifice?

  My body in exchange for my pride. That’s the deal I’ve struck.

  I hate Lachlan Mount.

  Even his name sends bolts of heat through me, spawned from wrath unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.

  I hate how he makes me feel.

  I hate that my body responds to him.

  As the fireplace spins again and Scar returns with the black hood, the voice in my head whispers one more truth.

  I hate that I want him to touch me again.

  Mount

  I don’t need to picture the rage on her face when she reads the bullshit legal document I had prepared for our meeting. It’s evident on the monitor on my desk as she crushes it in her clenched fists.

  Keira Kilgore was an easy mark. Full of righteous indignation and a fire I’ll enjoy having beneath me.

  It amuses me that she thought she could make demands. Grown men with brass balls the size of boulders wouldn’t dare. That’s why she’s a fascination. An oddity.

  That’s all she is.

  Entertainment. A piece of property to amuse me for a short time.

  I want her willing. I refuse to let it be any other way.

  Even defiant and angry, she responded to me like an instrument to a savant. I’ll tame that fire. Bend her to my will.

  My dick hardens for what seems like the dozenth time tonight as I picture her submitting to my every command.

  That ass.

  Those tits.

  That tight little cunt.

  Property of no man? Bullshit.

  Keira Kilgore is mine.

  Keira

  Scar doesn’t speak as he slips the hood over my head and picks me up again. Up, down, around and around.

  Is it a spiral staircase?

  I feel the cool breeze of outside air for only a moment before he settles me in the backseat of the car. Immediately, my hands go to the hood, but his thick fingers grab them and squeeze. It’s a clear indication that I’m not to remove it.

  “I have to leave it on for the ride home? Are you joking?”

  The only response he gives is a grunt.

  My fingers itch to rip the hood off, but if keeping it on gets me home faster, then I’ll leave the damn thing alone.

  He backs out of the garage, and the muted street noises barely breach the interior of the luxury car. Again, I lose track of which way we turn and instead stay silent, ready for this nightmare of an evening to be over. When the car finally stops again, I sit on my hands, expecting him to take the hood off, but he doesn’t.

  “Someone is going to see and think you’re—”

  Grunt.

  I shut up and let him lift me out of the car and carry me up to my apartment.

  Except something feels off. Keys jingle, but I swear they sound different from mine.

  Scar hauls me up the stairs and stands me on my feet while he unlocks dead bolts. He gives me a small shove into the room, and the door shuts behind me before I can yank off the hood.

  I rip it over my head and spin around, my brain racing to process something that makes absolutely no sense at all.

  This isn’t my apartment.

  Where the hell am I?

  Mount. He did this.

  He never intended to let me go.

  “Where are you, you fucking bastard?”

  I jerk my head from side to side, taking in the walls papered in a sophisticated black-and-white brocade pattern, looking for the telltale globe in the corners of the thick crown molding that would give away the presence of a camera.

  I don’t see any evidence of a camera, but that doesn’t mean there’s not one here. But Mount’s not here either.

  That’s something.

  Barely.

  All the relief I felt on my ride “home” drains from me as I investigate my new cage. I heard the locks. I know I’m not leaving until he lets me. My body trembles, and it has nothing to do with the fact that I’m naked under my coat.

  I wrap my arms around myself and chafe them in an attempt to stop the shaking.

  Don’t think about it. Gather information. Be a general, not a prisoner.

  I swallow the fear and focus on my surroundings. There must be something that will help me either figure out where I am or aid me in my escape. I turn, surveying what is probably the most beautiful sitting room I’ve ever seen. The phrase gilded cage has never been so fitting.

  There are only three colors in the whole room. Black, white, and gold.

  A shiny black door leads off to the right and I rush toward it, hoping like an idiot that it could possibly be an exit, but knowing it won’t be at the same time.

  It’s a bedroom.

  Not the overblown bordello of a room I expected before, but one that’s sophisticated and feminine. Again, there are only three colors in the decor—black, white, and gold.

  The black four-poster bed dominates the room, taking up an entire third, with sheer white fabric leading from post to post. The spread matches the black-and-white brocade from the sitting room walls, and the black satin sheets are already pulled back as if nightly turndown service has already been performed.

  He never planned to let me leave. Ever.

  The whole production in the library was exactly what Magnolia warned me about—Mount’s ability to fuck with my head.

  I push the fear away. It’s a useless waste of energy.

  Another door leads off the bedroom to a luxurious bathroom nicer than in any hotel room I’ve seen, again done in black, white, and gold.

  What is it
with these colors?

  The bathroom has another door that leads to a walk-in closet that could serve as a decent-sized bedroom itself, but the bars are completely empty. I check the drawers in the center island, and they’re empty too.

  Does he expect to keep me here naked? At least I have my trusty trench coat.

  I think about the dress I was supposed to wear tonight, and for the first time, I wish I’d worn it. I leave the closet behind to inspect the contents of the bathroom drawers. Instead of being bare, they’re filled with expensive toiletries of every kind.

  I make my way back through the series of rooms to the sitting area and stare at the locked door. Two dead bolts, but instead of knobs to turn on the inside, there are keyholes without the accompanying keys.

  Even though I know it’s pointless because I heard the bolts slide home, I walk over to it and test the handle.

  It pisses me off all over again, though.

  “You asshole! You can’t keep me like a fucking pet!” I kick at the door with the delicate stilettos and succeed in leaving a tiny mark and stubbing my toe.

  After limping to the center of the room, I spin in a circle with my arms outstretched. I can feel, down to the very marrow of my bones, that he is watching me from somewhere.

  “Is this what you wanted? A pet? If I don’t show up for work tomorrow, everyone will notice. They’ll call the police. I don’t care how many cops you have on your payroll, there has to be someone you don’t own. They’ll find me and you’ll pay! You wanted me willing? Well, fuck you, Mount! This wasn’t part of the deal!”

  My next instinct is to return to the door and beat on it until my fists are bruised and bloodied and my voice is raw from screaming for someone to let me out.

  But I don’t. I refuse to give him the satisfaction of seeing me break down. I’m stronger than this. Mount will not win. I harness the anger instead.

  In a loud, clear voice, I tell the empty room, “You might get my body willingly, but that’s all you’ll ever get from me. I swear I will hate you through every single moment of this.”

  After my speech, my brain slows, exhausted from the events of the last week, and all I want to do is slide between the decadent sheets and go to sleep. But something about that feels like I’m letting him win, and that’s one thing I won’t do without putting up a fight.

  I faced the devil in his lair and came out unscathed. That’s something, right? A small victory.

  Or mostly unscathed. My still-hard nipples and the heat between my legs remind me all too vividly of the fire he stoked within me.

  “Lie to yourself all you want, Keira. But tell me the truth about one thing. When was the last time you were fucked by a real man? Someone who knows what you need. Someone who’ll take control from you and give you what you’ve been dying for. How many times did you have to fuck yourself with your fingers after your limp-dick husband rolled over, just so you would get to come too?”

  He’s fucking with my head. That’s all. He can’t know how right he is.

  My eyes go to the bed as his final warning replays in my mind.

  “Your orgasms belong to me. If you ever touch yourself without my permission, I will spank that pussy of yours until you’re begging to come.”

  With the same defiance that carried me into a henna shop, and then on these extravagantly expensive stilettos into the presence of the most feared man in this city tonight, I make a decision. I may be almost out of ammunition, but I can still fire a parting shot. I stroll into the bedroom and unbelt my trench coat, dropping it on the bedroom floor.

  I rip back the spread and study the black sheets. Black like the soul of the man who put me here. I sit and remove each of the exquisite heels and drop them carelessly on the floor before sliding to the center of the bed and spreading my legs.

  “This pussy doesn’t belong to you yet, Mount.”

  I reach between my legs, hating that I’m already wet, but grateful at the same time because this won’t take long at all.

  Am I daring the devil to come bolting through the door to make good on his threat?

  No. I’m calling his bluff.

  When I come tonight, it’ll be a fuck you to the man who thinks he owns me. I’ll even make sure to use my middle finger.

  Keira

  When I wake, it’s not because of sunlight cutting through the cheap plastic blinds of my bedroom, but a nightmare that jerks me out of a dead sleep.

  The room is pitch black, but my heart hammers as I reach for the bedside lamp. Instead of the rickety wooden nightstand I got at Ikea, my fingers graze cool marble.

  Oh. Shit.

  It wasn’t a nightmare.

  Finally, I find a switch, and a soft glow fills the black, white, and, gold bedroom.

  There’s no clock. I have no sense of whether it’s night or day because there are no windows. Only a locked door to which I have no key.

  And no freaking clothes except for my trench coat. Smart, Keira. Really freaking smart. I don’t even have my purse. Scar must have left it in the car.

  I yank the sheet from the bed and wrap it around my body before heading into the bathroom. I glance at the mirror, wincing at my appearance. My eyeliner is smeared beneath my eyes in dark circles, and my hair is as much of a rat’s nest as one would expect, given the way I tossed and turned in the throes of the nightmare.

  Except it wasn’t a nightmare. It’s my new reality.

  I leave the expensive products untouched, wanting nothing from Mount except my freedom. That’s still all I want, and I’ll find a way to get it. Today.

  When I turn in the direction of the bedroom, something else catches my eye. A black silk robe hanging on a hook near the glass shower enclosure. It wasn’t there last night.

  Someone came in while I slept.

  The realization hits me with stunning and skin-crawling clarity.

  I rush back through the bedroom and out into the sitting area, and sure enough, there are silver-covered dishes on a table with a note.

  * * *

  Eat.

  Shower.

  Ready yourself in accordance with the instructions on the bedside table if you want to leave these rooms today.

  * * *

  The heavy scrawl is familiar and carries no signature.

  What instructions?

  I turn back to the bedroom and check the table with the lamp I turned on. It’s bare.

  The other nightstand, however, is not. There’s a black lacquered box.

  How the hell did I miss that?

  My throat goes bone dry as I swallow and step closer to the box, almost as afraid to lift the lid as I was the last one. But the note said if you want to leave these rooms today, and God knows I do.

  I open it and stare down at the contents. It’s a black and gold . . . sex toy? It looks like a vibrator, but there’s a looped cord attached at the gold end, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what that’s for. And yet Mount was thorough enough to leave a note for me anyway.

  * * *

  This will fill your pussy until I let you take my cock.

  * * *

  Let me?

  Let me?

  If I were capable of breathing fire, I’d burn this entire building down right now.

  I read the rest as soon as the red haze clears from my vision.

  * * *

  The clothes you will wear to work are in the closet.

  If you are not attired as I’ve outlined by nine, expect to spend another twenty-four hours here. Your excuses will be made to your employees.

  * * *

  The hurricane of emotions rioting through my head has my fingers gripping the device before I’m conscious of my own movement. More than anything, I want to throw it at the wall, smashing it to pieces.

  How dare he?

  But one phrase stops me before my high-school softball-pitching skills come into play.

  “The clothes you will wear to work.”

  My chest heaves with ragged breaths as I
drop onto the edge of the bed and reread every word of the note six times. I don’t trust this man, but if there’s a single chance he’ll let me out of these rooms to go to work, I have to comply.

  And he knows I will.

  “You fucking bastard,” I tell the wall, the pliant latex of the sex toy clutched in my hand.

  Mount’s low, deep voice comes from the doorway. “You’re right. I am a bastard. Born on the streets to a whore who left me on the front steps of a church. Raised on those same streets and put through a hell you will never in your soft and cushioned life ever imagine.”

  I whip around to face him, my hand no longer shaking in rage, but trembling with fear. He steps toward me, and the stories Magnolia told me play through my head, as do her warnings.

  I straighten my arm down at my side, hiding my reaction from him.

  “You think what I want from you is demeaning?” he asks, taking another step toward me.

  “You don’t fucking know the meaning of the word, but I’m happy to introduce you to a taste if that’s what it takes for you to hold up your end of the bargain we made last night. Unlike you, I keep my word.”

  In that moment, I believe he’s capable of every horrible thing I’ve heard about him.

  He can hurt me. Kill me. Make me disappear.

  But for some reason that I may never, ever understand—he wants me.

  That, and maybe only that, gives me an edge.

  I have a choice to make, and I can’t let fear paralyze my brain. I can continue to rebel and challenge him—and undoubtedly lose—or bend the slightest bit and make it appear that I’m playing his game.

  I may be stubborn, but I’m not stupid.

  I straighten my shoulders and lift my chin as though the black satin sheet is a ball gown.

  “I was not aware of your parentage. The slur was only meant in reference to your personality. At least, what I’ve seen of it so far.” The next part is harder to get out, but I manage. “I apologize for any offense I’ve caused with it. It was unintended in that context.”