Sweat drops roll down my forehead, but I ignore them as they tumble onto my cheek. With the only wire I managed to tear out of the fake flowers in the vase near the window, I’m prying away at the lock around my neck.
It’s already late in the evening, and I’ve been left on my own for hours. But I haven’t closed one eye. I’ve been staring at myself in the mirror for the last few hours since Luca was gone, hoping I can get this collar off before he comes back. But my hands are shaking, and every muscle in my body hurts from trying.
“Fuck!” I groan, stopping for a second to take a breather.
I can’t catch a fucking break.
Closing my eyes, I sigh. I have no clue what I’m doing. I’ve never had to break out of a place before, let alone get a collar off my neck.
Who in their right mind even does this to a person?
A monster, that’s who.
And that monster could come back any moment now.
I have to think. I chose to make this deal, but there are more ways to make sure my sister is safe, and one of them is running and taking her with me. But what else can I do to make sure I get out of this house unscathed?
I look at the door lock and decide to pry it open instead. I can’t waste any more time on this collar. I’ll deal with that thing once I get out. First, I need this damn door open, so I can escape.
I stuff the wire into the lock and fold it, pushing it around to find the right shape. After being busy for so long, I now understand why picking a lock is such a tough job, but I’m not giving up. Even though I’ve never done this before, I have nothing to lose at this point.
Suddenly, a door slams shut.
I stop. Drop the wire. Suck in a breath.
Nerves are killing me.
Footsteps come closer.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!
There’s no more time.
He’s here.
I scramble and rush to the curtains, where I pick up a vase from the floor, chucking out the remaining fake flowers that I destroyed for the wire. I hold it close to my heart as I try to calm down while the footsteps loom closer and closer …
Click.
I peek behind the curtain.
The door handle moves.
I quickly move back and take in another deep breath, preparing myself.
If I can’t escape quietly, I’ll have to try by force.
C’mon, Jill, you can do this.
You’ve seen fighting before. Your father’s men did it all the time even though he never brought you to any of the dangerous stuff. And don’t forget about Easton and his trigger-happy guards. You know how violence works. Now do it.
I swallow back the nerves and brace myself.
The door snaps shut softly.
Shoes tap across the floor as someone stalks toward me.
It has to be him. He wouldn’t allow anyone else in my room, I’m sure of it.
One more step. Two. Three.
In a swift motion, I spin on my heels and lunge forward, attempting to throw the vase as hard as I can.
But the second I spot those sparkling dark eyes homing in on mine, I stop midair.
His hand wraps around my wrist, the vase dangling between us.
A vicious smirk slowly spreads on his face. “Easy there, bunny.” He grabs the vase with his other hand and forces me to put it down. “Don’t want to hurt yourself there.”
“Let me go,” I growl, trying to jerk my wrist free from his grip, but it won’t work.
“No, I don’t think I will,” he responds.
“Fuck you,” I hiss.
“Oh, I will do that,” he says.
“Over my dead body,” I growl back, emblazoned by the attack.
His face suddenly darkens, and there’s a moment of silence between us as tension fills the air.
“I’ve killed men for less.”
I swallow at the obvious threat, but he’s not the first mobster I’ve dealt with, and he knows. “So has my father.”
A vicious smile spreads on his lips. “Your father is weak. A coward.”
I spit on his expensive suit.
It takes him a while to wipe it off, but he does finally release my wrist.
“For someone whose father sold her off like cattle, you sure are happy to defend him.”
“He never wanted any of this,” I retort. “And when he’s collected enough men and firepower, he’ll come save me and put a bullet in your head.”
He laughs out loud but stops halfway through, looking dead serious. “Your father disowned you.”
I push away that thought even though I know he’s right. Father must care about me, right? Even if only a little, I know he wouldn’t want this for his daughter. He only resorted to this last option because he had nothing else he could trade the De Vos family for the death of their son.
“You think you’re a mafia princess, but he happily gave you away to keep your sister safe,” he responds.
I point at my chest. “That was my choice.”
But as I attempt to push past him, he corners me between the window and the curtain, planting his hand against the glass. “Did I say you could leave?”
My hands twitch with rage. He can’t control me, not even if he tries.
His hand rises, and I expect a slap for my attempted murder and defiance, so I close my eyes.
But then the softest of caresses on my cheek makes me gasp for air. When I open my eyes again, he’s so close I can barely breathe. His hand snakes around my neck, my hair tumbling down my shoulders as he tilts my head back. He leans in, the scent of his intoxicating cologne penetrating my nostrils. As his nose and lips hover close to my skin, I whimper, and I hate what he does to me.
Why does my body respond this way to him?
I don’t understand. Why can’t I control myself?
“Oh, bunny …I think you’ve missed me as much as I’ve missed you.” The way he groans sets my body on fire.
His mouth puckers against my neck, and my breath hitches in my throat. The warmth of his lips against my cool skin is making me feel light-headed. In heat.
“And I can’t wait to fucking ravage you all over again,” he groans, smiling against my skin. “But first, you need to be—” Suddenly, he spins me on my heels so my back is turned to him, clutches my wrists, and pins them up against the windows along with my breasts. Everything is on full display.
“Punished.”
I shriek as he rips down the rest of the mermaid wedding dress that still clings to my body, tearing it to pieces. Pearls and sequins roll across the floor, but he pays no attention as he presses up against me. I’m half-naked in front of the window for all the world to see.
But everything stops mattering when his hard-on pokes me in the ass. The only fabric between us is my flimsy underwear and his pants.
“You’ve been bad, bunny, trying to throw a vase at my head? Not very classy,” he says.
“Says the guy who decided to marry out of spite,” I hiss.
SLAP!
The sudden slap to my ass makes an unwelcome moan leave my mouth.
“Did you forget you were the one who begged me to marry you instead?”
My nipples harden against the cold glass.
“I didn’t ask you to collar me like a dog,” I spit back.
Another smack has me fighting to stop the sounds from slipping out.
“And I didn’t ask to be threatened by my wife, but here we are,” he retorts, slapping me again. “Pets who misbehave deserve to be locked up.”
Another slap to my bum has my knees buckling underneath me. It’s impossible to stop the spankings from reverberating between my legs, one after the other until all I feel is the hot sting of his touch on my skin … until it’s impossible to separate pain from pleasure.
When he pauses, I breathe out a soft sigh.
“Now, are you ready to tell me the full truth of what you were doing in here?” he says.
I bite through the pain, ignoring him despite knowing the consequence is more…
SLAP! SLAP!
Sizzling, burning, exciting pain.
And I feel it everywhere … not just on my ass but in my pussy too, and I don’t know how to switch it off. It feels so wrong, so immoral that he’s doing this… but more because I’m fighting the arousal.
“Answer me, bunny,” he growls, raising his hand. “I can play this game all night long.”
“Yeah, I bet you enjoy hurting people,” I retort.
I know it’s a low blow, but what else do I have at this point? He’s already stolen my freedom, part of my innocence, and now my dignity too.
He grabs ahold of my ass, one hand still firmly on my wrists, pressing me down against the window. “Hurting people? Yes.” He slaps me again. “Hurting you?” A half-groan, half-laugh rolls from his tongue. “No. I’m just having fun.”
SLAP!
The last one is harder than the ones before, and a moan spills out of me.
He leans in to whisper, “And I think you are too.”
I’ll never admit how it makes me feel when he touches me. “Shut up,” I growl.
He snorts against my neck. “You have an awful lot of bite for a soft, innocent little girl.” His nose briefly pauses near my hair, and I hear him sniff. “But you smell like a fuckable little slut.”
I gulp and immediately worry he heard it. I hate what he does to me, how vulgar he is to me … like I’m nothing more than an average girl to him who he dragged home so he can lock up and throw away the key while using her for his every dirty fantasy.
Somehow, that thought makes my clit throb.
Fuck. No. Don’t ever go there.
Suddenly, he bends me over, shoving my face down onto the glass as he lifts my ass up in the sky. “Now let me have a taste.”
A shriek is choked in the back of my throat as he rips off my panties, the last thing standing between us. Now I’m fully naked and exposed in front of the window overlooking the parking lot. But it all stops mattering the second he swipes his index finger down, circling my clit before sliding back up along my entrance again, taking with him ample amounts of wetness. Fuck.
“You’re already wet,” he murmurs, and when I look over my shoulder, he brings his finger to his mouth and sucks on it.
And oh my God, the sight of him casually licking his finger while staring at me starts a fire in me that I don’t know how to put out. The mischievous look on his face doesn’t help at all, especially since the way he looks at me hasn’t changed one bit. No wonder I had so much trouble fighting him off when he first came into my room and did … this.
A blush spreads on my cheeks, and I quickly look away before I make it any more difficult for myself.
“What’s wrong, Jill?” he asks, and a sudden jerk on the leash around my neck has me looking up right into his eyes through the reflection in the window. “Scared you might start to remember how good it felt when I touched you?”
“Never,” I respond.
He groans, grasping my thighs, and I hear a zipper going down. “Guess I’ll have to fuck your moans right out of you.”
Something hard pushes up against my entrance with a warm tip, and all my alarm bells go off.
I swiftly spin on my heels and go to my knees right before he enters me.
His muscles clench as I face his giant dick again, the rings bouncing up and down along with his length as I look up at him.
“What’s this?” he growls.
“I’ll suck,” I say. “Just like before.”
His eyes narrow, and he steps away, zipping up again. Clutching my leash, he pulls me with him. “I think the fuck not. You’re trying to avoid being fucked, aren’t you?”
I shake my head, but it doesn’t seem to faze him as he pulls me along by my leash to the middle of the bedroom.
“Please,” I mutter, hoping I can still fix this, but it only eggs him on more, judging from the insufferable smirk on his face.
“It’s still our wedding night, Jill. And your wifely duties don’t end with your mouth around my dick,” he muses as he tugs at the leash to tilt my head up. “Stand.”
I do what he says even though it’s humiliating to stand here in the nude in front of him. But when he releases the leash to step back and look at me for a moment, the blush is right back on my face. He bites his lip while taking ample time to gaze at every inch of my body like he’s trying to engrave it onto his brain.
“Gorgeous,” he mumbles under his breath.
Fuck. Why can’t I stop this blush from turning my cheeks red?
I wish I could say those words do nothing for me. But I’d be a liar.
No one has ever said the words he says to me or treated me the way he has.
And I must always remember that.
“What do you want, Luca?” I ask.
He stares at me, his eyes haunted with questions I don’t know the answers to. “You know what I want.” He taps his lips with his index finger. “Kiss. Me.”
I shudder from the thought. Not because I’m repulsed by the idea, but because it goes against every fiber of my being to show him an ounce of affection.
I know what his kisses can do.
I’ve felt it firsthand.
But kissing him back? That means love. And I don’t dish that out easily.
“No.”
His brow rises. “It’s just a kiss.”
“It’s never just a kiss,” I rebuke. “I will never want you.”
His jaw tenses, and his fingers tighten into a fist. “I don’t care if you want me,” he spits back. “All I care about is destroying your family and making the world mine.” He steps closer again, planting a single finger underneath my chin to make me look up into his eyes. “And if you don’t give me what I need, I might as well go grab someone else who might be more eager.”
His eyes flicker with greed, and I don’t have to ask to know what he’s thinking.
The one thing that escaped his grasp.
My sister.
