by Lana Grayson
Except his scarred leg.
His mesh shorts revealed more secrets than any of the tattoos. Scar after scar marred his twitching, lean muscle, and not a single brush of ink touched his pale skin. A thick bruise colored his knee.
Max rarely exposed his leg. Judging by his darkened scowl, I wasn’t a welcomed guest interrupting the morning routine.
“Hi.” I leaned against the doorframe. “Can I join you?”
Max laughed. “You?”
“I’m supposed to lightly exercise to help with the asthma.”
Key word: Supposed. The doctors encouraged it, as though I hadn’t been a co-ed CEO managing funerals and union contracts, depressed mothers and my own kidnapping.
“Arm or leg day, baby?”
“Arms, I guess. Is that what you’re doing?”
The implication insulted him. Off to a good start. Max ignored me, splashing most of his water over his head. The cascading drops teased over the impressively chiseled muscle of his chest.
I took a chance. “I’m sorry about yesterday.”
“It’s fine.”
“Did I hurt you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Liar.”
Too much. His gaze threatened to end more than the conversation. Max didn’t like to be teased. He demanded respect. To get him on my side for this plan, I’d have to earn that respect. “I just thought I should apologize. I didn’t mean to kick you. I panicked.”
“And I said it was fine.”
That was that. He stretched and selected a ridiculously heavy barbell to lift with one hand. He curled his bicep and did two repetitions before the silence slayed me.
“Please, don’t be mad at me.”
The equipment thunked onto the rack with a jarring clang. He patted the powder from his hands.
“You don’t want me to be mad?”
“I need a favor,” I said.
“There it is.”
“No, it isn’t like that.”
Max perked an eyebrow. Maybe it was exactly like that, but I didn’t have time for guilt.
“I’d like you to talk to Nick, to convince him to do something for me.”
He shrugged. “Suck his cock. He’ll do whatever you say.”
Not the plan I had. “I’m need more help than that.”
“Well, I’m not sucking him off.”
“Max, be serious.”
“You don’t understand anything about the Bennetts, do you, baby?”
“Nick respects you.”
Max rubbed his face with a towel and scowled. I stood my ground. I wasn’t brave; I simply faced the one Bennett I could outrun.
“I’m the second-born.” Max towered over me. “Nick doesn’t respect me. He controls me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Always has, always will. It’s the way Dad raised us.”
“But can’t you—”
“Baby, Nick can oppose Dad, but one word from me? He’d rather a dead son than a crippled one.”
I had no way to comfort a man who was worth more to his father dead than alive. We all had our reasons for hating Darius. At least it unified us.
“I have a plan,” I said. “If you promise to help, we can stop Darius. We can save your life and prevent him from—”
“From what?” Max grinned. “Your life is already over, or don’t you get that?”
“And here I thought we were trying to be optimistic.”
“You’ve been kidnapped. We made you drop out of school and every one of your social circles. Nick forced you into a leave of absence from your company. I don’t care what he told you. You will never get the power back, not after you promised Atwood Industries to an unborn, imaginary child.” He paused. “And if by some miracle we knock you up? You really think you can finish college and run a company if you’re nursing some brat?”
I didn’t let him intimidate me. “Then you see why I need your help.”
“Yeah. Life’s a bitch when you have no other options.”
“Stop it, Max. I’m asking as a friend.”
“I’m not your friend.”
“Then I’m asking as your step-sister.”
Now he sneered. “Spread your legs and ask me again, sis.”
“Max—”
“Run along, baby. Go sweet-talk Nick and get Reed to drool over you. You don’t want me involved.”
“Nick won’t listen to Reed. You’re the only one who can get in his head.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m the one who’ll help.”
“It means you’re the only one who can.” I stepped closer. “I know you try to make yourself into some kind of monster, but I’m not afraid of you, Max.”
“You will be, one day.”
“Don’t say that.”
His aggravation faded, but the darkness remained, layering his voice in threat and…something else. Something that prickled me with goosebumps.
Remorse.
“One day…you’re gonna hate me,” he said. “The things I’ve done, the punishments I give?”
“It’s not true. You do it to protect me.”
“One too many lashes, and it’ll happen. I’ll break you.”
The thought broke only my heart. “Max, I trust you.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“I’ll never hate you.”
“Don’t make promises.” He was never gentle, but he tugged on the collar around my neck as though it were a caress to my cheek. “I can apologize for everything, but you’ll eventually realize my words are worthless. You will hate me, and I won’t try to convince you otherwise.”
“What are you talking about?” I didn’t fight as he drew me closer. I lost myself in his unforgiving muscle. “Max, I can handle anything you give. I’m stronger than I look.”
“I’m not going to be the man who tests you.”
“You already have, and I’ve survived it.” I bit my lip. “I’ll prove it.”
“You have nothing to prove.”
“I want to apologize for hurting you,” I said. “Let me earn your forgiveness.”
“Nothing to earn, baby.”
“I’m offering.”
My pulse leapt as Max leaned in, his scent a masculine tang of sweat mixed with leather and spice.
“Don’t tempt me, Sarah.” His words layered in threat and heat. “I’ll only warn you once. If you want to get hurt, I’ll hurt you. Nothing would piss off Nick more than sending you to him with a pussy full of seed and lashes on your back.”
Something primal existed between my step-brothers, a competition I didn’t understand. I belonged to Nicholas, but that didn’t mean Max wouldn’t take his pleasure at the expense of his brother.
He tossed his towel away. Max yanked my dress over my head. I shuddered, suddenly trapped within his clutches. He pulled me to a piece of exercise equipment with too many benches, straps, and weights for me to figure out. He stretched my arms up and wrapped my hands over a support bar built into the equipment for chin-ups.
“You don’t move your hands.”
I arched an eyebrow and released my hold.
Max’s slap struck my breasts. The lacy bra protected me from the harsh strike, which only annoyed him. He wrenched the bra away and tore my panties down.
“Uh-oh.” I returned my hands to the bar.
“I warned you.” He kissed my shoulder only to rock me with a harsh bite. “You’d think a girl in your condition would listen.”
“I don’t have a condition.”
“Not yet.”
“Not ever.”
“We’ll see.” Max bit again. I winced, but he liked that. “Always resented Nick’s orders, but, baby, this is one command I am eager to obey.”
Goose bumps prickled me as the gym’s cool air brushed my flushing skin. He followed the trail over my arms. Max’s hands were seldom gentle, yet I leaned into his grip.
Growing up, I imagined soft kisses and tender touches and all the romance of the books and movies
. I never once hoped I’d be trapped and bound, taken and shared.
And I never thought I’d be at the mercy of my step-brothers and their lust. It wasn’t about following orders or tasting something forbidden.
They all desired the same thing.
To conquer me.
The Velcro wasn’t a good sign. Max strapped my hands to the bar over my head.
“Restraints in a gym?” I whispered.
He shifted behind me. His stare tickled like a caress against my curves. “Wrist wraps, for lifting.”
“Oh.”
“You wandered into a perfect playroom, baby.”
That I did, and I wasn’t sure if I regretted it yet. I squirmed. Max looped my leash over the bar, forcing my chin higher. He admired his work.
“You make a beautiful captive.”
“Do you really consider me a prisoner?”
“You really want an honest answer?” He pressed against me. His hardened cock throbbed, aching for a promised release. “Nick’s not here to save you.”
“I don’t need to be saved.”
“You sure about that?”
Yes. He wouldn’t save me anyway. Nicholas was too obsessed with securing my safety. He’d impregnate me any way he could, even if it meant using his brothers.
Even if it meant breaking me to conquer everyone else.
Max demanded my submission with a sharp spank. But Nicholas?
How could I deny a man who twisted my hatred into passion and healed me with undeniable love? He ruled me, just as he’d rule over the Bennetts, the Atwoods, and all the world if he so chose. And, as a symbol of his control, he gave me to others. A taste, he called it.
Maybe he meant to create an heir to steal my company.
Maybe he thought it was the only way to save me.
But I understood him now. Nicholas offered me because he liked it. He savored the power he held over his brothers—not only in his orders to take me, but in their borrowed indulgences.
Nicholas was proud to pull me from beneath them and return me to his bed under his authority. No matter what they did, his brothers were left with only the memory of my skin against theirs.
And Max played into his hands, either willingly or because he had no other choice.
Not that it mattered when he had a naked woman bound for his entertainment.
Max parted from me to retrieve an item I’d either love or hate. How cruel did he plan to be today?
“Jump rope.” He tucked the wooden handle under my chin. The rope tightened in his fists, the beaded, plastic kind I remembered from when I was a kid. “Hate these things.”
The last time I tangled in jump rope, I fell and chipped a baby tooth. Josiah and Mike thought it was hysterical.
“I’m not a fan either,” I said.
“It’s hard on my leg.” Max positioned behind me. “I do it anyway.”
“Why?”
“Gotta have pain to see improvement.”
That wasn’t it. I knew better.
“You mean, you punish yourself because you’re in pain,” I said.
The rope whistled through the air before it struck, and the dozens of beads connected with my back in a sharp, blinding crack.
I surged forward, but the restraints trapped me. I shrieked. Max loved the sound.
Served me right. I shouldn’t have pried into his head.
But that didn’t mean I’d stop.
“Easy, baby,” Max whispered. “We’re just getting started.”
“I can take it. Can you?”
“I told you not to tempt me.”
“Answer my question,” I said. “All this work, it’s not just exercise.”
The jump rope whipped as unforgiving as any belt. The snap of the beads scared me more than the sting, but I lurched forward as the rope sliced harsh against the tender flesh of my hips.
The bruises that faded would be replaced. My pale skin no longer freckled with the dusting of innocence, but flushed against the constant threat of punishment, humiliation, and sadism.
Max dug his fingers into the welts where the rope kissed. “Why else would I exercise? If you’re calling me vain…you might be right.”
“It’s not vanity.”
“You don’t think I look good?” He fisted my hair. “Baby, you just voluntarily offered your ass to get whipped. Don’t lie. You fucking love how strong I am.”
The lick of the jump rope couldn’t compare to the threat of his hands. Nothing stilled me as effectively as his grip over my neck. I warmed in ways I shouldn’t have warmed, but I stopped trying to understand why every raw sensation blended delight with confusion. Pain was just another form of lust.
I arched just to feel Max’s hardness. “Speak for yourself. You love how helpless I am.”
“What’s not to love? Arms bound. Back welted. Pussy fucking wet as sin.”
He hadn’t touched me, but only because there was no need. I felt the slickness on my thighs.
After my kidnapping, I became an entirely different woman from the little girl struggling to uphold the Atwood name. I was braver than I thought I could be, putting my body on the line to learn the dark secrets that revealed the limits between pleasure and pain, alliances and enemies, life and death.
I liked the new me.
But I didn’t trust how much she was willing to sacrifice.
“You like doing this to me,” I said. “You like causing another pain.”
Max struck me again. Harder. Almost vicious with the intent to earn my squeal. He didn’t scare me.
I twisted against the restraints. “You’re as much a masochist as I am.”
Another blow. Wasn’t enough to stop me.
“You punish yourself with all these exercises. The jump rope. The leg days.”
Max hesitated before the next hit. I thought he’d stop. He only aimed higher, lashing between my shoulder blades. I blinked tears, but the pain dissipated into a thousand shivers that centered too deep and too intense within me.
“You hate your injury, but not because it hurts you. You hate having to prove your worth to your family. You call yourself crippled, because you don’t know what else to be.”
Max swore. The rope beat quicker now. One, two, three painful strikes that instantly welted my back, my shoulders, and down to the curve of my hips. I gritted my teeth, but I didn’t hide it. Not my tears or the quick, searing, aching demand that coiled me in trembling anticipation for something more than unrepentant blows.
It was hard to talk, but he couldn’t silence me.
Even if he tried to.
“You became a monster and adopted the violence. You embraced pain because it was a part of you, and you could use it to make yourself useful to the family.” I tensed for the worst of the whipping. “You’re second-born, Max. That’s what really crippled you. Your injury just brought it to life.”
“I’d be careful if I were you.” I didn’t recognize his voice.
My breathing hitched with pain and adrenaline. “You don’t want to be part of the Bennett family, and you don’t want this life. You don’t want to fuck me. You’re doing it because you have to.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
I screamed over the last strike of the jump rope. It clattered to the ground. Max ripped the restraints off my wrists only to toss me face down over the exercise bench.
“I always want to fuck you, Sarah Atwood. I’ll send you back to Nick’s bed with more than fucking bruises on your skin.”
“You think you’ll get me pregnant?”
“Fucking hell, baby, I wouldn’t deserve it, but I’ll die trying.”
Max shoved my head low on the bench. His shorts tossed away, and the thickness between his legs pushed against my slit, threatening me with the sheer size of his raging cock.
He didn’t prepare me, but the pain he caused was as much an aphrodisiac as Nicholas’s caramel voice or Reed’s loving tongue.
“You’re going to regret every fucking word.�
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His cock impaled me in a single, brutal thrust, far harder than Nicholas ever took me and deeper than Reed had explored.
My whimper didn’t slow him. Max knew he didn’t hurt me. Despite the ropes and bindings, threats and tugged hair, the cock invading my core twisted fear into delight. He split through me, claiming my heat and dragging both us down into a world of shadow, sin, and pain.
I collapsed immediately, his weight crushing me with the forced stroke into my tightness. I shuddered through every frantic thrust of his cock. My breasts ground against the bench, and each slap of our sweat-soaked skin dizzied me with his ferocity.
“You aren’t doing this to protect me,” I gasped. “You’re trying to prove a point.”
“That I can knock you up?” Max arched me so he could seize my breast. He curled his cruel fingers over my nipple and squeezed for my squeal. “Yeah. That’s a pretty good point.”
“No. You’re still proving your worth. You’re not breeding me to save your family. You’ll come inside me so you can save yourself.”
His thrusts quickened, too hard and too fast and forcing my silence in the swelling heat. His grip punished me. He slammed my body against his hips, and every slice of his cock erupted a growing tension within me. The pressure ached more than any of his strikes against my bruised skin.
His hands trembled. I clutched his arms.
“You’re as trapped in this estate as I am, Maxwell Bennett.”
Max roared.
He thrusted as deeply as he could, and we crested together.
Not because we willed it, and not because we wanted it.
I came because I had won.
He came because I understood.
My body rolled in violent shudders, crying out against the surge of warmth flooding my core. Max groaned, thrusting again and again, forcing me through intensity, pleasure, and pain. I collapsed against the bench with a whimper.
Max didn’t rest with me. He didn’t caress me, whisper sexy words, or hold me against his warmth like Nicholas. He ripped from my shaking body and escaped from the truth.
I’d said too much.
He tugged his shorts over his hard, raging, glistening cock. I didn’t move. After a minute, he rested a hand against my shoulder.