Wrecked: A Novel (Charming Knights Book 1)

by Shana Vanterpool

  She pointed threateningly at me. “I can’t love you, Wreck. Don’t you dare make me love you.”

  When I didn’t say anything, she hugged herself and shook her head. “My father will take you from me. Does yours know?” she guessed, starting to piece things together. “Does he?”

  I swallowed hard.

  Her face fell. She was starting to see something. We weren’t in separate cages. We were in the same one.

  “Has he used me as a weapon your entire life?”

  I licked my lips.

  She covered her mouth with her hand as crystal tears fell down her cheeks. Even her tears were beautiful.

  “This is sick. This is…” Unable to finish, she sank to her bed, her robe falling across her shoulders. I watched her grow up, watched her become tall and gorgeous. Unattainable to all but me. She looked like a woman suddenly, as if the truth aged her. And I knew it shouldn’t, but it turned me on to the point of pain. She was somehow sexier. Mature. She finally understood what it felt like for me these eighteen years. “I can’t even look at you right now. I feel so bad. So stupid and blind. I had no idea.”

  Walls were my other shield.

  My phone vibrated.

  “You should dress warm for tonight.” When she opened her mouth, her denial in her eyes, I glared down at her. “Go dress.”

  “I’m not really in the mood anymore, Cage.”

  Great. I was Cage now. The worst part was, in her sweet soft voice, it didn’t sound so heartbreaking. It sounded like… me.

  In her closet, I stared at the rows and endless rows of clothes and shoes. The woman loved her shoes. It was one gift she had no problem wearing. “Come here, Hallie.” When I felt her behind me, I glanced over my shoulder. “Saint Laurent, distressed…” I snapped my fingers, trying to remember the color.

  “Soft gray,” she offered. “Top shelf with the other light denim. Second cubby.”

  I found them. With the tags still on. I closed my eyes against the rage. “You still fit them?”

  “Let’s try them on.”

  “Do you have any idea what I had to go through to get these fitted for you? They don’t even come in your weird fucking size. There’s no such thing as 3.5, Hallie.” I tossed them at her. “Eat a burger and save me the trouble next time.”

  She caught them, glaring at me as she slipped them on under her robe. She moved the cloth aside to show me as she zipped them and after a minor struggle, buckled them. “Why’d you buy them?”

  “Because you have a phenomenal ass and I was sick of those disgusting atrocious khaki pants you wore all the time.”

  She gasped, shooting daggers at me. “Wreck! You’re the one who got rid of them? I loved those pants. I was so mad at Illa. I swore she lost them.”

  “I donated them.” I turned to her shirts. “Satin camisole. The color of merlot?”

  “You think my ass is phenomenal?” She turned around to show it to me in her jeans, and just like I suspected, they hugged her every single curve and molded her glorious ass. I wanted to sink to my knees and worship it. Bite it. Dig my nails into it again as she rode my cock. She looked over her shoulder and met my eyes, her own filling with a glint of mischief. She moved her hands over her plump cheeks, giving herself a little spank. I grabbed hold of the shelf closest me and gripped, the wood splintering. “What else do you like?”

  What the hell. “Your legs. I’d give up both my nuts to have them wrapped around my waist.”

  She bit into her bottom lip. “Please don’t.”

  I smirked. “Bend over at the waist. Slow,” I coached, as her ass stretched over. I walked over and grabbed her hips, urging my groin tightly against her ass. “Grab your ankles.” Her ass urged even closer to my aching cock. I palmed her, dragging my thumb over her seam. “Ask me what else I like about you, Hallie.”

  “I’m afraid to.” She rose just enough to bend her head to catch my gaze.

  Hers looked like the galaxy was filled with lust and stars. Blazing with endless depth and life. I waited. She was the one with no self-control here.

  “What else do you like about me, Cage?”

  I grabbed her upper arm and lifted her, spinning her so she was facing me. I grabbed her face and held it in my hands, scraping my thumb’s over her red cheeks. “Your eyes. They’re an illusion. They look like the sky at night. They can make even the strongest man believe he’s free.”

  “What else?” her full pink lips whispered.

  “Your tits.”

  The lust in her eyes made room for confusion. “My tits? Really? Mom wanted me to get a boob job last summer.”

  “Your mother is an empty vapid idiot. Take your robe off.”

  I loved how confident she was around me. Unafraid to bare herself, to show me her secrets. Like everything she did, it was a turn on. She untied the cloth and let it fall, only in her jeans. I stepped back and studied her intently. Her torso was long, flat, with the sexiest hint of definition in her abdominal muscles. Just enough to make her softness hard. Her tits were perky, petite. Small wasn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes small was the best thing. Her nipples hardened under my stare, dark pink like her areolas. I wanted to swallow both of them at once. Her ribs expanded faster, and her heavy breathing filled the space between us.

  Her back arched ever so slightly.

  “Your tits are God’s handiwork.” She wouldn’t ever get a boob job. I’d kill any doctor she ever went to see. “They’re flawless, Hallie.” I moved to grab them both in my hands. They nestled in my hold, her puckered nipples pressing into my palms. I squeezed, feeling her muscles tighten and coil. “Your voice. When I hear it, I listen. Your smile, your hands, your teeth, your feet, your toes, your fingers—your everything is phenomenal.”

  She attacked me. One second, she was staring at me, her eyes glistening again, her lips parted. And the next, her lips were on mine and she was wrapped around my body, sending me crashing into her shoe rack. I smiled against her savage kiss as her heels tumbled to the ground around us. She pushed my shirt off my shoulders, ripping at the buttons half-way. At the same time, her free hand was in my hair, pulling at handfuls. Her tongue prodded mine, her taste like destruction. Painful, terrifying, and divine.

  In my pocket, my phone vibrated again.

  “Take me,” she pleaded, rubbing against me like she knew she wasn’t the only one seconds from exploding.

  “Ahem.”

  We both paused, tongues half inside of the other, to whirl our heads to the door. Ben Goodford stood there, arms crossed over his chest, frosty blue eyes glinting with dark amusement.

  “Dad!” She hid her body against mine. “Can we have some freaking privacy?”

  “I’ll be in your room.” He closed the closet door and stepped out.

  We looked at each other. “Most dads would kill me right now.”

  “Yeah right. Mine’s in hog heaven. Let me down.” She shoved at my chest and I released her, watching her grab up her robe. She was flustered, tripping and pushing her now messy hair back from her face. “Stay in here. You hear me?”

  I put my hands up in surrender.

  The moment she was gone, I plunged my hand in my pants and moved my hard dick around before it blew apart from the pressure. I needed to cum. Fast. Or tonight would be like it was two seconds ago. Tits and tongue. Hands and grabbing. There were so many dark places to hide out in on Sparrow Cliff. I grabbed a pair of her black and red Pumas and her deep red satin camisole from the hanger, exiting her closet.

  She glared at me as I sauntered into the room as she spoke to her father.

  “Evening, Cage,” her father said as I laid out her outfit on the bed. “You two going out?”

  “What’s up, Mr. Goodford?” I made my tone light, easygoing. “I probably won’t have her home until tomorrow morning. You okay with that?” I gave him a look when she wasn’t looking. He gave me a small nod before speaking out loud.

  “Have fun. I’m flying out to New York. I’ll be back on Mon
day. There was a breach in the Upper Eastside branch. I just wanted to let Hallie know that I hadn’t heard anything new with you two. Looks like I jumped the gun.” He bent to whisper into her ear as he kissed her cheek. Her face was stiff, but she nodded unwillingly. “You kids have fun.”

  “What did he say to you?” I asked once he left.

  “He’s depositing 10,000 in Illa’s account tonight. 15,000 when he gets back if I earn it. What should we do? Have sex in the middle of Charmant Square?”

  “Might hurt. The stone gets hot in the sun.”

  She laughed sadly, shaking her head and putting her camisole on. “Shut up.” She looked tempting in it. Shirt pulsing deep red. Lips still flushed from our kiss. “I feel like a prostitute.”

  “And well worth the price.”

  She swatted at me with her shoe, putting it on and then tying them both. “We could always do it standing up.”

  “Nah, too risky. Your balance is shit. Ravine Camp. Middle school. You fell so hard trying to do ballet I heard your ankle snap.”

  She cringed. “Ravine Camp was a glorified daycare in the Georgia woods for us, so our parents didn’t have to pretend to watch us in the summer. I hated it.”

  I didn’t. Two entire months to watch little Hallie Goodford was all eleven-year-old me wanted. My desires had evolved over the years, and were much darker, but there was a time when all I wanted was for her to look my way.

  Now I wanted to bend her over and take her pussy from behind, but hey, evolution and all that shit.

  On our way out, Ben’s luggage was being loaded into a black SUV. I helped Hallie into the Mercedes and pretended not to notice when she opened W’s present. In all honesty, I outdid myself. Picnic pattern, tiny, with a bow across her waist. The thing would graze her ass and make her legs look divine. It was made for her.

  She gasped, holding the skirt out in front of her. “No letter?” She searched through the black tissue paper, her lip jutting out.

  “Why do you want a letter? I bought that one for me.” I winked when she smiled. “It’s probably too nice to wear to school. We’ll go to Paulette’s this weekend.”

  “I love Paulette’s. Their fried green tomato and goat cheese salad and their…”

  As she went on and on about food—I was listening, of course I was—I watched Mr. Goodford’s driver leave with him in the SUV. I took my phone out and texted Storm.

  Me: All clear

  “Thank you, Cage.” She touched my thigh as I drove out of the front gates. Sincerity burned in her throat, and I knew she wasn’t talking about just the skirt.

  “Are you really on birth control?”

  She blinked, clearly displeased by my dismissal. “Yes.”

  “I didn’t know that. Why didn’t I know that? I should know that. How long has it been?”

  She gawked at me. “You know a lot of things you shouldn’t know.”

  Save it. “How long, Hallie?”

  “A year, I guess.”

  My fingers tapped on the steering wheel and my speed increased, eating at the upcoming turn. “What’s the real reason you went on birth control?”

  “I told you, I get really bad cramps and my periods are crazy heavy.”

  “Bullshit.” I didn’t believe her. It felt like something she did, and it would help her cramps. My father kept him from me. Never told me she’d already fallen in love. And I denied it to myself so completely I didn’t actually believe it had happened. That she’d give what was mine to another man. I saw red. Deep, dark red.

  “Slow down,” she ordered, her hand shooting out to hold on to the dash.

  “Who was he?” Even heading toward my own crash and burn, I’d never hurt her. The fact that she was even afraid that I would hurt her—after skydiving in her starry sky since birth—pissed me off more.

  She exhaled raggedly. “Where were you?” she demanded, a sad, bitter edge to her question.

  “What are you talking about?” I growled.

  “Where were you! When I was lonely? When it was just me? For eighteen years? You can’t sit there and accuse me of betraying you, when you did the same thing to me. I could have had a friend, someone who understood, but you let me go through life all by myself. That’s worse than knowing I fell in love with someone else any day.”

  I heard the tears in her voice—I couldn’t look at her right now. “What I felt was too strong for friendship.”

  “The emptiness I felt was too strong to not try and fill it. With someone. Anyone,” she breathed heartbreakingly.

  I slowed down. Only she could make me feel like a piece of shit for doing the right thing for her. We drove in silence. When I turned on the gravel path that wound us up to Sparrow Cliff, visions of caving his face in and wearing his blood for taking something from me I’d yearned for since I was fourteen, danced in my cerebrum.

  In the night, it was hard to see where to go, but I’d driven this road so many times I could do so with my eyes closed. I slowed when I spotted the light of a fire dancing off the rocks and the glare shining from parked cars in the dark. I pulled in behind Rip’s Aston Martin. He wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon. Storm would park behind me when he got here.

  We’d be stuck on Sparrow Cliff all night.

  I stuffed my keys in my pocket, cloaking us in darkness. I felt comfortable at night. Slinking between the lies and picking out the truths I could live with.

  “Can we talk before we get out?”

  “There’s nothing to say, Hals. You gave your virginity to someone else.” I was enraged. I didn’t mean to scream in her face. But I was doing it, and every time she shrunk away from me, I knew I was getting closer and closer to my father. One day I would be him. And my little star would implode, taking my world with it.

  “So did you!” she exploded back, sending her hand flying for my face. I let her slap me. I could have moved. Could have fought.

  “I was forced to give it up. I didn’t want to. I never wanted anyone else other than you, Hallie.” In seconds, my walls came down. “I’d have waited forever for you. But she fucking took my virginity without asking me. It was like she took you too. I couldn’t have you, you didn’t know I existed, and I… I…” I was losing it. I ripped at my hair, sending my fist into my steering wheel. My horn broke the darkness. “I made do. I slept with whoever wanted me. I adapted.”

  “What are you saying?” She touched my arm, braving my monster. “You were, what? Raped?”

  I rolled my eyes bitterly. “My cock got hard. I doubt that’s what happened.”

  “Then what happened? How old were you?”

  “We’re not talking about me!” I exploded. “We’re talking about how you gave it up. Who was it?” I moved toward her cowering body in the front seat. “Who was it? Just tell me. Why won’t anyone tell me!”

  “Wreck, you’re scaring me.”

  “Well, you’re killing me. We’re even. Tell me.”

  “If you don’t back away from me I’m going to slap you again.” She shoved at my chest. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  I snorted derisively. “You don’t give a shit about me, Hallie. Let’s not pretend. You’re in this car so your housekeeper doesn’t have to eat beans for the rest of her life. I’m in this car because you are my life. That’s how it will always be. Always.”

  She screamed through her teeth and did it, sending her hand across my face so hard I embraced the pain. “You will not talk to me like that again, do you hear me, Cage Wreckmond? I may not be aware of this as long as you have been, but I am now, and I will not forfeit my heart just because you already did. And maybe no one told you because your anger is dangerous. Look at how you’re acting right now.”

  My phone vibrated.

  “Tell me who you gave your virginity to.” I stared into the dark around the car.

  “Tell me what happened to yours?” I gave her a curt nod to her question. “I fell in love with Tristan Roth. The groundskeeper’s son.”

  I didn’t und
erstand the sound coming out of my mouth until she looked on the edge of tears. I was laughing caustically, but nothing was funny. “You gave my body to a fucking gardener’s son?” I leaned across the seat and put our faces close together. “It doesn’t matter who it was. I’ll never forgive you. Even though you’re mine now, even when you’re mine ten years from now, I won’t.”

  I wanted to play my card now.

  Crush her.

  But obsession and love were not the same thing. One was stronger, and the other knew it.

  “I came home drunk one night. Mom and Dad were having a frilly little party. Rip and Storm dropped me off. I passed out on my back on my bed. I woke up to find Louanne Emrette sitting on my lap. I didn’t want to sleep with her, Hallie. I wanted to be with you. But she was Louanne Emrette, for shits sake. What fourteen-year-old boy wouldn’t want to ride a MILF like that?” I glared at the darkness bitterly. “She kept shushing me. Said there was no point pretending. She saw the way I looked at her. But that’s bullshit. She wore practically nothing. Everyone looked at her. Why me?” I shrugged. After four years, I accepted that maybe it was simple. I looked, she wanted to show and tell. “She undid my pants. Laughed when I fought. I didn’t know what to do. She put a condom on me and put me inside of her. I hated how good it felt.” I scratched at my jaw, bunching my fist around my steering wheel. “I lasted five seconds. She laughed her ass off on top of me. Told me I was pathetic. I was mortified. Pissed. Enraged. My brain didn’t know if it happened, if I was dreaming, if I made it up, or if I wanted it.” I turned to Hallie. She was sobbing silently in the passenger seat, pity burning in her gleaming eyes. “I got her back.” I grinned at her, but that only seemed to make her cry harder. “Ask me how.”

  “How?” she managed, barely speaking the word.

  “Simple. I told my father what happened. It was the first time in our relationship he did something for me with only me in mind. Although he probably did it to avoid the bad press more. The next day, Louanne Emrette and her husband were indicted for tax evasion. 55 to life in a federal prison without parole. Globe Tonight hung her out to dry. Her assets were seized. Her businesses went under. They’re not worth a dime anymore. When I asked my old man why he took her husband down with her, he said, ‘A husband always knows who his wife is.’ It was the last thing he did for me. But he gave me you, Hallie, and he can take this all away if he wanted. Can I put my walls back up now?”