Descent

by Natasha Knight

  I lick my lips and open my mouth and he guides himself into me. He closes his eyes and lets out a long moan and I’m wet hearing him, seeing him like this. I taste him, taste his salty, masculine taste as he glides into my mouth and out and in and out until he pulls me off and draws me back up to kiss me again and I wonder if he can taste himself on my lips.

  He pushes me backward on the bed tearing the flimsy lace of my panties as he hurries to rid me of them and a moment later, he’s between my legs and he’s pushing into me with a grunt. His hands are on the bed on either side of my head and his eyes are intense and dark and this is more than sex. The way he’s looking at me, it’s so much more.

  “I know what I heard.” He thrusts hard as if he’ll fuck the truth out of me.

  I bite my lip, taste blood as I wrap my hands around his biceps, loving his strength, his power.

  “What is it?” he asks, thrusting again. “What did he do?”

  “Nothing. There’s nothing.”

  His next thrust forces the breath from my lungs.

  “You’re lying to me.”

  “I’m not.” I shake my head, find it hard to focus as I try to pull him to me.

  He studies me, and I know he doesn’t believe me, but he changes course. “You’re mine, not his, not anyone’s, you understand that?” he asks as he takes my wrists and leans over me, forcing my legs wider, stretching my arms across the bed. “Do you understand?” He stresses each word with a thrust that hurts and feels so good at once.

  I nod. I try to. I’m breathless. I need to come. I need to come with him.

  He grips my hair and tugs. His eyes have gone black.

  “Mine. Say it.”

  “You’re hurting—”

  “Say it!”

  “Yours.”

  He moans and I feel him thickening inside me.

  “Yours,” I repeat, gripping his shoulders to brace myself for this final phase of fucking. Of his claiming. His staining me.

  “Mine. Only mine.”

  I nod, I’m close. I’m so close. He said once he was giving me what I always wanted, and he was right. This is what I’ve always wanted. Even if this thing, whatever it is, has the power to destroy us both.

  “Say it again,” he commands, thrusts coming shorter, faster, more frantic.

  “Yours. Only ever yours,” I manage as an orgasm shatters my world and all I feel is him, all I see is the blur of him, and all I hear is the curse he mutters as he throbs inside me, coming, coming, filling me up and he’s more beast than man, I think, and we’re coming together and so close, so close and only when the orgasm begins to fade do I realize I’m still muttering those words.

  Telling him I’m his. Only his. Only ever his.

  22

  Hayden

  She sleeps again after. She just closes her eyes and falls asleep like it’s the most natural thing to be in my bed.

  Or maybe that’s the blow to her head, asshole.

  My phone buzzes on the nightstand. I move without disturbing her and pick it up to see it’s Ares. I click into the message.

  Ares: I’m downstairs.

  Me: To what do I owe this honor?

  Ares: Benedetti called me before I had a chance to call him. He heard control of Abbot Enterprises has changed hands. He’ll be at the club within the hour.

  Me: Doesn’t waste any time.

  Ares: Anxious to get your joint project going again, I guess. Get your ass out of bed.

  I glance at Persephone who is still sleeping soundly.

  Me: Be right down.

  I set the phone down and extricate my arm from beneath her head. She mutters something and rolls onto her side but is quiet again and as much as I’d like to stay here with her, I force myself to go into the bathroom to shower.

  When I walk back out of the bathroom ten minutes later, she’s sitting up on the bed looking soft from sleep.

  “You should go back to sleep,” I tell her.

  She holds up my phone. “You got a text.”

  I take it from her, read the message that’s still on the locked screen.

  Ares: Correction. Benedetti will be here in thirty minutes.

  “I don’t appreciate you snooping.”

  “I wasn’t snooping. It woke me up and I thought it was mine. I grabbed it out of habit. Why is Benedetti coming here? And by here I assume Ares means the club?”

  “Business. How’s your head?”

  “Fine. What do you mean business? What business?”

  I cup the back of her head, feeling the bump. I don’t miss her wince and guilt twists my gut. “Lie back down, Persephone. Get some more sleep.”

  I walk past her to the closet.

  She’s behind me a moment later pulling her arms through last night’s discarded tuxedo shirt.

  I look her over and my dick’s hard looking at her like this, naked but for my shirt which is about ten sizes too big for her.

  “You’re going to make me late,” I say with a grin, letting my towel drop, curling a hand around her waist.

  She looks down at my erection then up at me. “You’re trying to distract me.”

  “Maybe I am.” I kiss her, slide my hand between her legs. “Sore?”

  “Stop.” She tries to turn her head, to push my hand away.

  “Because I’ll need to fuck you again when I’m back.”

  “We need to talk about Benedetti.”

  “Later. Get back into bed and wait for me. Call down for breakfast. Dr. Allen should be here soon to check on you.” I turn to get dressed.

  “I’m not getting back into bed. I want to know what he wants. You said he’s with the mafia. What business do you have with the mafia?”

  “Your father’s business.” I button up my slacks, tuck my phone into my pocket and pull on a clean shirt as I turn back to her. “And he’s not with the mafia. He is the mafia.”

  “Well, Abbot Enterprises won’t have anything to do with him. I need my clothes.” She looks around my closet like her things might be here.

  “No, you don’t,” I tell her, taking her by the arm and walking her into the bedroom. “Get back into bed. You won’t be going anywhere near Benedetti.”

  “I’m not kidding,” she says, turning to face me again. “My father wouldn’t want to deal with him.”

  “Your father was already dealing with him. There was a contract and you saw the financials yourself.”

  “I need to know why he would. If he was blackmailing him—”

  “Sweetheart.” I take her face in my hands. “This is the fucking mafia we’re talking about. Do you think Dominic Benedetti is just going to tell you if he was blackmailing your father? Do you think he’s going to tell you anything about his business at all?”

  “Dad wouldn’t deal with the mob.”

  “Let me take care of this. Take care of you.”

  “Whatever you think, he wasn’t corrupt.”

  I feel that familiar burning in my gut at her proclamation. “I’ve told you before, you didn’t know your father as well as you think you did.” I pull the covers back and gesture for her to get into the bed.

  “Stop talking about him in the past tense.”

  I take a long breath in. “Be reasonable, Persephone—”

  “And this isn’t something you can decide. It’s my family’s name—”

  “My patience is wearing thin.”

  “My father’s company,” she continues like she hasn’t heard me. “I can’t let you—”

  “I control Abbot Enterprises. The only reason it’s still called Abbot Enterprises is because you asked me not to change the name.”

  “Don’t do me any favors.”

  I bite back my response. “Bed, Persephone.”

  “No, Hades.”

  “Don’t push me.”

  “I have every right to be there.”

  “And I’m telling you you’re not going to be. Period. Get in the fucking bed. You hit your head hard last night.”

 
“And whose fault is that?”

  I stop, grit my teeth. Her words are like a slap to my face. She’s right, though. The fault was mine. All mine.

  She spins on her heel. “Where are my clothes?”

  I follow her, take her arm because we’re not done. “You’re not thinking clearly. I’ll make sure you get some clothes, but right now, I need you to do as you’re told.”

  Her eyebrows rise high on her forehead and she glances down at where I’m holding her. “You need me to do as I’m told?”

  Fuck.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket.

  “Just get in the fucking bed. I need to go.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Fuck me? All right, that’s about enough.” I lift her and set her on the bed. She tries instantly to slip away, but I hold her against the headboard and bring my face to hers. “I’m not letting you near Benedetti. No fucking way. You’re staying here and that’s final.”

  She has both hands around my arm and is trying to push me off.

  Keeping her against the headboard, I open the nightstand drawer and take out a set of handcuffs.

  “This isn’t exactly how I would normally use these,” I start, cuffing one of her wrists. “But you leave me no choice.”

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  She watches, fighting against me as I cuff her to the bed.

  “You can’t do this!”

  I put the key to unlock them into my pocket and straighten. “I just did, sweetheart.”

  She slips off the bed, tugging at her wrist and before I can walk away, she brings her free hand to my face, digging her nails into my cheek.

  “Take this thing off, you bastard!”

  “Christ.” I catch her wrist and pull her hand away, but not before she’s broken skin. “You want me to get rough? Is that it?”

  “I want you to let me go! I have every right to be at that meeting and you know it. I won’t let you destroy our business. Our name.”

  “If you’d just listen, you’d know I’m only protecting you.”

  “Maybe the one I need protecting from is you!”

  My phone rings this time. I have no doubt it’s Ares wondering where the hell I am. I’m about to reach into my pocket to grab it when, in that moment of distraction, Persephone’s free hand wraps around my neck and she rams her knee up into my balls.

  “Fuck!” I double over as an almost electric pain shoots through me.

  Shock registers on her face and with a gasp, she scoots backward on the bed, says something but I don’t hear her and when I look at her again, her eyes have gone huge as she waits for my reaction.

  I swallow back the pain, straighten to my full height. Move in on her as she backs as far as she can from me, plastering herself to the headboard. I splay the flat of my hand across her chest, seeing how it spans almost the whole of it.

  Her hand closes over my forearm and I ease my thumb and forefinger away from her throat.

  “You’ll answer for that,” I say, my voice low and deep. I ignore my phone which is ringing again. Ares needs to calm the fuck down. “We’re not playing a fucking game here. You are so far out of your league you don’t even see playing field. We’re doing this my way. Hell, we’re doing everything my way. You signed a contract. Two in fact. I own you. Get clear on that. Get clear fast.” I turn to walk away.

  “And if I don’t give you what you want, you’ll take it by force whether it’s the company or me? Is that what you mean?”

  I stop dead in my tracks, the words, their implication, the accusation in her tone, this second time she’s made it, hitting me like a brick.

  “Isn’t that what you’re doing?” she adds.

  I turn back to face her. “Are you finished?”

  “Look at me. I’m cuffed to your bed. You’re stronger than me. Might makes right, isn’t that the saying? Isn’t that what men like you believe?”

  “Men like me?” I almost laugh but it’s an ugly thing because her words cut sharp. “If you knew what your own father was capable of—” I cut myself off, shake my head.

  “You don’t know anything about my father! Look at us. Look at me.” She makes a point of trying to lift her cuffed wrist. “You’re no different than Jonas!”

  Something in my expression must change because she winces, staring back at me like she’s wondering what the fuck she just said.

  “Is that what he did? Force you?”

  She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t even breathe.

  My phone rings. I need to go.

  “We’ll continue this discussion when I’m back but just so we’re clear, I do not force women. In fact, all I’ve done is try to take care of you since I’ve been back. You’ll stay here. You’ll eat breakfast. You’ll wait for me. You will not leave this room, understood?”

  “I’m cuffed to the bed so yeah, I understand. Asshole.”

  I walk out of the bedroom and through the living room into my office. I take a moment to go into the bathroom there and splash water on my face because what the fuck just happened? I look up at my reflection, see the little crescent shapes where her fingernails broke skin.

  I think about everything, I think about why I’m doing this. Why she’s here now. I think about last night, what I overheard Jonas ask her. I think about her comment. I think about my stepbrother with his hands on her.

  And I think about paying him a visit.

  Because I want to know exactly what it is he’s afraid she told me.

  23

  Hayden

  I step off the elevator to find Peter anxiously waiting for me. I notice the bead of sweat on his forehead as I greet him, taking in the members already seated and having breakfast at tables in the restaurant.

  His eyes grow wide when he sees the damage on my face.

  “It’s nothing,” I say before he can say anything. “Where are they?”

  “Your brother and,” he clears his throat, “his guest are in the boardroom.” He’s clearly very uncomfortable.

  “What time did his guest arrive?”

  “About ten minutes ago. His wife is with him. And there are quite a few men.” Again, he clears his throat and signals to the two standing by the entrance of the restaurant.

  “Relax, Peter.” I reach into my pocket and take out the key to the cuffs. I hold them out for Peter. “In about twenty minutes, get breakfast sent up to Persephone. She’s cuffed to the bed so she may be…upset. Uncuff her. See what clothes she wants sent over and get someone out to her house to get them but she’s not to leave my rooms.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In fact, keep her shoes down here just in case she gets any ideas.”

  He nods.

  “Coffee’s been sent into the meeting?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  I walk to the boardroom doors, nod to Benedetti’s man standing just outside it.

  He reaches to open the door for me, and I step inside, meeting my brother’s gaze across the room. No one is seated yet.

  Ares has his hands in his pockets, his suit jacket open, watching the scene before him.

  Three more men, Benedetti soldiers I presume, stand along the perimeter of the room, one of them looking me over before shifting his gaze away.

  I recognize Dominic Benedetti from the papers. He’s bigger in person though, every bit head of the family.

  He’s standing in the middle of the room talking to the woman, his wife, I guess, who has her back to me.

  When I walk in, he lifts his gaze momentarily from her to me before wrapping a possessive hand around the back of her neck and turning her toward the door.

  I see the bump then. She’s pregnant. Maybe four or five months along.

  He whispers something to her, and she nods, looks up to meet my gaze but doesn’t smile.

  She’s striking and the two of them together are interesting to see. I think this may be a side of Dominic Benedetti not many witness.

  “I�
��m not scared of that man,” she says loud enough for me to hear.

  “I know you’re not,” Dominic says. “But you will keep the extra guards, Gia. You try to send them away again and we have a problem.”

  She exhales, purses her lips. “You know I can handle myself.”

  “No one is questioning that,” he says, and when he splays his hand over her softly rounded belly, I shift my gaze away, the moment a very private one. “I won’t take a chance with either of you. This isn’t up for discussion.” He straightens, nods to one of his men who steps forward.

  “Mrs. Benedetti,” the guard says, gesturing to the door.

  She glances at me again and I get a feeling she can handle herself just fine. She turns back to her husband and brushes something off his shoulder before touching his cheek.

  She leans in to whisper something I don’t hear. Whatever it is has him smiling. A moment later, she’s gone with the soldier and Benedetti turns to me, then looks at Ares, then back at me.

  “Hayden Montgomery,” he says, extending his hand. “Ares didn’t tell me you were identical twins. Good to meet you.”

  I shake his hand. “Good to meet you. Let’s sit down.”

  I take my place at the head of the oval table. Ares and Dominic sit on either side. Two soldiers remain in the room and we wait to begin until the server has poured coffee and left.

  I notice Dominic looking at the scratches on my face, but he doesn’t comment.

  “I hear you’ve taken control of Abbot Enterprises.”

  I nod. “News travels fast.”

  “I don’t want to waste time, especially after Abbot’s accident. Are you aware of the contract between Abbot and myself?”

  “You were helping to fund the newest hotel Abbot was building in the city.”

  “Not helping to fund. All financing was and is provided by me. Abbot didn’t have the resources to build at the time we came to the agreement.”

  “He needed money and you needed permits.”

  He smiles but it’s a wholly different smile than the one he showed his wife. “The end result will profit both Abbot Enterprises and me.”