Shamefully Broken: A Dark Romance

by Loki Renard

  “I know precisely how dirty you are,” he said. “But we only have a short window. Out. Now.”

  She turned off the shower and stepped out, all pink and steamy. Mason had a towel in hand and she stood there as he dried her off from head to toe, taking care not to pat her sore bottom too hard, but making sure to give her pussy a good rubbing with the soft material until she moaned and ground back against his hand.

  “I could fuck you again right now,” he rumbled, cupping her breast. “But we have to go.”

  She’d been wanting to see Aiden urgently since coming to Mason’s house, but now she would happily have put the meeting off in order to satisfy the new ache he’d stoked between her thighs. Mason had turned her into an eager little fuck toy. She wanted him to use her, even if he’d pushed her to her knees and fucked her mouth she would have taken it.

  He kept his hand on her breast, the other sliding down her flank to find her pussy. He pushed two fingers inside her and started strumming there, the heel of his palm smacking against her clit as he fingered her to a quick and naughty orgasm that left her flushed and appreciative.

  “Go get dressed,” he growled as she leaned against him, panting from release. “Before I devour you again.”

  Elliot managed to break free long enough to pull the dress on, dry her hair, and slip her feet into her shoes. When she looked in the mirror again, she was presentable, but still flushed. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes were sparkling. She looked good and she looked—to her surprise, especially given that her bottom was still bearing the marks of his belt, not to mention filled with his plug—happy.

  Satisfied that she was ready, Mason escorted her to the car and they set off once more. She’d thought sitting was hard when there was just a plug in her bottom. Now that she was sitting on a strapped bottom, every second was fresh punishment. She tried to lever herself up off the seat a little, but Mason reached over and pushed her back down, forcing her sore bottom to make contact.

  “Ow!” She shot him a sullen look.

  “You earned that punishment,” he said. “Now you deal with the consequences of it.”

  Elliot pouted and tried a new method, pushing her feet hard against the floor and just sort of sitting up so there was less weight on her butt, using the back of the seat as something to push off. Mason didn’t call her out on that little trick, but it soon tired her legs out and she ended up slumping onto her sore butt again with a whimper.

  It only got worse when they turned off the main road and started heading across a dirt track, which they then also left, the vehicle’s heavy tires going over rocks and leaf litter as they rose from the flat up toward a wooded ridge. There, nestled between two outcroppings, was a camp.

  It looked like a popup base. The main feature was a little wood cabin that had been reinforced with iron bars over the windows and across the door. It didn’t look very comfortable, or even very safe, aside from the remoteness of the location. There were a couple of tents as well, one quite large, one fairly small.

  Elliot was not impressed. She turned to Mason with a lip curled with aristocratic outrage.

  “This is where Aiden is? You’re keeping him in a box in the woods?”

  “You want me to put him up in a five-star hotel where people will see him and likely report him? You want me to send your criminal brother into the public, where he’ll be picked up by the cops in hours, if the people you met this morning don’t get him first?”

  “Well, no, but…”

  “This is the safest place for him. It might not look like much, but it’s safe.”

  She had to take his word for it. She hoped he was right. He had been every time so far.

  Two men dressed in black vests and camouflage fatigue pants emerged from the tents and made their way across to meet them as Mason disembarked, came around, and helped her down from the vehicle. Introductions ensued, throughout which Elliot kept a polite smile plastered on her face and tried her very best not to betray the fact that her butt was plugged.

  One of Aiden’s guardians was very tall, his head shaved bald. He had a pronounced jaw and a brutish air about him. If Mason had told her he was a bank robber, she would have believed him. He seemed strong, sinewy, and active. Just the sort of man you’d want on your side—and precisely the kind of guy you wouldn’t want as your enemy. Mason introduced him as Steven.

  The other man was named Robert. He was shorter, about six feet with sandy hair, hazel eyes, and an easy smile. He did not have Steven’s menace, but he was obviously fit and well built and he moved with an easy confidence that gave Elliot the impression that of the two of them, he was likely the one most in control.

  “Is Aiden receiving guests?”

  Robert and Steven looked at one another, then back at Mason. “He’s in the cabin.”

  They led the way, Mason and Elliot behind them. It took all Elliot’s practiced gracefulness not to sprint ahead and go bursting into the cabin.

  “If we could have a moment, just to make sure he’s decent,” Robert said, pausing at the door.

  Elliot shifted from foot to foot, her ears pricked as they went inside and a series of deep rumbles ensued. It sounded a little like an argument of some kind. She looked at Mason questioningly, and received a shrug in response.

  A minute or so later, Aiden emerged between Robert and Steven. He was a shorter figure than either of them, topping out at 5′8, though he would have sworn up and down he was every bit of six feet. As he was led out, he glanced resentfully at Steven, but looked away before the ex-marine made eye contact in return. It was strange, seeing Aiden somewhat cowed. He looked better than he had the last time she saw him. He was still skinny, but he’d regained some of the weight the drugs had taken from him. His eyes weren’t as sunken anymore, and his cheeks weren’t so hollowed. He was starting to look more like a man, less like a walking skeleton.

  “Aiden!” Elliot ran forward, wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” she said, tears misting her eyes. “I was so worried.”

  “I’m fine, Ellie,” Aiden said, hugging her back. “No thanks to these guys.”

  She took a step back, confused. She tried to explain. “No, it’s only thanks to these guys. Mason especially.”

  “I didn’t need anyone’s help,” Aiden said proudly. “It’s sweet and all, Ellie, but you should have stayed out of it like I asked you. I was taking care of things. These two idiots have really made a mess of everything.”

  “Hello, Aiden,” Mason said, his voice deep and gravelly. If Elliot had heard that tone directed at her, she would have quivered internally and prepared to try to plead her way out of the coming punishment. It didn’t have the same effect on Aiden.

  “Hi, Mav,” he said. “I guess you’re behind this, huh?”

  “Guilty as charged,” Mason said, unrepentant.

  “Listen, guys.” Aiden stretched out his hands. “This is just all way overblown, okay? It’s not that big a deal. I owed a little money, that’s all. There’s no need to lock me up in the woods.”

  Elliot stood back and watched as her brother tried to argue his way out of trouble. It put her in mind of a much younger time, when Aiden’s eloquence had often managed to get him out of a tight spot. He’d grown up thinking he could just say the right words and all his worries would disappear. She bit her lower lip, stilling her tongue as she realized that he had no real comprehension of the magnitude of the chaos he’d unleashed. He was the same spoiled brat he’d always been.

  “You owed over a million dollars,” Mason growled. “And the money was the least of your problems. Still is. You have a personal beef with Bobby Cornoli. It’s going to take a lot of favors and a lot of time to make that go away.”

  “Eh, Bobby’s a dick,” Aiden shrugged. “He’ll get over it.”

  “Heads of crime families don’t get over things, Aiden. Not until they put someone underground.”

  Aiden smirked. He fucking smirked. A smug, shit-eating grin s
pread over his face and Elliot could stand it no longer.

  “People came to my place with guns, Aiden!” she burst out suddenly, raising her hands in the air in exasperation. “They threatened to hurt me! They would have seriously hurt me if Mason hadn’t been there… and this is how you thank him? You act like everything you’ve done is just no big deal? Do you have any idea how much trouble we’re all in because of you?”

  “Ellie, you sound like Grandma.”

  Their grandmother had been a formidable woman. It was she who had insisted on the strict trust structure to keep the family fortune intact, and she had not suffered fools gladly. Everybody on the East coast had known Elliot’s namesake, and she was proud to channel her.

  “Good,” she said. “Grandma would never have let this happen. If she knew you were involved in drugs and, and…” She stumbled over the words, but found them. “Selling women! How could you, Aiden?”

  “It’s not what you think, Ellie…”

  “It’s exactly what I think,” she replied, her gaze full of fury. “It’s degenerate bullshit, it’s the easy, lazy way out. We have a very generous allowance. We don’t have to work. You could have spent the rest of your life fucking your way through a never ending string of debutantes and you still somehow managed to screw that up, Aiden!”

  “Okay, Ellie, I get it…” The smile had finally faded from Aiden’s face, and now the men next to him were smirking as if they very much enjoyed seeing their charge taken down a peg or two.

  “But you don’t get it. At all,” she continued. “You’re irresponsible, and stupid, and you’re putting everyone in danger, especially me. But that doesn’t matter to you because all you care about is getting ahead without doing any real work. That’s what drugs are, Aiden. They’re a shortcut. And so’s prostitution. It’s just all a way to get to the end game without having done anything to get there. It’s a cheat and it doesn’t work, and if you keep it up, one day you will end up dead, and…”

  “God, Ellie, stop being such a bitch!” Aiden interrupted her tirade.

  The shadow behind her moved quickly. There was a loud popping sound and a second later Aiden reeled to the side, a large red hand print on the side of his face. He’d been caught around the cheek and ear by Mason’s blow, which had been hard enough to make him stagger back into the arms of one of his guards.

  “Don’t ever speak to her like that,” Mason growled down at her cowering brother. “This is nothing compared to what you deserve. You have no idea what she’s done for you. If she has something to say to you, you’ll damn well listen to it.”

  Aiden managed to stand up straight, his hand clasped to his ear, a bitter, vengeful look in his eyes. “So you finally found a way to fuck her, huh? Good for you, Mav.”

  Elliot was sure Aiden was about to get himself the ass kicking of a lifetime, but Mason looked right through him, his gaze going to the two men looking on with expressions that indicated they were almost as personally pissed off as Mason was.

  “I’ll leave him to your care, gentlemen,” he said, draping his arm around Elliot’s shoulders and turning her back toward the vehicle. “Sounds like he needs a few more lessons in manners.”

  “Hey, fuck! Get the hell off me!”

  She looked over her shoulder and saw Aiden struggling between the two burly men as they hooked their arms around his and practically lifted him off the ground. They dragged him back into the cabin, to what fate she didn’t know. The mark Mav had left on his face was brighter against the sudden paling of his skin.

  “Are they going to hurt him?”

  “Not in any way he doesn’t need,” Mason rumbled. “Don’t worry about him. He’s well taken care of. Even if he doesn’t deserve it.”

  She looked up and saw how angry he was. He was controlling it, but the rage was quite evident in the clenching of his jaw, the set of his shoulders.

  “You hit him,” she said in a small voice.

  “If he’d been any other man on this planet it wouldn’t have been a slap,” Mason growled. “Boy deserves a beating.”

  Mason and Aiden were the same age, but she knew what Mav meant. Aiden had stalled somewhere in his early twenties while Mason had matured into a man. Elliot hadn’t fully appreciated the differences between them until now, but where Aiden still seemed like a petulant teenager, Mason was an entirely different creature.

  “Are you angry at me for doing that?”

  She looked up into his gaze and shook her head. “No,” she said. “Not at all. Should I be?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “He was lucky you were there.”

  “He didn’t feel lucky,” Elliot replied. “He didn’t like what I had to say, did he?”

  “No. No, he did not,” Mason agreed. “Hold on. I’m going to call someone.”

  They waited by the car as he made a quick phone call. A minute or two later, one of the vehicles containing his guards drove up and a man got out. Mav handed him the keys and asked him to drive, then ushered Elliot into the back seat.

  She was glad he wasn’t driving. She needed to feel his body next to hers. Seeing Aiden had made everything worse somehow. She hadn’t once questioned that she was doing the right thing in helping him, but his display of utter ingratitude and his refusal to acknowledge how much she had suffered for him had made her almost as angry as Mav.

  “You’re a fierce little thing,” Mason said, cuddling her close. “With a sharp tongue.”

  “Was I too cruel?”

  “You didn’t say anything he didn’t need to hear,” he said. “Aiden’s been living in a dream world way too long, thinking nothing he does has any consequences for anyone else.”

  “I don’t think I got through to him,” she said sadly.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” he replied. “I’ll make sure something gets through to him.”

  She nodded and looked out the window, trying to hide the way tears were making her eyes go all foggy. After everything she’d done, Aiden had been cold and crude and utterly unappreciative. She tried to stay strong, tell herself that he didn’t know what he was saying, that he was an addict, that it wasn’t his fault, but the excuses she’d made for him over the years rang ever more hollow and in the end she couldn’t help the tear that traced down her cheek.

  “Hey,” Mason said as she let out a telltale sniff. “It’s going to be okay. I promise.”

  “I put myself through all of this. I let you treat me like an animal to help him, and he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care at all,” she sobbed.

  Mason drew her into his lap and held her close, his long, strong arms wrapped tight around her sobbing form. “You deserve better than your family, Ellie,” he murmured as his lips brushed the top of her head. “You always have.”

  “But Aiden used to be… he used to be on my side.”

  “I know,” Mason said. “He’s still detoxing, and he’s not himself yet. Give it some time and see if he doesn’t come around. He’s going to have a baptism by fire over the next few weeks. The world as he knows it has come to an end.”

  She fell silent as they were driven back to his estate, allowing him to comfort her gently in his arms. He was the only person in the world who made her feel safe, the only one who made things better. But even he couldn’t fix Aiden.

  “I’m never going to be safe, am I?”

  “You’re always going to be safe, Elliot.” He used her full name and she felt the weight of the promise.

  “But Aiden…”

  “Aiden is irrelevant. You’re mine. People know that. They know what happens if they sneeze in your direction.”

  “You send your mercenaries after them?”

  “I’m going to keep you safe,” he said. “Whatever it takes.”

  Nestled against his chest, she closed her eyes and put her trust in him.

  *

  When she opened them again, she was lying in his bed. Mason was beside her, dozing, his arm around her shoulders, her head on his chest. His eyes opened as she l
ifted her head and looked at him.

  “You fell asleep,” he said, answering her silent question. “I carried you up here, figured you needed the rest.”

  “I did,” she agreed, stretching her legs out and then pulling them back in to curl up next to him. The nap had helped a lot, put some distance between the meeting with Aiden and the present moment, where she felt safe and content.

  “You were right,” she said in a small voice. “I shouldn’t have asked to see him.”

  “Ellie,” Mason said, tipping her chin up toward him. “You have to think about yourself more.” He snorted softly. “I didn’t think I’d be saying that to you so much.”

  “Why? Because you think I’m self-centered?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to,” she said sadly. It was true. She was self-centered. Aside from Aiden, the problems of others didn’t really touch her. This was the first time in her life she’d really needed to depend on someone else, and it was incredibly humbling.

  She dropped her head onto his shoulder and extended her fingers to toy with the buttons on his shirt. His stomach was hard and toned beneath the fabric and she felt the flutter of arousal low in her belly as she touched him hesitantly, almost shyly. Mason was the ultimate distraction, an escape from all the miseries of the world.

  Elliot felt him stroking her hair as she explored his body with her fingers, running her hand up and down the hard plane of his stomach. His physique was hard and unyielding, just like him.

  She saw the ridge rising in his pants as he started to get hard, and then his hand slid from her hair down to her chin, tipping her head back as he claimed her in a passionate kiss that drove all concern from her mind. His tongue slipped into her mouth, caressed hers, brought her latent desire forth in a soft moan as she turned to be closer to him, her thighs straddling his hip, her clit pressed against the hard line of his body as his hand splayed on her ass and she ground against him as their kiss deepened.

  In two short days, this man had become her entire world. She hung on his every breath, thrilled to his touch, and gave herself to him with an eagerness she could never have allowed herself to express before he took her, caged her, and forced her to confront her animal nature. She wanted him more than she had ever wanted any man, more than she had ever wanted anything. The force of her desire shocked her, electric tingles running across her skin leaving goosebumps in their wake as he slowly stripped the clothing from her body, rendering her naked and animal again.