by Alexis Anne
And in reaction I did what I knew best, I leaned on old habits and beliefs. Men wanted one thing: power. They took sex and when you couldn’t provide it, they went elsewhere to receive it. If I wanted to keep Darcy I needed to obliterate all other girls from his mind.
It was that simple. It was that twisted.
When I didn’t reply he shuddered with frustration. “Fine. Have it your way.” Then he sank to his knees and hooked my leg over his shoulder. “I’ve always wanted to fuck a girl in garters.” He sounded hollow, thin. Like he was reading from a script he didn’t write.
Was that how I sounded to him? Was I just as fake and artificial?
No wonder he hated it. I hated it.
And there was nothing I could do to change anything. I was so frozen inside this story.
Darcy was more than experienced when it came to pleasure. The man could teach a course on all the ways to tease an orgasm out of a woman. And since I enjoyed sex so much my body often responded no matter what my head screamed. So as I stood in his quiet room, listening to the suck and thrust of his tongue and fingers as my mind begged me to open myself to him.
Be vulnerable.
Let him in. Darcy would never hurt me. I knew that. I knew it. Yet…I didn’t believe it.
I came around his finger and tongue with a long moan and ripple of pleasure, but it wasn’t the same.
“You still want me to fuck you hard?” he ground out, standing in front of me, eyes averted.
“Yes.”
“Damn it, Nicki.”
“What?”
He took my face in his hands. “I am begging you. Whatever block it is you’ve thrown up, whatever crazy shit you’ve convinced yourself I need to love you, let it fucking go. None of it’s true, you hear me? You see this look in my eyes?”
I nodded, one foot in this reality with Darcy, one firmly cemented in the past.
“I love the painting. I love that you wore this just for me. I adore all the ways you try to love me, but babe, you have to stop this. It isn’t right. It’s not real. You love me by being here with me. If I wanted easy sex I wouldn’t be fighting tooth and nail for us. If I wanted a slave I’d be your father. I. Am. Not. Donald.”
I knew that. I did.
“You’re doing it too,” I finally whispered.
“I know,” he nodded. “And I want you to call me out on it, too.” He tried so hard to be what I needed, regardless of the cost. So often the broken-hearted shadow of his mother hung in the background. I could see it in his eyes when he pleaded with me like this, heard the desperation in his voice. We weren’t so different.
But that didn’t mean I could push him the way he asked. “I don’t know if I can.” There was too much to learn, too much to undo. I was hardwired to expect the worst.
“Try?”
But when he begged like that I didn’t have the heart to tell him no. “I’ll try.”
He smiled. “Good. Now, tell me what you really want out of tonight.”
And that was the problem with making someone else your entire focus. “I don’t know.” I really didn’t. I’d been so obsessed with making Darcy happy and getting that high from seeing him smile that I hadn’t stopped to consider what I wanted.
“Okay. Let’s figure it out.” He kissed me slow and deep. “Did you like that?”
“Yes. I do love being with you, Darcy.” My body craved his touch day and night. I dreamed of a world where I could go to him anytime I wanted, not just evenings when it seemed I was visiting Theo.
“Yeah?”
“So much. But…”
His eyebrows rose. “But what?”
“I feel better when I know I’ve pleased you.” It hurt like hell to admit that out loud.
“You please me every single minute of every day, woman. Get that through your thick head, now.”
“You know what I mean,” I whispered.
“I do. And I also know that there isn’t a thing you could do—when you’re honest and open with me—that will ever cause me anything other than happiness. Life is so much more than what you’ve known up until now.”
And that was the problem. “I can’t know something I’ve never experienced.”
The light returned to his features and a smile pulled up his lips. “Well then, let’s start with the experience of me showing you how much I love pleasing you.”
This time sex was slow, sensual, and all about me. In the back of my head I wondered if we’d simply flipped the coin. Instead of me going out of my way to please Darcy and get his praise, it was Darcy pleasing me in return for praise.
But as his mouth closed over my nipple through the black mesh of my bra I stopped thinking and gave in to the moment.
“I really, really like this lingerie, babe.”
He moved to the other nipple, the combination of suction and restriction a wonderful contradiction.
“I love this valley it creates right here,” he dove between my breasts. “And I really love that there is absolutely nothing stopping me from going here.” He slid two fingers inside. I gasped and he swallowed, watching every single reaction as it rippled through my body.
“Oh God, yes,” I moaned.
“I love that you are so sensitive in so many places.” He teased a circle around my belly button and then massaged my thigh. It lit up all my pleasure centers and I begged for more.
He entered me slowly, watching how each stroke took me higher, building our orgasms one step at a time on a staircase that seemed to disappear right into the clouds. I popped my breasts out of the bra, the underwire holding them up and out for his tongue to play with.
“Are you close?” he murmured against my ear in just the right spot as he slid out and in.
“Yes.”
His breath hitched, then he slammed into me. He took me hard, shooting us straight from slow and happy to fast and senseless. The sudden change in sensation overwhelmed every sense in my body.
“Yes!” I cried out. It was perfect. It was us. Slow and careful one minute, wild and passionate the next. He pounded into me, totally lost in the fog of pleasure, eyes locked onto mine and begging for my orgasm.
Darcy wanted to watch.
I tried very hard to keep my focus as my entire body lit up. The tingles on my skin mixing with the way my muscles heated and flexed in preparation of a release. His body slid along mine and I dug my nails into his ass, guiding him home as I arched up to meet him.
“Yes, Darcy. There. There!” I moaned, digging in my heels so I could press just a little bit higher as he slammed into me, stretching me with each stroke of his cock. I cried out as my orgasm hit, overwhelming everything. He grunted in reply. A deep, primal grunt, his eyes going dark and wild as he drank in the sight of me falling apart and back together again in his arms.
He buried himself deep and stilled, dropping his head to my neck and sucking kisses along my pulse.
“Nicki…this. Just this. Stop the other bullshit and just be with me like this. Always.”
“I’m trying,” I panted, wrapping my arms around his neck and legs around his waist. “I’m really trying.”
13
I was sleeping really well. Really, really well. And I had been ever since Darcy and I got together. I felt…safe. Content.
Not whole.
He hadn’t magically fixed me, but there was a peace I felt these days that I’d never had before. I was hopeful that in this environment I’d have the courage to look inside my darkness and finally find a way to fill those voids.
So it was probably with a bit too much confidence that I fell asleep in Darcy’s bed and stayed the night. I reasoned that it wasn’t that weird for a sister to fall asleep on her brother’s couch so the Boys standing guard outside shouldn’t think too much when I didn’t leave.
I probably should’ve accounted for the fact that I’d been spending a ton of time at their flat, leaving late at night, and this was not the first time I’d slept over. It wasn’t exactly a big leap to wonder i
f I was sleeping with Darcy.
There was also the fact that I’d become complacent with the safety of my two favorite people. It had been nearly three months since they parted ways with Father and there hadn’t been so much as a strange wind. I’d started to believe Theo and Darcy when they said no one cared about the bounty on their heads.
As I stretched and yawned between Darcy’s sheets I was blissfully unaware of how naïve I was being. Instead I was daydreaming about movie marathons and eating our way through Chinese takeout. I was fantasizing about the house in Italy and sneaking away with Darcy at the perfect moment.
That’s when I realized there was someone in the room with me—and that someone was on the bed moving toward me. The only problem was that Darcy and Theo had left for the office two hours earlier and I happened to know that Theo had a very important board meeting today. He and Darcy were both busy.
So who was climbing on top of me?
My eyes flew open and I found a man I didn’t recognize grinning at me as he grabbed my wrists and held them above my head. “Nice surprise.”
I screamed. “Let me go!”
The man smiled as he shoved his knee between my legs and spread them apart. His brown eyes were nearly black and I took in all of his features at once, memorizing my attacker. Dark hair, unkempt hair and beard. Not large, but larger than me. “Now why would I do that?”
I was pinned. His grip on my hands was so hard I couldn’t move at all, and with his body between my legs my knees were useless. I screamed again and he sealed his mouth over mine, stealing my voice and shoving his tongue inside.
I wanted to vomit but there was nothing in my stomach.
“I came for the bounty on Theo and Higgins,” he panted between kisses, “but getting a girl is a nice bonus.”
He was going to rape me. Rape me without a second thought, then tie me up and wait to kill Theo and Higgins when they came home. Maybe he’d kill me too, I didn’t know.
I had to do something. Even if he raped me I had to use it to my advantage to save the men I loved. I surveyed my options as my attacker ground his erection against me. I couldn’t reach the nightstand where Darcy kept his knife but I could bite the bastard. I closed my teeth around his tongue and his eyes went wide. Then he raised his arm and punched me hard in the side.
I hadn’t planned on that.
All the air went out of my lungs and my body curled instinctively to protect myself.
“Stupid bitch,” he muttered, grabbing my wrists in one hand, his grip so tight I saw stars from the pain, then he pressed his elbow into my forehead so I couldn’t bite him again.
That was when I heard his zip. His warm flesh pressed against my naked thighs and pure terror took hold. Terror unlike anything I’d ever felt before. The very idea of another man taking something from me—hurting me for fun, gaining pleasure at my expense, using me—made me insane.
I didn’t think. I just screamed. “I’m Nicole Sutherland!”
He froze. “What?”
“I’m. Nicole. Sutherland.”
He released me. Like I was on fire. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
I was my father’s prized possession. That meant I was off limits. Everyone knew that. Anyone who touched me would have to face Donald personally and everyone knew what happened when Donald was angry.
“Why would I kid about that?” I slid away, rubbing my wrists, looking wildly for something to use as a weapon. I’d managed to stop the rape but this man wasn’t going to walk away without a prize or two.
He grinned—one of those wicked, crazy grins that makes your skin crawl. “Well this just keeps getting better and better,” he drawled.
That threw me. “What do you mean?” If I rolled onto the floor I could probably get the knife.
Maybe.
“It means my payday just got easier,” he sneered, then he snapped a picture of me. Naked. In Darcy’s bed.
Then he left.
And the gravity of what had just happened hit me like a bolt of lighting.
“No.” I grabbed for my phone. “No, no, no, no!” I could barely see straight I was so upset. My vision blurred as my heart pounded out of control and adrenaline flooded my veins. I punched wildly at my recent calls and finally managed to dial Darcy just as I shoved my fingers into his blinds to see down to the street.
“Fuck!” I whispered. The asshole walked right up the Boys standing across the street and held up his phone.
“Nicki?”
“I’m so fucked!” It was the only thing I could think to say.
“Are you okay?” he barked, clearly worried.
“There was just a man…”
“Theo, we have to go!” he yelled. “Did he hurt you?”
“I’m fine, Darcy. He didn’t hurt me. Please listen to everything I’m about to say.”
I heard the sound of screeching tires through the earpiece. “Are you still at the flat or are you home?”
“I’m at your flat.”
“What the bloody hell is going on?” Theo said in the background.
“Darcy, listen to me. A man came here to collect the bounty on you and Theo. When he found me he decided he’d have fun while he waited for you.”
“Did you cut his fucking balls off?” I’d never heard Darcy so angry.
“I was asleep when he came in.”
“Then I’ll cut his fucking balls off.”
“Darcy. He was going to…” I took a calming breath.
“Rape you,” he bit out.
Panic really started to set in now. My hands shook as I held the phone my ear. “I couldn’t stop him, so I told him who I was.”
Darcy sighed with relief. “Good, babe. You did good.”
“Not good, Darcy! Not good at all. He took a picture of me and showed it to the two assholes my father has tailing me.”
“So?”
The shaking stopped as white-hot anger flashed through me. “So?” I shouted. “It means no more us. It means the end of Father staying out of my life it means…” I lost my breath at the very idea of being dragged back under my father’s thumb.
“That’s not going to happen, Nicki. We’re right around the corner. Throw on your clothes and grab your passport.”
“Now?” I squeaked.
“It’s the only option, love. Now or never.”
I dropped the phone and lunged for my clothes, wishing I hadn’t been so focused on seducing a man I’d already seduced. Now I was fleeing the country in a less then sensible dress and heels. One of these days I’d screw my head on straight.
I’d just hopped toward the door, wiggling my dress closed, as Darcy burst through. I was in his arms and his mouth was on mine in under a second.
“Ready?” Tension rolled off him in waves.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Theo sat behind the wheel, the anger he was feeling simmering below the surface but written all over his face. He took off from the curb the moment I was in the car. The door wasn’t even properly closed.
“Open my briefcase. Take whatever cash I have in my billfold. Leave your real license and anything else that has your name in there. I’ll take care of it.”
I breathed a small sigh of relief that my brother preferred untraceable cash transactions. Five hundred pounds was a much better start than the twenty in my wallet.
“That white packet on top? That’s the information you’ll need to access your bank accounts. Get to the flat and lay low until you hear from me.”
“How will we make contact?” Darcy asked, his arm around me like a vice.
“Wait, we?” I stared up at him.
“Fuck yeah, we. You think I’m not going?”
I shrugged.
“I stay as long as you stay. You leave? I leave, too.” Then he reached into his coat and withdrew a passport. “I’m John Templeton now.”
So this was happening. This was really and truly happening. Maybe not happily ever after, but definitely happily for now.
“Just do me a favor,” Theo called back from the front seat.
“What’s that?” After this I would do anything and everything for Theo and it would still never be enough to repay him.
“Be happy.” He glanced up into the review mirror. “Forget about the past. Forget we ever had parents and just be fucking happy with this asshole.”
I grinned up at Darcy just as he kissed me. It was simple, passionate, and perfect.
For one brief moment in time I had the guy, the future, and the happiness I always dreamed of finding one day.
And then in the next moment it was all taken away.
As we raced through an intersection a black car blew through the traffic light, hitting us broadside, pushing the car into a cement barricade.
The last thing I saw was two Duncan Boys pulling Theo and Darcy out of the car. Theo was unconscious with blood dripping down his face, but Darcy was awake. He twisted out of their grip and lunged back for me but they hit him over the head with a black police baton, knocking him unconscious. They each spit on the ground beside the bodies, then reached back for me.
Everything had been spinning and ringing since the moment of impact which was why I couldn’t move. I could see my hands and what was happening, but it was like I was watching it through water—everything moving in slow motion and not quite right.
As their hands closed around my arms and pulled me from the wreck the world around me faded and the darkness once again closed in.
I was alive. I was pretty sure Darcy and Higgins were still alive. That should have been a relief, a good bit of news in the madness, but instead all I felt was dread.
Dead would mean an end. If we were dead we wouldn’t have to face Father—and I had absolutely no doubt that what I was about to live through would be the worst days of my life.
14
I sat at my bedroom window staring out at the night. How many nights had my mother sat in this exact same spot, locked inside this miserable room? How many times had she lost hope? Or did she always believe that she could escape?
