by Lana Grayson
Tormented me.
“She hasn’t fully recovered.” Nicholas swirled the crimson liquid. “Would it be wise? The strain might prompt another attack.”
“Nonsense.” Darius tossed his napkin onto his plate. “Her only job is to spread her legs. If she fights and becomes ill, she’ll have only herself to blame.”
“She will fight.”
“Then we’ll bind her to the bed.”
My heart thundered.
They wouldn’t dare.
They wouldn’t be so cruel.
Darius slipped from his chair. I didn’t make it away from the table.
His hand snaked through my hair. Reed stood, but Max hissed his name and forced him to sit. I panted in Darius’s clutches. He shook my head, pulling me around with a sadistic satisfaction.
Not a sound emerged from my clenched lips.
“Go upstairs. Bathe. Then wait in bed for your brother.”
That slimy, grating way he said it. He got off on the idea of abusing his step-daughter with the incestuous threat.
But Nicholas wasn’t my brother. He wasn’t my ally. And he would never be my lover.
“You’ll regret this.” My whisper shouted within the dining room. Reed clutched his fists and stared down. Max returned to his roast beef.
Nicholas sipped his wine, unfazed, as though his father had simply prattled on about his day attempting to undermine my family’s corporation.
“Upstairs, my dear,” Darius said. “Quiet now. No sense aggravating your condition.”
I shoved away from Darius.
These men were eager to breed me. Not only would they ruin me forever, they’d steal my child once they were done.
What the hell was I supposed to do? Scream? He was right. That would prompt another attack. Escape was a dream. I’d never outrun them, not while the stairs still winded me and panting long sentences revealed just how weak I was.
“For Christ’s sake, drug her at least,” Reed said.
Darius shook his head. “She deserves this lesson. It will teach her to respect her family.”
I’d never respect them. “No drugs. I plan to remember this torture so I can return it tenfold.”
“Upstairs, child.” Darius twisted his smile into a sneer. “Don’t keep your brother waiting.”
My false confidence burned through me the instant I hid in my bathroom. What flakes of bravado remained charred to cinders in my rage.
I started the shower if only for the comfort of the steam, but I stepped within to bide my time.
Was. This. Worth. It.
I still didn’t know. I had a plan. Dodgy, like everything I tried to do. Risky, but my father told me everything in the world came with risks—capital, market, corporate. No great accomplishment was completely protected and free from failure.
I had one chance to end the Bennetts once and for all.
I rested against the shower door.
At least I wouldn’t die.
They’d hurt me, but I was far too valuable to lose. Still, the dread coiled in my stomach. I heaved with chills despite the swirling steam.
What scared me more: The loss of control…or giving that control to Nicholas?
Nothing more dangerous existed than passion. Passion confused hatred with lust and transformed resistance into submission. I had no defense against Nicholas, not when my own instincts twisted my enemy’s threats into aching promises of pleasure.
I slammed my hand against the shower handle. The water trickled off. I let the air dry me.
The heat didn’t diminish.
Nicholas Bennett waited for me.
I swaddled in a robe and returned to my room. Darius greasy excitement terrified me, as though he already witnessed the crime and relished in every glorious moment of my undoing. My fingers tangled in the robe. I tied the knot tighter. It wouldn’t save me.
“You’ll behave for your brother, won’t you, my dear?” His voice crawled over my skin. I wished I could leap back into the shower just to wash the filth from me. “I don’t expect it to be pleasant, but certainly you understand what’s expected.”
Max and Reed remained silent, poised near the door, preventing my escape.
One step-brother.
I could handle one man.
I could turn off my mind, forget myself, and abandon hope for a short while. I had a purpose for being here. I’d sacrifice my body, my virginity, to protect my family. I’d take one man if it meant defending my father’s legacy.
Darius tugged the restraints from behind the bed.
The fear nearly dropped me to my knees.
Oh, no. No, no, no.
“Nicholas,” he said. “If you would.”
“Wait,” I whispered. “I don’t…”
Nicholas did as his father commanded, and I hated him for it. Hated the hands that pulled me closer to the bed and the melodic voice that ordered me to stay quiet.
I tried again, appealing to Nicholas for any sort of compassion. “No restraints. That’s too humiliating.”
“Which part of this wasn’t humiliating?” Darius laughed. “You’re fortunate we haven’t chained you in the basement, naked and rolling in your own dirt. Instead we give you our home, our food, our beds. You deserve nothing of our treatment.”
Nicholas ignored his father. He loosened the knot on my robe.
The silk fell to the floor.
I would never be used to such exposure.
Darius hummed as he studied me. “If you were mine, I wouldn’t release you from my bed until every inch of your cunt stuffed with my seed. You’d be bred before the night was out.”
My airway threatened to close.
Not now. He’d have no pity on me now.
Nicholas wasn’t Darius, but I still froze as he grabbed my hand. I tugged away, but his fingers dug into my wrist, no doubt testing for the fluttering pulse beating in his grip. He pulled me to the bed. The softness of his words did not disguise the vulgar request.
“On your back, Sarah,” Nicholas said. “You’ll be more comfortable.”
Hardly. I stared at the restraints—the thick bands of leather chained to the bed posts.
“I can’t fight you.” I stared only at the horrifying bindings. “Why are you doing this?”
He pushed me down. “I won’t ask again.”
“Stop bitching!” Darius reached to strike me, but Nicholas prevented the blow. The gold in his eyes hardened to amber. A warning.
Nicholas had never lost his temper. He never threatened, never raised his voice.
Darius beat me, Max intimidated me, and even Reed’s solid muscle daunted me, but the flash of impatience in Nicholas’s poise struck me to my core.
Nicholas was the last person in the world I ever wanted to cross.
But to survive this? I had to deceive him.
I sat on the bed. He took my left wrist and fastened it with the ugly leather straps. His fingers gentled as I looked away. Soft presses. A confusing touch. He didn’t let the restraints cut into my skin.
Yesterday when he touched me, I didn’t need cuffs to degrade myself.
“Reed.” Darius snapped his name. “Restrain her other hand.”
I stiffened. So did Reed.
Darius hadn’t asked Max, the one Bennett most likely to get hard from such cruelty. It was deliberate. Reed wasn’t like his brothers. He took honest care of me when I was recovering, and he did it without Nicholas’s sensual stare or Max’s aggression.
Darius hissed as he repeated the order.
Reed had been kind, so I spared him from his father’s wrath if only to endure it myself.
I extended my hand.
He said nothing, wrapping the leather over my wrist with a cold yank. The cuff dug into my skin. He didn’t fix it.
My breasts exposed, bared and unprotected. I struggled to sit cross-legged.
Darius snorted. He seized my ankles and stretched me flat across the mattress. I bit my whimper as he spread my legs. My slit revealed t
o them, but Nicholas prevented him from restraining my legs. The leather cuffs hardly reached my feet. I was too tiny for their deviant punishment.
My chest betrayed me, puffing with hyperventilated gasps. I stared at the ceiling as Darius petted my knee. His fingers didn’t stop. They grazed up, up, up. I stilled until he scratched a rough hangnail over my thigh. The flinch shoved him away. The slap to my stomach forced a squeal from my lips.
“Sensitive?” He poked my belly, low. Hard. “Not to worry, my dear. The doctor said that was a sign of ovulation.”
I twisted, but he smacked again, this time aiming for my breasts just to watch me squirm. A second and third smack hurt, but then he gripped my nipple, twisting until I shrieked and struggled against the restraints.
“You listen to me, slut,” Darius whispered. “Tonight is the first night of your new life. Starting now, you are nothing more than a whore. A body to fuck and a womb to fill. Get used to a cock shoved in your pussy. You’ll be fucked like the little bitch you are until you swell with a child. Do you understand?”
“Fuck you.”
“Unfortunately.” He released my nipple with a cruel tug. “I’ve made my vows. The privilege of your breeding belongs to your brothers. Serve them well, and we’ll be kind. If you are disobedient, I promise you’ll remain in pain every moment of every day.” Darius’s smile caressed as invasive as any rape. “Continue to fight, and I will fuck you myself.”
I had no reason to doubt him. Nicholas shifted to my side. It was the first time I feared he’d never be close enough.
Whatever bastard mind-games Nicholas played yesterday, whatever part of me he won, whatever slice of my pride he captured for his own—at least he hadn’t hurt me.
Just the opposite. He frightened me. Touched me. Stole my sanity. But Nicholas didn’t bind me to the bed so he could beat me into submission.
Darius tied me down because he liked my pain.
My step-father was a living, breathing embodiment of hell. Whatever strength I reserved for my ordeal wouldn’t be enough to survive anything he would do to me.
I searched for Nicholas. Despite me naked, writhing, and bound to the bed for his pleasure, he didn’t look at me. He tensed, watching his father. The tension crackled against my skin.
Max grunted. “I got better things to do than listen to her scream. Nick can figure it out from here.”
The violence etched into Darius’s expression diminished, though the hardness in his pants threatened me more than any word he uttered.
“My dear, I trust you won’t disturb the entire household?” He joined Reed and Max and laughed as he passed from the room. “You are far too pretty to gag.”
The door closed.
The steps faded.
And I was left to Nicholas’s mercy.
I twisted against the restraints, crossing my legs to hide from him. “Let me go. I swear to God—”
“Shh.” His voice mellowed without the presence of his family. “None of that.”
“Nicholas, this isn’t right. You can’t do this.”
“Didn’t my father just tell you to behave?”
How did he tame me so easily? His hand grazed my thigh, tracing where Darius had touched. The goose bumps were nothing like the curdling blisters of Darius’s appraisal.
A warmth shot through me.
No. Nicholas’s touch was even worse.
“I won’t untie you,” he said. “Don’t ask again.”
“Why?”
He palmed my hip. I should have hated how thoroughly he memorized me. My curves. The dip across my navel. The softness between my legs.
“You’re very beautiful,” he said. “Delicate.”
“I’m uncomfortable.”
“Oh, I can make you very comfortable.”
I shivered, hating that it was a good, fuzzy sensation that parted my lips. “I don’t like your idea of comfort.”
“You liked it last night.”
I had no answer for my behavior. “Once. That’s all.”
“That would be the true crime, Sarah. To watch you come for me only once?”
This wasn’t happening. “What are you going to do?”
“I’ve already told you what I plan.” The suit jacket came off. The first time he had been so undone before me. The black vest beneath tailored fit his frame—just as strong and broad without the benefit of the jacket. I stilled as the button popped open. His white dress shirt tensed against his thick biceps. “You remember, Sarah.”
I tested the restraints. Tight. “I didn’t think you were serious.”
“I won’t ever lie to you.”
That was a comfort, coming from the clothed man prowling around me as I lay restrained, nude and helpless.
His hand tickled, tapping a soft path from my knee along my side. I looked away as the goose bumps teased too close to my breast, tightening the mistreated bud.
“My father is not a gentle man,” Nicholas said. I arched as he cupped my sore breast, claiming the entirety of my flesh in his palm. The heat was soothing, but the relief centered deep inside me, tucked into a core that clenched to life despite the horrors of my treatment. “I won’t hurt you.”
I ignored the fluttering within my belly. “Why?”
“Because you’re going to like this. You’re going to ask for this. You’ll beg for me, and I will please you.”
The top button of his shirt popped open. The second followed, revealing hard skin, smooth with the tautness of firm muscle and masculine power. Nicholas moved quickly, draping the material off his broad shoulders.
A body like his should never have hid within so many layers of clothing.
God, he was strong. He thickened with muscle—not the bulky, intimidating form of Max, but a lean build. Enough to impress, more than enough to frighten, and just the perfect amount to completely dominate, with or without restraints.
So why was he covered in scars? Thin white stripes of memorized pain struck everywhere—his shoulders, chest, back. But they extended no further than what was obscured by his suit.
He had been beaten. Severely. Repeatedly. But not for some years.
No wonder he held himself with such dignified poise and served his father in any capacity the monster demanded. He had no choice.
I exhaled as he lurked before me, standing at my feet and examining all of my body.
“Open your legs,” he whispered. “Don’t hide from me.”
I shook my head.
“I won’t ask twice.”
He’d have to get used to disappointment.
The belt unbuckled with a soft click. I flinched as the leather tugged from his pants. He folded the strip within his hand.
“You said you wouldn’t hurt me.” My voice wavered.
“I said I wouldn’t need to.” He leaned over me, tracing my flushing skin with the teasing lick of the leather. “You won’t misbehave, will you?”
My breathing shuddered, but not from the illness. “What if I do?”
The lash was quick, nothing more than a flick of his wrist. The belt didn’t sting, but I gasped all the same. He chuckled, and the rumbling cadence of his amusement seared through my core.
“I dislike pain,” He said. The belt wove over my skin, tugging as the rough edge dragged across a hardening nipple. “Why fight me? This is an unwinnable battle. You’re restrained. I’m free. You’re naked. I’m in control.” His smile bared his teeth. I craved to feel them sink within my neck once more. “You like that.”
“I don’t.”
“You’ve already submitted to me, Sarah. Denying it to yourself only delays your pleasure.”
“Why are you tormenting me? Just take what you want and leave.”
He leaned closer, the belt bopping under my chin to raise my gaze.
“What I want is your pleasure, Sarah.”
Why did I believe him?
“I want to watch you moan. Beg. Whine.” He tapped the leather against my breast. He didn’t hurt me, though he
was strong enough to flay me without effort. Instead, the leather teased, sending shivers through me head to toe only to center, forcing the sensation between my legs. “I’ll watch you come again and again until you are too weak to resist when I claim you.”
“You’re going to fuck me?”
“Oh, yes. Many times.”
“And you’ll…”
He lashed with a tease over my tummy. Flat and trembling, where his intentions hoped to spill.
“I’ll come inside you.” His voice altered, rasped with an animalistic growl. “You will be mine, Sarah Atwood. My prisoner. My prize. My toy.” He flicked lower, tickling the silky slit I tried to hide with twisting thighs. “My ultimate conquest.”
He tapped with the belt. The soft strike rattled me. Every touch, every vibration cast by the kiss of the leather softened my resistance.
I knew what he was doing.
God, I even knew what he planned.
But I couldn’t stop myself from imagining it, wondering about it…wanting it.
“Spread your legs,” he whispered again. “You won’t be disappointed.”
“I can’t. Don’t make me do this.”
“Then do it willingly.”
His voice dipped as low as the belt. A single smack arched me up. The surprise untensed my body. He had his opening, and the leather struck what I desperately tried to keep secret and safe. The belt hit rough on my clit, and I whimpered against the slick slap that echoed my pleasure within the room.
“Submit, Sarah.” The bed shifted as he settled on the mattress. “Don’t resist me, not when I can offer you so much.”
I swallowed as his hand rested over my belly, drifting lower and lower until his fingers covered the heat radiating from my bare slit. I squeezed my thighs tight, but the tiny crease was no match for his will. The flick of his finger arched my back, and, without realizing just how quickly I lost the second battle with Nicholas Bennett, I spread my legs.
He was on me in an instant. He lowered his body until his hot breath panted over my exposed pussy.
I fought the restraints—too harsh to escape and too frustratingly short to ease the ache he summoned inside me.
“So beautiful,” Nicholas murmured. “I would keep you bound forever—tied up and tucked away, just for me.”
And he’d probably do it too. Nothing stopped a Bennett. Not rules. Not laws. Not common morality. He hovered close to my slit, gazing over my vulnerable, fragile form.