Takeover: The Complete Series

by Lana Grayson

Not if I was to confront a man who showed no remorse for his cruelty.

  Max frowned. He tapped his fingers on the flogger. “Apologize.”

  “For what?” Raw anger surged inside me, poisoning me with hatred. “I’m not taking your vitamins. I’m not eating your dinner. And I won’t be spoken to like I’m your…your—”

  “Daughter?” Darius met my gaze. “Sarah, it’s time someone accepted you as their daughter. It’s not as though Mark ever loved you—”

  “Don’t you dare!”

  I lunged over the table. Nicholas caught me before I grabbed the carving knife from the roast. I swore and twisted, beating at his arms. His grip loosened only as a second pair of hands seized me.

  The coiled tribal tattoos were once warning enough. Now it didn’t matter. Max forced me over the edge of the table. I yelled, but the first strike of his hand ached even through the denim.

  No!

  Darius insulted me, terrorized me, humiliated me, and I was the one who got hurt.

  I couldn’t let it happen again. Not while Darius watched. Not while he seasoned his meat and sucked the juices from his finger, grinning as Max pinned my arms behind my back and unhooked the button on my jeans with a casual pop.

  I swore as the denim was yanked down. My panties fell next. The strike against my backside echoed within the dining room.

  “Enough, baby.” Max spoke with words too soft for the monstrous crack against my defenseless body. “Don’t pull this shit at the dinner table.”

  “Let me go!”

  His grip only tightened. Struggling did nothing, and Max positioned to avoid my kicks.

  Another blow. Harsh and cruel. The anger bubbled in my chest. I held my breath if only to will an asthma attack over the crushing defeat of a sob.

  A third strike.

  Max knew how to hurt. I thought I knew how to take it. But that was before—before Darius trivialized his attack, before my step-brothers aided in my shame, before Nicholas refused to help as Max laid me across our dinner, bare and exposed, for his hand to slap in violent punishment.

  Why weren’t they helping?

  Ten terrible spanks crumpled me in tears. Max nodded to his father and passed the butter to Reed as I peeled myself up. I shook Max away as he offered to help with my jeans.

  I handled that defeat on my own.

  “Disruptive child,” Darius sighed. “Take her upstairs and dress her properly for a dinner with her father.”

  Nicholas nodded, taking my elbow. “She’ll return when she’s decided to behave.”

  Darius arched an eyebrow but merely buttered his bread. “Good luck, son.”

  The carving knife rested too far from my hand. Nicholas yanked me from the room before I uttered another profanity. I resisted his hold until he tossed me onto my bed. The door slammed behind us.

  Nicholas loomed over me. “Have you lost your mind?”

  I wasn’t prepared to fight him too, not while the adrenaline surged and Darius’s words echoed in my ears.

  Darius deserved to die. To be hurt. To fear, just as I feared.

  And his sons...

  “You didn’t stop him,” I hissed.

  “No, we didn’t.” He pointed to the door. “I told you to behave. You knew what would happen if you challenged my father.”

  “He insulted me! He threatened me!” My words chopped against my horror. “He gloated about almost raping me!”

  “Sarah, he thinks we’ve raped you too.”

  The fires fueling my rage sputtered and extinguished under Nicholas’s gaze.

  He was right.

  God he was right.

  And in my terror, I nearly exposed us all.

  “Sarah, you have to trust us.”

  Easier said than done—especially with Darius’s crawling words grating my skin and Max’s strikes aching my behind.

  Nicholas hesitated, the gold in his eyes fracturing into a hard amber. “You do trust me, don’t you?”

  “Nick—”

  “Sarah, what happened downstairs had to happen. My father can’t suspect anything. If he learns how I feel about you—”

  “I know.”

  He knelt beside the bed, taking my hand in his. His kisses delighted my fingers, chasing away the pain, frustrations, and fears.

  But not all of them.

  My twisting stomach answered the most important question for me.

  Did I trust Nicholas Bennett?

  No.

  But I had to try.

  “I will protect you,” he whispered. “But what happens in my bed and what has to occur before my father are not one and the same.”

  “I hate him, Nick.”

  It wasn’t what I meant. I did hate Darius, but something far worse controlled me.

  I feared Darius Bennett. Surrendering to that fear would ruin us.

  “If you’re going to survive, if we plan for any of this to work…” Nick’s mocha words caressed me, even in warning. “You have to promise to submit. You have to control yourself…or it isn’t just you who will get hurt.”

  The bite to my anger was lost in a sigh. “I know.”

  “Give him what he demands, Sarah.”

  “What happens when he demands me?”

  “It won’t happen.”

  I picked up the dress, but my fingers twisted in the soft silk. “Darius has always gotten what he wanted when he wanted it. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “Not if you behave.”

  Designer fashion was hardly worth risking my life—or the safety of my step-brothers. I shimmied into the outfit. The pink silk fit perfectly, a delicate and modest design that complimented my petite curves.

  It was the perfect outfit, something any father might have chosen for his young daughter. I shuddered.

  Nicholas breathed the compliment. “Lovely.”

  I reluctantly followed him back to the table, humiliated like an errant child ferried away while she pitched a tantrum. He led me before his father. I swallowed my pride only to choke on it.

  “Sorry.” The apology soured my stomach.

  Darius lowered his fork. He waited, chin raised with an aristocratic dignity that hid his perversion under the guise of silvered hair, a clean-shaven jaw, and perfect suit.

  “Sorry...?” Darius prompted.

  “For my behavior.”

  “Try again.”

  Nicholas squeezed my shoulder.

  I’d forgive myself once the trust gave me control of the Bennett Corporation. It made every sacrifice that much easier.

  “Sorry, Dad.”

  “That’s better.” He smiled, sincere only in its attempt to shame me. “Now you can eat your dinner before it gets cold.”

  I took my seat.

  “Oh, my dear, the dress looks lovely on you.”

  Lovely.

  My stomach twisted as I choked down the vitamins Darius offered.

  Lovely.

  It was the same word Nicholas used to describe me. It meant nothing, but my skin still crawled.

  Nicholas asked me to trust him.

  I’d never survive my captivity if I made the same mistakes twice.

  2

  Nicholas

  “Nicholas, come into my office.”

  Dad sounded mad. What didn’t I do right this time?

  “You’re in trouble.” Max snickered so our tutor wouldn’t hear.

  Reed gurgled behind him, bashing his blocks into the wall. “Trouble!”

  I didn’t make Dad wait. I knocked on the door to his office before entering. Dad had the firecracker I thought I hid centered on his desk.

  Uh-oh.

  “What is this, son?”

  It was supposed to be a prank on the nanny until Max dropped the matches in the pool.

  “I told you these were not allowed in the house,” Dad said. “Unless you’re trying to set the estate, the forest, and half of California on fire, you don’t light firecrackers. And you certainly don’t hide them from me.”

  T
he crop pulled from Dad’s desk. I tensed.

  “Nicholas, I’m your father. You do not keep secrets from me, is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Remember, son,” he said. “You will never be able to hide things from me. I will always know.”

  Her breathless cough woke me in the night.

  Sarah hid the asthma during the day, but, when she slept, her greatest insecurity came to life. She wheezed in her sleep, shifted against me in nightmare, and murmured soft words when my hands brushed her curves.

  Sarah was only honest when she was asleep. Fortunately, I hadn’t asked her for truth, only submission.

  The delicate creature sharing my bed was more fairy than girl. Her hair was pale as corn, her eyes wide and innocent, and her temper quick and punishing. Circumstance trapped her between two worlds. She belonged at home and on the farm and with what remained of her family. Instead, I kept her in my command, between my sheets, and captured within my will.

  If we were all honest, her captivity bound me as much as it restrained her. I loved her, and because of my obsession, I’d never let her go.

  One day, it would ruin me. But until then? Sarah Atwood slept naked in my bed.

  And she was mine.

  I shifted the blankets. Sarah pouted, her lip puffing with sleepy indignation. My pillows swallowed the petite, defenseless girl within the dark sheets and my darker intentions.

  The peak of her breasts tantalized me, but my greatest temptation rested in the crest between her legs. Her bare, silken slit promised softness, warmth, and the greatest pleasure I had ever taken. She had been a virgin only weeks ago. But, under my control, she was teased, ravished, and filled.

  By more men than me.

  If lust heated my blood, then jealousy was the spark that would consume us in flame. A darkness more perverse than obsession demanded either violence or an immediate, animalistic satisfaction. As a Bennett, I waited for neither. As a man in love, I’d offer Sarah my soul, carve out my heart, and spend every cent to my name if it meant keeping her from danger.

  Except I was what endangered her, especially as I forced her in my brothers’ arms to submit, rut, and create an heir.

  I should have wanted to kill my brothers, but Reed prioritized her release, savoring her moans and whimpers. Max mounted her like an animal and broke her with ecstasy. Sarah’s gaze found me with every thrust, every swelling oblivion she rode. They flooded her with seed and protected her by stealing what belonged to me.

  But I needed them. She needed them. Sarah’s life depended on her captivity, her submission.

  Her breeding.

  And the thought that should have sickened me was the very sin that hardened me beyond rational control.

  She stirred as I shifted over her body. I tasted the soft skin between her neck and shoulder. The bite was meant to warn her. Sarah gasped as she woke with a man pressing between her legs.

  Eventually, she would understand what I expected of her. She gripped my shoulders, but she didn’t push me away. I wouldn’t pretend to be noble. I wasn’t the man she deserved, but it was my name she murmured as I slipped inside her soft, slick, desperate folds.

  I’d keep her prisoner, bind her with every rope and chain, and trap her within my arms just to drive the breath from her body with my demanding strokes.

  She was mine.

  As was everything.

  The woman. The estate. The companies.

  Her protection and my deception were one and the same. I thrust inside her, tempting her surrender, tasting her cries, loving how tightly her fingers dug into my skin as I pressed her deeper, harder, faster into the mattress.

  Selfish.

  Monstrous.

  Traitorous.

  Each time I claimed Sarah, I expected her to fight—to twist, cry, flee, and beg. I promised a fate wrought with horror, and I twisted an innocence so pure and lovely she had yet to understand why I controlled her so easily. I took her body as my reward, my sin, and my salvation.

  Her warmth was the promise of Heaven that drew me from hell.

  It was a crime to savor how she accepted my invasion, but she destroyed me as I destroyed her. An absolute beauty haloed her features as my ruthless conquering woke her with ecstasy and rutted her into lustful, gluttonous fantasy.

  Sarah was every warmth, every hope, every comfort denied to me in life. Her arms promised safety. Her body offered perfect acceptance.

  I didn’t deserve to be loved by such perfection, but I would never fucking lose that blessing.

  Nothing in this world meant more to me than the woman trembling under me, murmuring my name, and depending upon me for her safety.

  My claiming flushed us both with heat, and Sarah gasped a quivering breath before clenching completely around me, dazing me with the absolute beauty of the woman beneath me. Her orgasm whispered in a glorious mew, but mine earned her groan. I jetted inside her as deeply as her body accepted without crashing through her.

  It wasn’t enough.

  It’d never be enough.

  Every rapturous moment and erupted heat only demanded more from me. More than I could give, more chances than I could offer, more danger than I could fight.

  I claimed her, bedded her, and filled her, but dread coiled inside me. The bruises on her cheek had hardly faded. The trauma to her body hadn’t healed. I feared nothing I did would prevent the inevitable.

  Infertile.

  Unless she conceived, it’d be impossible to save her without spilling blood.

  But nothing in this world stopped a Bennett before.

  “Morning.” I didn’t pull from her.

  Sarah brushed the straying blonde locks from her face. “Think we’re beyond greetings this morning.”

  “You’re so damn beautiful.”

  “You don’t have to charm me, you already got what you were after.” She arched, pressing me deeper inside her. The heat of our desire melded, and she giggled at the mess. It hardened me more. “Stay with me today?”

  I’d do so many things for this woman, including sharing her perfection and potentially losing the chance to create her heir. But spending the morning locked in her embrace was beyond my power. I was already late.

  “We have a meeting with the board today.” I kissed her before she asked the question. It wasn’t time to instigate the takeover. Not yet. Not until I secured every vote and protected Sarah and my brothers from the inevitable fallout. “I can’t miss it.”

  Sarah shifted. I didn’t let her up.

  “Don’t move.” I pressed against her belly. “I read you’re supposed to lay flat for fifteen minutes.”

  “Did you also read the definition of infertile?”

  “Do this for me.”

  She surrendered, resting her arms over her head. Her chest puffed and the gentle slope of her navel to her hips nearly convinced me to stay between the sheets. I kissed a trail over her neck and pulled from her heat.

  “But I was liking that,” she pouted, snuggling back into the blankets.

  “Good.” I paused. “I’m giving you to Max today.”

  “You’re giving me to Max?”

  Hearing it from her didn’t make it any more palatable. But what choice did I have? Time was against us. Nature was against us. My father expected results. One month without a conception was reasonable, maybe even two, if the websites I studied were accurate. But my father was not a patient man. He prioritized creating the child, but he would kill her if she was close to earning the trust.

  The punishment for losing our chance to seize Atwood Industries would be severe.

  And so I’d give her to Max and Reed. To save their lives. To save her life.

  And to create the life that would end this madness.

  I wanted that heir. Christ, did I want her child to be mine. Only then would Sarah be safe. Only then would she belong to me and me alone.

  Only then could I have my wealth, my companies, and my love combined in to a single, unstoppable empi
re, more powerful and profitable than my father ever dreamed.

  And I’d do it with her.

  For her.

  Even if it meant giving her to my brothers to ensure at least part of that dream became reality.

  I dressed, but she didn’t let me prepare for work in peace.

  “You think you can just give me away?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if I wasn’t feeling Max today?” She bit her lip. “What if I thought Reed should have his way with me?”

  She tested me. What did she expect? Jealousy leeched into my blood, but Sarah at least found comfort in their arms. Her moans. Her shudders. Her trembling orgasms. Her pleasure was the greatest beauty in this world, even if it confused her to cry out for Max and Reed.

  Then again, my reaction was curious as well. A dark possession blinded me, but I hadn’t gone mad. Just the opposite. Everything about Sarah enthralled me, even when I wasn’t the one enjoying her.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “You’ll stay with either Max or Reed today.”

  “And…you want them to fuck me?”

  The command came easier knowing I was the first to take her in the day, and I’d be the last to savor her at night.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you trust them that much?” She asked.

  “I trust you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Should I have reason to doubt you?”

  She flushed. “What if I enjoy it with them?”

  “I hope that you do.”

  “But…” She sighed, staring at the ceiling. “You can’t be okay with this. Nick, I don’t…I’d hate for this to tear us apart.”

  “Where are you sleeping, Sarah?”

  “It’s too early for riddles. I’m in a bed?”

  “In my bed.”

  I leaned over her, capturing her cheek. Her wide-eyes stared up at me, entirely too bright and hopeful for the world in which I damned her.

  “You will sleep every night in my bed. You’ll wake every morning in my arms. Is that clear, Ms. Atwood?” I brushed my thumb over her puffy lip. “They touch you because you are given to them. They fuck you because I order it. And you will receive them because it is what you are meant to do.”

  Sarah didn’t pull away. She never did, even when it was in her best interests.