by Jane Henry
His eyes narrow on me.
“Just trying to make small talk,” I mutter. “You don’t have to be so aloof.”
Still, no response. We reach the very end of the hall on the second floor. He opens the door, pushes it in, and drags me inside. My heart beats faster. This was a mistake, I know, and no matter how brave I pretend to be, I’m scared. My pulse races, and my palms are sweaty, slipping in his firm grip.
He slams the door behind him once we’re inside. It’s a small room, with a few bar stools propped up to a bar, an electric kettle and bags of tea besides cups nestled on a wooden tray, and behind that, a living room with huge windows that overlook the sea.
For what this room lacks in size, it makes up for with the view. From here, we can see the waves crashing on the shore, the beautiful cliff beneath wispy white clouds. But I can’t look for long, as he’s tugging me to his room.
I don’t know what I was expecting Nolan McCarthy’s room to look like. But it certainly wasn’t this.
I’ve seen the layout, I know some of what their mansion looks like, but the bedrooms are a mystery to me.
His bedroom’s three times the size of the anteroom. A huge bed dominates the center of the room, with large, sturdy rings anchored on posts. I shiver in fear when he tugs me along. The door to the bathroom’s to the right, and from here I can see a massive circular tub. It’s decorated in creams and browns, not the traditional bachelor pad. But neither the bed nor the bathroom are the focal point here. Along one wall is a large, sliding glass door with the shades pulled wide open. A balcony that overlooks the beautiful, tumultuous sea below. People would pay millions for a view like that. Hell, maybe he has.
“On the bed,” he says, his voice sharp. “Strip. I want you belly down, arse in the air.”
I look at him in shock. I can’t strip. For fuck’s sake, if I strip he’ll see my phone, and that’s the least of my worries.
“Excuse me?”
“On the bed,” he repeats, louder. “Strip. I want you belly down, arse in the air.”
Still holding my hand, he slaps my arse, hard, then points to the bed. “Now.”
“Ah, well, then. Seems someone didn’t get his fix at the club,” I mutter, marching off to the bed.
I won’t let him intimidate me.
I won’t.
I’m not prepared for the clink of metal, or the hiss of leather being pulled through loops. His hand on my lower back, pushing me belly-down on the bed.
I reach a hand back on instinct to stop him, but he easily takes my wrist and pins it to my lower back.
I cringe, knowing what’s coming even while I crave it.
“Do you think this is a joke, doll?” he asks, so placidly you wouldn’t think he was ready to hurt me.
“A joke, well, no,” I begin, when the first line of fire lights up my ass. I hiss and draw in breath when he gives me another sharp lash, then another. My hands on the bed scramble for purchase and I fist the thick navy duvet to brace myself before he strikes me again.
“Then stop playing these games,” he says. “You’re on our property now. You’re prisoner here. You have no way to get out. You can call the police, but they won’t help you here. You can call your friends, but they can’t help you either.” He strikes me again, and I’m starting to feel like maybe I should take him seriously. His belt fucking hurts, and it seems he likes to wield it.
He punctuates his words with a hard, searing slap of leather.
“No. More. Games.”
And then I’m on my back and he’s pinning me down, and I’m dazzled by his scent and power. My wrists are in one of his hands, anchored to the bed above my head, and his mouth is on mine. He yanks the top of my dress down. I’m moaning into his mouth as he tweaks my nipples, and I’m stunned when I feel the hard length of his erection pressed up to my belly. Something should flash warning in my mind, but I live for this, I crave it, and all I feel is the seductive pull of domination.
He kneads my breast and kisses me with such primal possession, I can’t stop him. I feared rape, or something like it, but this is far worse. If he took me against my will, I could fight him. I could tell myself he was wrong, that I hated him. I could do what I’ve grown excellent at doing: wall myself off from all emotions that surround sex. I could fight him.
But this… oh, God. This is something else altogether. It’s like he’s read my fantasies and played them out with perfection, controlling me and forcing my body to respond of its own accord. I’m losing control, and that can’t happen.
My body throbs from the lashes, my pussy aches for pressure, my breasts tingle in his grasp. He stops kissing me and stares at me, panting from the exertion of belting and dominating me.
“Need a breather, then?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I’ll enjoy every minute of breaking you, doll.”
Chapter 5
Nolan
She thinks I don’t see right through her. That I don’t know she’s spied on everything we do, from our work to our home to our personal lives.
She thinks I don’t know that she feigns nonchalance when she’s really not only afraid, but aroused. I’ve got a masochist on my hands, and that spells fucking danger.
Thanks to Carson, I know a little bit about her background. I know she frequents The Craic, and she knows every damn one of us.
The only thing I don’t know about her is why the fuck she’s determined to fuck with us. And that’s exactly what I mean to find out.
In time. I’m going to go enjoy myself in the process.
I slide my hands up her thighs and shove her panties aside. I’m not surprised to find her wet and throbbing. She loves being dominated, maybe even craves it. I’m not sure why, and I’m not sure that matters.
But one thing I do know for sure. If I bring her to climax and pleasure her, she may be more malleable to me than she is now. The more I strip her down and pleasure her, the more she’ll draw closer to me. Rely on me. It’s the only way to control her.
I stroke her pussy until her hips rise to meet me and she’s panting on the cusp of release.
She’s attracted to me, to this.
Fucking dynamite.
“That’s a girl,” I say in her ear. “Move your hips and take it.”
I bend my mouth to her nipple and draw it between my lips, suckling until her mouth parts, and she gasps, while I stroke and fondle her.
“Oh, God,” she pants. I grin, working her faster, until she’s right on the edge. Her eyes roll back in her head and she’s right on the cusp of release when I take my hand away.
She mewls and pants, pushing her torso up for pressure, but I shake my head.
“Do you really think I’d reward you so easily?” I say to her, shaking my head. “After what you did? You’re a naughty little kitten, aren’t you?”
She pushes her wrists against my hands and glares at me, but I shake my head like a stern professor giving a lecture.
“Now, then, Sheena. Behave yourself and give me answers, and I might grant you pleasure. But you see, doll, I don’t take too kindly to being manipulated or used, so no reward until you’ve been suitably punished, see?”
“Fuck you,” she says, glaring at me.
“Ah, now, we’ll have none of that.” I roll her to her side and give her arse a good, hard slap. “Now, you’ll do as you’re told or suffer the consequences.”
“Fuck you,” she repeats.
Twice now I’ve spanked her with my belt, and it hasn’t made an ounce of goddamn difference. But I have many tools at my disposal, and giving her a spanking is only one of them.
“I’ve told you to watch that smart mouth of yours, or I’ll punish you. But maybe that’s exactly what you want, isn’t it?”
I don’t think she’s really angry. I think she’s playing a part, rehearsing a script of hers she prepared. It’s how she always behaves, her automatic response. She thinks I expect her to behave this way, so she’s giving me what she feels she should.
But
I won’t get the answers I need playing games. Not her game, anyway.
She gives me a coy smile. “Oh, no,” she says with mock surprise. “A spanking? No, sir. I hate the thought of going over daddy’s lap.”
Heat flares in my belly at her words, her tone, the seductive cut of her eyes. I hold her gaze, bring my hand back, and slap it against her arse again. Her mouth drops open and her eyes grow heated with arousal.
“You think I’m playing, Sheena?” I ask, holding her gaze.
She grins at me and doesn’t answer.
I hold her gaze, bring my hand back, and give her another firm, unyielding slap that makes her hiss in breath.
She’s the one playing, and this is a game she’s going to lose.
“I told you to strip,” I say, shaking my head with mock regret. I’m not at all upset about having to take her clothes off. Hell, I’ve been dying to do just this. “And you disobeyed me.”
I grasp the edge of her dress and lift it up. She wriggles and squirms to stop me, but her efforts are laughably futile. I’m above her, twice her size and weight, and she’s pinned belly-down on the bed.
But when I lift her dress as far as her lower back, I see why she protested.
Cold, hard metal hits my palm. Her mobile’s so small and well-secured, and I’m not sure how I missed it when I touched her before. She’s got it taped securely against her inner thigh.
I shake my head. This can only mean one thing.
She planned on being taken tonight.
She hid this as a precaution, not something a girl heading to the club would normally do.
“Very clever, lass,” I tell her. “And yet, so stupid.”
She flinches at my words, and this time I’m not sure she’s playing.
I could take this and destroy it, but something tells me that would be a mistake. She could have contacts on this phone, evidence we could use. And if I give her a little slack and find out who she’s in touch with, I could piece information together.
This could come in very useful.
“Give that to me!” Her words are strangled and laced with panic. Now this is a side of Sheena I haven’t seen yet. She isn’t play-acting.
“Not a chance, doll,” I say, sliding it in my pocket and easily arranging her limbs again as I continue to strip her.
Now she’s fighting me in earnest, wriggling like an over-excited puppy, as I tear her dress off. It nearly shreds in my hands, thread and fabric giving way to her perfect naked skin. I ignore her protests and pull it over her head, through her arms, undressing her until she’s totally naked.
I’ve seen Sheena naked once before, but the circumstances were wildly different. At the time, she was every bit a victim, stripped by the men who wanted to hurt her, tied up, her most private parts exposed for all to see.
I rescued her that night. Against my better judgment, I rescued her, but it wasn’t even a conscious choice. We came in the room to fight for Aileen, Cormac’s wife who was abducted and abused. But Sheena was taken, too. When I saw her, I acted on instinct. I grabbed the nearest blanket, threw it over her naked body, and unfastened the bonds that held her.
It was the only thing to do.
And hell, how I’ve thought about that since then. Fantasized, even?
Why?
It’s stupid as fuck to fancy myself Sheena Hurston’s savior.
But for one brief moment in time, when she looked at me, I felt like I could be. The men of The Clan are old-fashioned, high-handed. We were raised to be unequivocal heads of our households. When we find the woman we’re meant to cherish, we’re all in. My father was that way for mam, Keenan is for Caitlin, and Cormac for Aileen. Deeply embedded in who I am as a McCarthy man is the need to protect and cherish a woman who needs me.
But Sheena is dangerous, deadly, out to destroy my family, and anything that even smacks of romance between us is as flimsy as a sandcastle. One gust of wind, one wave, and it collapses.
She’s the most beautiful, dangerous enemy we have.
I have to break this woman. Tear her defenses down and find what she’s after. Make it clear that her threats against my family will not go unpunished.
But hell, if I do, won’t I be saving her, even a little? The rules of the Clan state that spies are to be killed. Everything she’s done puts my entire brotherhood at risk and her penalty is certain death.
I can’t save this woman, but I can save her from execution.
A fucking conundrum.
Once her clothes are removed, I restrain her wrists with one hand and drag her to the edge of the bed. I can tell she likes this, though, being dragged around and manhandled. Christ, she likes being used. This knowledge is as dangerous to me as a goddamn drink.
I have handcuffs in my pocket I’ve readied for this, and my room’s the perfect place to restrain her.
“You’re a kinky little doll, aren’t you?” I ask her, flipping her onto her back and taking one wrist to the ring fastened to my bed.
“I’m the kinky one? You have fucking O-rings mounted on your bed. Suppose you’ve got nipple clamps and anal plugs in the little drawer in the jacks where others store toothpaste and dental floss, hmm?”
My cock stirs to life. She knows what O-rings are. Naturally. And the mention of the other tools of the trade brings a sudden, beautiful vision.
“Ah, you have me all figured out, don’t you?”
She doesn’t respond. For some reason, this question sobers her a little. She watches curiously without a trace of fear or surprise when I fasten her right wrist to one ring, then her left to the other. I have them spaced apart enough so that her arms are stretched but not that uncomfortably.
Her eyes do widen a bit when I take out the spreader bar.
A moment later, she’s on display for me, a gorgeous little kitten with full breasts, dusty pink nipples that taste like ripe berries, her pussy shaved bare and her little toes painted a sheer shade of peach. Her gorgeous red hair’s all tumbled on the bed like a swath of ribbons. I stand beside her, admiring my handiwork. I can see the faintest lines of red across her thigh from where I’ve spanked her. Gorgeous.
I pace beside her, fully clothed, and observe her unhindered. Her long fingers taper like pianists’, delicate and slender, her fingernail polish matching her toes. No ink, but she’s got a birthmark right beside her bellybutton, and something else on one of her shoulders. I lean in to take a closer look.
I brush my thumb across the silver scar that runs alone one side.
“You have a scar, here. The location and size… it’s a knife wound, isn’t it?”
She pinches her lips together and doesn’t respond. I shake my head.
“Ah, right. You still haven’t gotten the message. Good that I’m ready for that, hmm?”
I open the drawer beside the bed and remove a long, slender riding crop, then turn back to her. Once more, her eyes grow heated. She tries to school her features, but she can’t. I brought this woman to my room as prisoner, and I’ve given her exactly what she fucking wanted.
But I want to test that theory.
I take the little leather squared-tip of the crop and touch her cheek with it, first the left, then the right.
“Kiss it,” I whisper, dragging it across her lips.
She obeys, her full lips placing a kiss on the leather, her eyes on my mine.
“Good girl,” I say approvingly. I drag it down her cheek to her neck, trace the outline of her jaw, then retrace down the column of her neck until I reach her breasts. I caress first the left, then the right, gently dragging the little strip of leather over her hardened nipples. Her hips jerk when I touch the tender buds.
“Fuck, woman, you’re sensitive, aren’t you?”
When she doesn’t respond, I lift the crop and slap her naked breast. She yelps, and the faintest light pink blooms on her naked skin.
“You’ll answer me when I ask you a question.”
“Thought that was rhetorical,” she pants. “And yes, I’m sen
sitive. I thought that was obvious.”
“You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” I ask, dragging the crop between the valley of her breasts. My cock aches, she’s so fucking beautiful. “But no, doll. Nothing’s obvious in this game.”
I drag the crop to her pussy, and she begins to tremble.
“Have you ever had your pussy punished, Sheena?”
She nods, and it looks as if she’s trying to toss her shoulder with nonchalance, but restrained and vulnerable like this makes the action difficult. Instead, her movements are jerky and nervous.
“Of course,” she says. “Loads of times.”
I lift the crop and tap her pussy. She hisses and gasps, but can’t get away.
“Loads of times? Is that the truth, doll?”
“Okay, well,” she begins. She bites her lips. “At least once.”
I shake my head. “Lying again, then? I won’t put up with that.”
I lift the crop and snap it on her inner thigh once, twice, three times. She hisses and yelps, but she can’t get away, not now.
She’s here to be questioned, it’s the very purpose of her being held prisoner. No one said I couldn’t have a little fun with it.
“You’ll tell the truth when I ask you a question. Do you understand me?”
She nods and squirms, still aroused, but now it looks like there’s a touch of fear in her eyes.
My phone rings. I keep the crop propped on her belly and leave it there while I step away to answer the phone.
Keenan.
“Yeah, brother?”
“You have any answers yet? I heard you found her and you’ve taken her.”
“Found her, yes. Taken her, also yes, she’s in my room.”
“Ah, you’ve got her in the love shack?”
My brothers love to give me crap about my room.
“Aye,” I say, leaning against the wall and eying her perfect, naked body on display. “You could say she’s good and well secured.”
I give her a wink. If her wrists weren’t restrained right now, she’d probably flip me off.
“Any answers yet?”
“Of course not, brother. Interrogation’s a fine art, you see. I’ve only just begun preparing the canvas.”