by Lana Grayson
“You’re defending Atwood honor?”
“Until the day I die.”
“Then you’re brave, foolish, and misguided.” He paused. “But at least you aren’t a monster like Mark Atwood.”
The insult ripped through me. I welcomed the adrenaline as I confronted a man twice my size who teased me with the threat of captivity and violence.
“What do you want from me?” The forest seized the echo and veiled my words from the world. “Do you want to attack me? Hurt me? Do it. We’re alone. No one would know. No one would see. You have me at your mercy so if you’re going to rape me, just do it and get it over with—”
Nicholas rushed, seizing me within his grasp. The shock choked me, and I flailed instead of screamed. Trapped in his iron embrace, he hauled me from the path and slammed me against the base of a towering redwood. I dug my fingers into his suit. It did nothing. Nicholas shook me, forced me against the cool, uncaring tree trunk.
He dared to kiss me.
Not a gentle, story-book kiss meant to reassure my fears and redeem my trust in the man slinking into the overgrown forest to steal what I wasn’t prepared to give.
Not a passionate, lust-crazed demand that would fuel our desire and trap us both in the carnal urges and natural cravings that existed only within the wilds.
Nicholas kissed me because I was his. He was my captor. Everything his family promised and everything he threatened would come true.
His lips crushed mine with a ragged, possessive heat. My body pinned against the tree as he slammed my wrists hard into the bark. He forced one arm to my side and drew the other over my head. I struggled, but his nibbling, expert pressure against my mouth forced a gasp.
From my parted lips, he attacked. His tongue stole a flick against mine. I twisted against his hold.
And I was punished.
Or rewarded?
Nicholas pushed, trapping me against his chest. I weakened in his power, amazed by the stirring unwelcomed sensations sizzling the tempted rapture over my skin.
Everywhere he touched burned—a fiery indignity and searing passion. He treated me with disrespect, and I seethed against the strength that so easily took my kiss.
The molten response bubbled inside me, folding and rising and taking me with more demands than his embrace.
My core tightened.
My legs trembled.
I tensed.
I hated him.
More than Reed or Max. More than Darius.
But my body surrendered everything sane and good and reasonable within my soul and blackened it with the corruption of the Bennetts. He held my hands. He pinned me. His strength moved against my petite frame as though he could break through me and the redwood with a single, vigorous thrust.
I imagined his ferocity.
And groaned.
But Nicholas pulled away. His breath tore through his body just as ragged as mine. I struggled to smack him, but he didn’t release my hands.
I didn’t think he’d ever release me.
I wasn’t sure I wanted him to.
All the more reason to fight and escape before I decimated what remained of my pride.
His crisp scent enveloped me with a clean masculinity. My wrists bruised in his grip. I didn’t care. The threatening promise of his form was too much, too fast, too overwhelming. His presence dulled my senses and forged forbidden and sensual fantasies that layered me with shame.
I tried to swear, but I had no strength left to speak. Instead I glowered, and he welcomed my resistance with a low whisper.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Ms. Atwood.” He pulled my wrists to his chest, binding me to him. “When it comes time, I won’t chase you. You’ll come to me.”
“I doubt that.”
His predator grin layered me with goose bumps.
“I’ll break you, Ms. Atwood, this is my promise. I will take you, mold you, and control you. You’ll surrender to me. I won’t hurt you, but that doesn’t mean I won’t devour you entirely.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because I learned something about myself today.” His lips pressed against my ear, his words a secret only for me. “I’m doing this because I can.”
He pulled me from the tree and hauled me to the bike. My vision darkened, but the flush of heat and rage, passion and resistance provided me the strength to preserve my pride. Nicholas ordered me to hold him. I had nothing to clutch but his muscular chest as he returned me to the Bennett Estate.
He tried to intimidate me.
But I knew better. I saw through it, and the glimpse into his mind made every violation and suppressed pleasure worth it.
He wouldn’t take me because he could.
He’d take me because he wanted me.
And because he dared to touch me, he’d be the first brick I destroyed in the Bennett Estate.
8
Sarah
Nicholas delivered me to the mansion. I stumbled off the motorcycle, but he pointed to the columned portico framing the front door.
“Wait there.”
The brief ride was humiliating enough. I wasn’t taking orders from Nicholas, especially if he thought I somehow belonged to him. He had tracked me down like a hunter stalking his prey and dared to kiss me without my consent.
At least, I didn’t think I consented.
My lips tingled, along with other places I’d be damned to admit. Nicholas twisted my senses, but it wasn’t just the indignity of his touch that chiseled my resolve into dust. He was the most sensual and attractive and dangerous man I had ever met.
My own step-brother trapped me in a perilous game I couldn’t win, not if my body ached for something darker. I unsuccessfully exhaled the overheated air from my lungs.
I wasn’t waiting for him. It was too risky to see him again before I learned how to endure the intensity of his stare without falling apart.
If I planned to survive this, I’d have to master Nicholas before he completely dominated me.
I studied the monstrous prison again. The spires clutched for the sky. The dark Corinthian stone blighted the natural beauty of the forest. The hundreds of windows stared at me in wicked accusation, as though they realized I wrecked an elegant dining room to escape from a dungeon of pure extravagance.
I edged through the front door. The foyer greeted me with silence. Nothing was bright in the house. No white marble, no delicate art or soft furniture. Dark tiles and splashes of crimson framed the centerpiece of the foyer—the grand staircase which would lead only to my ultimate violation.
Stairs. My chest hurt just looking at them.
I was certain Darius Bennett installed an elevator within his private sanctuary of opulence and secrets, but I’d be damned if they’d catch me using a crutch. God only knew what they’d do if I revealed the asthma.
One step.
Nice and slow.
A breath.
Second step.
This was pathetic. By the time I made it to my room, Nicholas might have found me, tortured me, and slammed me within my bed.
Third step—
“My dear…where do you think you’re going?”
Of course Darius would find me. I missed my breath, but I didn’t give him the pleasure of watching me pale. I continued my leisurely pace up the stairs.
“Get down here now, young lady.”
His words lulled soft and the perverted whisper of young lady unsettled me. He didn’t speak it to be kind. He meant it like a step-father.
And the implication sickened me.
I hid my disgust. “I’m going to my room to think about what I’ve done.”
“I said get down here. I won’t ask you twice, child.”
“Fuck you.”
He moved faster than I expected. I managed to rush only two steps before he was upon me. His hand tangled in my hair and yanked my head back.
I thought he meant to pin me.
I shrieked a breathless cry as he threw me down the stairs. I
bounced once before landing hard against the tile of the foyer. I burned with tears.
No one had ever hit me.
Not my father. Not my mother. Not even Josiah and Mike when I would roughhouse with them. No one ever hurt me.
Or pushed me down stairs.
I had to get out of here.
I struggled to my feet, but Darius grasped me before I rose. He hauled me against him, twisting a hand in my hair and pinning me a thick arm over my waist.
His sneered whisper clutched my heart.
“You’ve misbehaved, my dear. I am very disappointed in you.”
His fatherly, bitter tones rumbled felt dirty and wrong. I kicked, but even without asthma I couldn’t match a Bennett’s natural strength. Darius dragged me into the dining hall, aiming for where I tossed his chair through a plate window to escape. Glass littered the floor—a shimmering sea of danger.
I screamed as Darius pitched me to the ground. I tumbled onto the glass, and a thick shard instantly sliced my palm. He missed the worst of the pile, but the few crushed slivers tore at my skin. I bled everywhere, even from the smallest nicks on my exposed arms. His heel pressed against my neck. I struggled, but the movement only ground the glass into me. I stilled.
Darius Bennett looked too much like Nicholas—an older, greying, severe Nicholas who lost the amber tint to his eyes in favor of a lifeless brown. Darius didn’t have the same strong jaw or Roman nose, but the similarities were enough. The brow, his drawn lips. But Nicholas hadn’t played his emotions so vividly. Darius snarled, practically baring his teeth as he threatened to snap my neck with a steady kick.
My chest fluttered with useless breaths—hopefully fear and not the beginning of a serious attack.
A tear escaped as Darius knelt at my side, cradling a handful of glass in his palm. His voice lowered to a hideous threat.
“My dear, consider your circumstances. You are our guest because we need your cunt.” A sharp shard of glass the size of a paring knife danced in his fingers. He pressed the serrated edge against my throat. “The rest of your body doesn’t matter. Perhaps you wish to pick this glass up piece by piece with just your mouth?”
He wouldn’t.
“No?” He pressed the glass against my cheek. “What if you cleaned this mess by hand?”
I shook my head.
“Then if you promise to be a good girl…” The glass drifted low. I tensed as it passed my throat but stiffened when he teased the edge over my chest. He swept over my breast and poked my nipple hiding beneath my shirt. “Maybe I won’t have you sleep in this mess all night.”
The shard traced down. Lower and lower, summoning a frenzied breath that forced a tremble over my body.
He dragged the tip over my stomach to the hem of my shirt. I swallowed bile as he focused on the crest between my legs. The glass prodded where nothing should touch.
Son of a bitch.
My hands curled within the glass shards. I swore and threw the dust at his face.
“Little bitch!”
The backhand struck harder than I expected. He laid me out before I had a chance to run, but his second strike never fell.
Nicholas loomed over us, his hand gripping his father’s wrist. Reed rushed to my side, hauling me up from the glass. He pushed me behind him, just far enough to give me a momentary head start if his father dove at me once more.
Darius dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief, but he’d never admit that an Atwood harmed him. He snarled, pointing to the glass.
“Clean this up,” he said. “Then come to us in the smoking lounge, do you understand, young lady?”
He didn’t have the right to call me young lady.
“She’ll clean,” Nicholas said.
I blushed the instant he spoke. Darius growled and left me to my chore. Reed and Max followed, dutifully, as proper sons and lapdogs.
Nicholas waited, as though he expected a moment of gratitude for preventing the second blow. I hardly believed the first one had fallen, and the pain was only now blossoming over my cheek.
“I told you to wait for me,” he said.
Was it an apology or another punishment? I brushed the glass from my clothing, amazed I wasn’t more injured. Blood smeared, and the cut in my palm burned, but the sting distracted me from Nicholas’s sharp glare, a prickle worse than any of the serrated shards scratching my skin.
“Next time, you will listen to me.”
I didn’t answer. He didn’t offer to help. Was it all intimidation? He didn’t threaten me, but what could hurt more than the damning kiss he forced upon me in the woods?
A kiss that took my breath then and now.
He followed his family and left me to my hell.
I fantasized about scratching the elaborate dining table with the glass, slashing through the original art decorating the walls, or simply leaving the shards for Darius to imbed in his feet.
But damaging a fine mahogany, ruining a precious painting, or forcing a maid to tend to my mess was just as distasteful as the vulgar words Darius whispered with wicked honesty. That revenge would be petty and would probably end with me locked in a room. I couldn’t lose the freedom to explore the estate—to search for any reason, any evidence, for Darius Bennett murdering my father.
Running away nearly blew my chance.
I wouldn’t be so selfish in the future.
I cleaned my injuries and swept up the glass. The activity exhausted me, and I hid within a powder room, wheezing. My body demanded a rest, but I didn’t have the time.
Darius ordered me to his study once I was finished. God only knew what he wanted. I was more than content to make him wait, but my caution warned me to behave.
If I needed an inhaler—or a doctor—I couldn’t give him reason to deny me.
And so I joined them.
Too many Bennetts waited for me in the dark shadows of the parlor.
The books on shelves darkened an already threatening salon, but the fire in the hearth roared. The bottles of bourbon and whiskey, brandy and cordials rested half-empty on a cart.
Darius obviously enjoyed this room—a private retreat for him and his sons. He ruled like a king, surrounded by decadence, scented by the charred wood from the fire and polished leather of the chairs. My step-family waited in silence, their seats arranged in a semi-circle framing the fireplace and ignoring the most precious piece of art Darius owned—the antique grand piano waiting in the corner.
A footstool was positioned in the center of their circle.
Darius didn’t react when I entered. The hairs on my neck prickled. I hesitated.
I fucked up.
I fought him for a momentary victory. In my panic, I threw the glass and earned whatever punishment he plotted. The fight was as reckless as thinking I could escape from the estate to find any medication.
No.
It was never about the asthma. I lied to myself as ineffectively as I lied to Nicholas.
I tried to escape because the Bennetts terrified me. And now? The dread tore me apart before the men even touched me.
“My dear.” Darius gestured to the ottoman. “Come join us.”
“No, thank you.”
“It’s not an invitation.”
I didn’t let my gaze drift over Nicholas. Reed stared into the fire. His hair—a sun-bleached brown—matched the highlights and shadows within the hearth. He helped me from the glass. If I thought any Bennetts were capable of kindness, he might have been an ally.
But Reed was no friend. Neither was Max. For as prestigious and wealthy as the family was, rumors whispered of Max’s personal touches to finalizing deals. Torched cars, shattered windows.
Broken bones.
Max walked with a severe limp, but he wasn’t weak. A kick dropped me from his clutches once. He wouldn’t let me get that lucky again.
This wasn’t a parlor. It was a dragon’s lair, carved for Darius and his sons, and it was the last place I should have entered.
I claimed the seat.
/> Darius nodded for Nicholas to continue reading from the tablet in his lap.
“Profits from production of the Weed and Wrangler division rose three percent from last month,” Nicholas said. “It was our most significant growth overall, but down four percent from where we were this time last year.”
“Reasons?”
“Distribution costs, supplier delays.”
What in the world? I expected hellfire. Instead I got a board meeting. Lately, I started believing they were one and the same, but I didn’t expect business from the Bennetts.
“Suggestions?” Darius snapped his fingers and pointed to the whiskey.
He gestured for me to serve them.
Son of a bitch. I curled my fist to hide the blood. The gash stung and my cheek throbbed where he struck me. Enough bruises would line my skin from the fall down the stairs, and I could only imagine how bad the rest of me looked from the car crash.
Whiskey was easy. I tipped the decanter and let the alcohol spill into his tumbler. I hoped it would poison him.
Nicholas swiped across the tablet. “I’ve created a three point plan to regain our ground. I’ve instructed our CFO to present—”
“One moment, son.” Darius curled a finger for me to stand.
What now?
“My dear, as an honored guest in the Bennett home, you are welcomed to attend this meeting as a show of good faith.”
Sure, I was. “What good faith?”
“You will soon carry a Bennett in your belly. You should be privy to the information discussed, don’t you think?”
I shuddered. “No.”
Darius’s pleasure wrenched every last hope from my heart. “You will sit here. Listen to our meeting. Learn our business. And do you know why?”
I shook my head.
“Because you are insignificant. You are present because no matter what you do or where you go, we will find you, capture you, and restrain you within these halls.”
My fingers dug into the leather beneath me. He savored his drink.
“You are nothing more than a pussy to fuck and a womb to seed, do you understand?”
I scowled. Darius didn’t blink.
“Now be a good girl. Take off your clothes.”
