“Yes…” Tegan wasn’t quite sure where this conversation was going. Unless… “Have you decided now you know I have a wealthy fiancé that I’m expendable to Hawke Publishing, after all?” She wasn’t sure she would be able to work in London once she and Bryn were mated, although she assumed not, but there was always the option of continuing to be a freelance editor from home if that should be the case. But that didn’t mean she wanted Hawke Publishing to take that choice taken away from her.
Justin grimaced. “Well, it’s certainly something to consider when I meet with the new management of the company this afternoon to discuss the situation.”
She frowned. “But last night, you said—”
“Aren’t you going to open your present?” Justin prompted lightly.
Considering the contents of the last white box wrapped in red ribbon delivered to her suite, Tegan wasn’t sure she wanted Justin to see what was inside this one.
She ignored his comment. “I’m good at my job, Justin. We both know that. Last night, you said I was the best editor you have,” she reminded him.
She’d gone to university for four long years, would probably be paying off her student loans forever. Being made redundant six months into her job with one of the biggest English publishers would not look good on her résumé. It was unfair—
“I really think you should open your present.”
She frowned her irritation at Justin’s obsession with that white albatross of a box sitting so innocently on the coffee table. God knows what Steven had sent her this time.
“Would you like me to open it for you?” Justin suggested lightly.
“What?” She frowned her irritation with his persistence.
“Your present. Shall I open it for you?”
“Justin, I’m trying to discuss my future with Hawke Publishing with you—”
“Exactly.”
Tegan was totally confused as she watched him pick up the box, pull on one of the ends of the ribbon, and remove it before lifting the lid and folding back the tissue paper to reveal another set of that ultra-sexy lingerie, a blue lace bra and thong this time.
Her cheeks blazed with embarrassment as Tegan snatched the box out of Justin’s hands and slammed the lid back on. This man was her boss, even if it wasn’t for much longer, and—
“I want to see you wearing them.”
Tegan’s movements faltered as she glanced warily at Justin. “I don’t understand…”
Justin gazed at her with flat, emotionless eyes. “We’re going back to the privacy of my suite now so you can model the bra and thong for me. Wouldn’t do to have your boyfriend walk in on us in the middle of that, now would it?”
Tegan looked at him searchingly as that last comment seemed to be rhetorical rather than a genuine question. Admittedly, Justin was still an attractive man at fifty or so. He also had a full head of distinguished silver hair, and his handsome face was almost unlined except for laughter lines beside his eyes and mouth.
Laughter lines that were not in evidence right now.
Tegan didn’t feel much like laughing either. Her stomach churned with nervousness and fear as she moistened her lips before speaking. “Are you responsible for sending me those other gifts too?”
“Of course.”
Of course.
As if it was perfectly normal for the CEO of a prestigious company like Hawke Publishing to send sexy underwear, sex aids, and red roses to a much younger female member of his staff.
“The roses and…other stuff?” Tegan wanted to be absolutely sure of her facts before she began to scream hysterically.
A smile curved Justin’s lips. “Did you bring the nipple and clit clamps with you?” A frown darkened his brow. “Although I can’t say I’m happy at the thought of Pendragon enjoying seeing you wearing them before I have.”
Oh God…
Justin Hawke, CEO of Hawke Publishing, was the one who had been sending her those increasingly disturbing gifts, and not Steven. Which was no doubt the reason for Steven’s outrage the evening before when she verbally attacked him in front of the woman he had designs on.
And Tegan was now completely alone in her hotel suite with a man she could only assume was suffering some sort of mental derangement or breakdown. Possibly caused by having his company taken over three months ago? The timing seemed to imply that might be the case. Tegan had certainly never heard a single rumor to the effect Justin had hit on any of his other female employees before her.
He took a step closer to her. “I wanted you, and decided I would have you, from the moment you began to work at Hawke Publishing six months ago.”
Which would seem to nullify that idea of the takeover three months ago being responsible for his unwelcome behavior. So maybe this had happened before, and none of the other women had ever been brave enough to step forward and tell anyone about it. The world of publishing was a small one, and if the accusation against Justin couldn’t be proven, then the woman was the one who would be ostracized from further employment in an industry that was cutthroat at the best of times.
Would Tegan have dared to make the accusation if she wasn’t already thinking of leaving to become Bryn’s mate? Or would she have just handed in her notice and moved on to work for another publisher, rather than put her career in jeopardy?
Either way, it didn’t change the fact Tegan was now completely alone with Justin, and he was demanding she return to his hotel suite with him. A place Bryn wouldn’t know where to find her.
Where was Bryn when she most needed him!
Wherever he was, she tried to send him a mental cry for help, wishing now that they had completed the mating, because then she would have been sure Bryn received that silent plea. As it was, all she could hope for was that he might pick up on some of her emotional distress. But otherwise, Tegan knew he would eventually return to the suite and simply find she wasn’t there but have no idea where she was. She doubted Bryn would ever guess—as she hadn’t—that Justin was her stalker, and the other man had dragged her off to his suite to model a bra and thong set for him.
“Let’s go, before your boyfriend decides to come back.” Justin seemed to pick up on at least some of Tegan’s thoughts as he grabbed the box and took a firm grip of the top of her arm.
She tried to pull free, but Justin’s fingers felt like a steel band about her arm. “Let me go,” she demanded as he pushed her out into the hallway.
He didn’t so much as spare her a glance as he pulled her down the hallway beside him. As usual, the hallway to these exclusive suites was empty of other guests. And, as might be expected, Justin’s suite was also on this executive floor.
Tegan tried to hold back once Justin had opened the door. “I have a lunch to go to with one of my authors—”
“I canceled it.”
All the fight went out of her. “What?”
Justin took advantage of that momentary lack of resistance to drag her inside his suite, closing the door and putting on the safety lock before answering her. “The author seemed a little overwhelmed to receive a personal telephone call from the owner of Hawke Publishing, but she understood the cancelation when I explained you were feeling unwell,” he added smugly.
Tegan took advantage of the easing of Justin’s fingers about her arm to wrench herself completely free of his grip. Not that she stood a chance of escaping him completely. The door was locked in such a way she would never be able to unlock it before Justin caught up with her. And although the door out onto the balcony was open, the sheer curtains billowing in the light breeze, the fact they were forty floors up meant there would be no escaping that way either.
Her shoulders straightened. “But you aren’t the owner of Hawke Publishing anymore, are you?” Seeing the way Justin’s face instantly darkened with anger, she realized that maybe taunting him with that fact wasn’t the wisest thing to do.
But what choice did she have but to fight back with any weapon she had, even a verbal one? She certainly wasn’t goi
ng to allow herself to become the victim of a man she’d trusted and thought of with avuncular affection, without putting up some form of resistance.
Damn it, she was the fated mate of a dragon shifter, and as such, she was going to resist Justin to her last breath, if she had to.
He reached out to grasp her about the throat, his thumb and index finger pressing painfully into the sides of her neck. “Right here and right now, it’s enough that I own you.”
“You don’t own—” His finger and thumb pressed deeper, cutting off any further words of protest.
“Yes, I do,” he grated. “Now put these on.” He released her to thrust the white gift box toward her.
Tegan immediately put both hands behind her back, refusing to take the box. “No.”
His eyes glittered darkly. “How badly do you want to keep your job at Hawke Publishing?”
She glared at him. “Not enough to sleep with the boss!”
Justin smiled confidently. “I have no intention of allowing you to sleep.” His expression hardened. “You’re going to put on the underwear, get down on your knees, and suck my cock like a good girl, and then I’m going to fuck you. But first you have to be punished for taking Pendragon into your bed,” he added in a hard voice.
Tegan swallowed. “Punished?”
“I brought my favorite whip with me.” He smiled without humor as he moved to the open suitcase on the stand and brought out a whip with lengths of knotted leather sprouting from the top of the handle. “I’m so glad I thought to pack this.”
“You intend to whip me?” Tegan couldn’t take her gaze off that black leather as Justin gave a couple of experimental flicks with his wrist.
He shrugged. “Only until you tell me how sorry you are for becoming involved with Pendragon and beg me to fuck you.”
Tegan stared at him incredulously. “You’re insane!” She sent another silent cry for help to Bryn. “I haven’t given you even a moment’s encouragement to think that I’m interested in that sort of relationship with you.”
“You accepted all my gifts to you.”
“I thought they were from someone else!”
Justin’s eyes narrowed. “Pendragon?”
“No—” She broke off as she saw from the dangerous glitter in Justin’s eyes that she was only making this situation worse. If that was even possible. “I threw them all out. The roses. The underwear and clamps.” She gave a shudder of revulsion for those jeweled torture devices.
“Then I’ll have to buy you some more.”
“Justin, please. This is utter madness—”
“Put the bra and thong on. Now.” His face was twisted with anger.
Tegan’s chin rose defiantly. “I won’t, and nothing you do can make me do it either.”
He shrugged. “Not even if I threaten Pendragon?”
Her laugh was purely involuntary. It was ludicrous to think Justin could ever threaten Bryn and get away with it. “Good luck with that.”
“I believe he and his brothers run a security company?” Justin’s gaze became calculating. “A few words in the right ears, and I could ruin them.”
Tegan found it disturbing that Justin knew so much about Bryn and his family. It was an indication Justin had done some investigation into Bryn after the two men first met.
She felt a streak of fear run through her at the thought of Justin digging any deeper into the history of the Pendragon family. Of his perhaps discovering the Pendragon brothers had been alive for centuries rather than decades.
“Bryn will kill you if you do anything to me,” she said with certainty. “And then he’ll hide the body where no one can find it.” She believed that was true too. She knew from Chloe’s books that no one threatened a Pendragon mate and got away with it.
“So dramatic,” Justin taunted, a leer on his face. “He won’t dare do anything to me,” he added confidently. “Not unless he wants your photograph and sluttish behavior smeared across the front page of every tabloid in the world.”
“I am not a—” Tegan broke off with a gasp as Justin, obviously tired of waiting for her compliance, gripped the sides of her blouse and ripped it apart, baring her bra-covered breasts and sending buttons flying across the room.
“You should have listened to Tegan’s warning,” a dangerously low voice chastened softly before Bryn stepped into the room from the balcony. “Before, I might have let you live, albeit minus a part of your anatomy.” Eyes as cold as ice raked over the other man mercilessly. “But now you have dared touch my mate, I have no choice but to kill you.”
Chapter 15
“Bryn!” Tegan held the two sides of her blouse over her breasts as she ran to him and buried her face against the hardness of his chest. “Thank God you’re here. Thank God!” She shuddered in reaction to knowing she would be safe with Bryn.
“How did you get in here?” Justin glanced incredulously at the open doorway onto the balcony.
“The how isn’t important.” Bryn’s chest rumbled beneath Tegan’s ear. “Only that I’m here now.” His arms closed firmly about her.
“Tegan came to my suite willingly,” the older man challenged. “She begged me to fuck her—”
“You lying bastard!” She turned to glare at Justin. He was so arrogant and sure of himself, he obviously had no idea how much danger he was in. “He forced me to come here, Bryn. You know—you know I don’t, I can’t want anyone but you.” She looked up at him pleadingly. “He’s also the one who’s been sending me those gifts,” she added disgustedly.
“You love everything I give you—”
“You really want to stop talking now, Justin.” Tegan could hear the growl building in Bryn’s chest and feel the tips of his talons where his hands were pressed against her back. “Or you will die.”
“Stop being so damned melodramatic, Tegan,” Justin scoffed before looking at Bryn. “Do you have any idea who I am? How powerful I am? The damage I could do to both of you, businesswise?” He frowned as Bryn’s growl became audible. “What the hell is that?”
“That’s who I am,” Bryn bit out abruptly. “As is this.” He put Tegan firmly away from him as he allowed his talons to fully appear.
“What the fuck?” Justin Hawke’s face paled as he stared at those long, razor-sharp talons at the end of Bryn’s fingers.
“Go and wait on the balcony for me,” Bryn instructed Tegan without taking his eyes off the other man. “While I deal with the scum who dared to touch my mate.”
She placed a restraining hand on his arm. “Bryn, I know he deserves it, but you…you can’t kill him.”
A nerve pulsed in Bryn’s tightly clenched jaw. “He touched you. Intended to violate you.”
Bryn was only just managing to keep his dragon from taking over this situation and ripping the other man to shreds. Not that Bryn didn’t have the same intention, but he would prefer to do it as himself, not dragon. The other man deserved to die for daring to so much as touch Tegan, let alone thinking he could take Bryn’s mate for himself.
Bryn had left the hotel suite for only half an hour or so, having persuaded his brothers to both return to Wales. He knew Tegan wasn’t comfortable having them here. Bryn had Dylan instruct him on how to administer the mating antidote on Tegan and the contraceptive on himself, before insisting his two brothers depart.
Returning to their rooms to find Tegan had left without him had infuriated him. So much so that for a few minutes, Bryn hadn’t detected the other familiar scent in the suite. Almost at the same time he’d placed that scent as belonging to Justin Hawke, Bryn had sensed Tegan distress, a calling out to him that wasn’t quite audible but was there nonetheless. After that, it had been easy to follow their scent and locate the two of them in another suite farther down the hallway. Rather than break the door down and bring attention to the situation, Bryn had instead returned to their suite, shifted to dragon, and flown from their balcony to the one into Hawke’s suite.
He’d heard only a little of the conversation betwe
en Hawke and Tegan, but it had warmed Bryn to hear her confidence in his ability to protect her. But the moment Hawke ripped her blouse, Bryn had stepped angrily inside the room.
“Who— What the fuck are you?” Justin Hawke appeared unable to take his gaze off Bryn’s lethal black talons.
His grin was completely lacking in humor. “Think of your worst nightmare and then times it by a hundred. Or possibly a thousand,” he added with cold satisfaction as Hawke’s face became even paler.
The other man’s terrified gaze moved to Tegan. “What is he?”
Her lips tilted in a half smile. “Did you bother to read any of Chloe’s books?”
Hawke’s eyes widened so that the white showed all the way around the iris. “A dragon shifter?”
Tegan’s smile widened. “Yes.”
“I— But— They aren’t real!”
“That’s what I thought too,” she replied dismissively. “But see how wrong we both were,” she added with satisfaction as Bryn’s body shimmered into a half shift. His features were now not completely dragon or man, but caught somewhere in between.
Hawke’s face took on a gray caste. “You can’t leave me alone with him. This,” he added with uncertainty for what he was truly looking at.
“Of course I can,” Tegan snapped. “You’re a disgusting human being. I very much doubt this is the first time you’ve done this, so that also means you’re someone who blackmails and forces female members of his staff into performing degrading sexual acts.”
The publisher looked at Bryn in appeal. “I never laid a finger on her.”
Bryn shifted back to being completely man except for the threat of his talons. His dragon absolutely refused to allow him to retract those. “Ripping her blouse isn’t touching her?” he came back mildly, his eyes narrowing as he saw the red imprint of fingers on Tegan’s neck. “And you’ve had your hand about her throat,” he growled harshly.
“She likes it rough,” the older man blustered. “She really likes it when I use this on her.” He held up the black leather whip he still held.
“Justin, just stop,” Tegan pleaded. “You’re only making the situation worse.”
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