For decades, I remained calm, calculated, and emotionless in the face of great adversity. When my brothers died, I became the puppet master pulling the strings from the shadows, but in recent years those strings had snapped, and my influence had eroded.
No more.
And it was starting here. With her.
"I hate you," she whispered.
"I know." I pushed away from the wall, from her, before I did something stupid like kiss her. "But you're going to behave anyway."
"Make me."
Wrong thing to say.
The moment she said it, something snapped inside me. All the rage, the fear, the unwanted caring crystallized into one singular need.
Control.
She wanted to fight? Fine. I'd give her a fight. And when it was over, she'd remember exactly who was in charge.
She must have seen it in my face—the shift from controlled fury to something darker—because she bolted.
She ran across the small apartment, heading again for the window that had a fire escape.
Too bad for her, she wasn't quick enough, and I was just pissed off enough to enjoy chasing her down.
It only took me seconds to catch her from behind and lift her. She screamed and fought, biting, kicking and scratching at me.
"Keep it up, little one. You are only going to make this worse for yourself."
I carried her into the bedroom and dropped her unceremoniously onto her bed. She immediately got on her hands and knees and scrambled to flee from me again.
I grabbed her ankle and yanked her back, snatching the scarf that was around her shoulders. Her arms flailed; her nails tried to reach for my face. So I grabbed her wrists and pinned them to the bed above her.
She twisted and fought using everything she had—strength, intelligence, and fire. I almost admired the fight. She had morefight in her than most men I knew. Or maybe she had truly been pushed past the point of reason, and what I was seeing was primal animal instinct. It was simply a matter of survival.
All I knew was that watching her struggle against me, having her fight back, made my cock hard for her. It appealed to something deep inside me, a darker side I rarely indulged in. A side that wanted to break her down and build her back up. A side that wanted to see her submit not because she was weak, but because she chose to give that power to me.
But today was not the day, and I was not the one. Pinning her wrists to the bed, I straddled her hips, forcing her to stay still.
"Get off me," she spat.
"Behave," I demanded.
"Fuck you," she screamed, and I leaned down and dragged my tongue across her uninjured cheek. Tasting the salt of her sweat and her tears as she fought.
"Only if you beg," I whispered in her ear before taking the scarf and wrapping it around her wrists over and over, getting in between them and then binding them together.
I secured her arms above her head with the scarf looped tight around the headboard before climbing off her. Freed of my body weight she flailed, rolled over, trying desperately to get her hands free.
It was of no use. My first act of control. She was secured and couldn't run from me again.
Then I reached for my belt buckle. I unbuckled it slowly, letting thewhooshof the belt sliding through my pant loops wash over her. She froze.
"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded, looking at me, watching me with those gigantic eyes full of fear and defiance.
When I was done, the only things in her eyes would be appreciation and submission. And maybe understanding thatthe man who hurt her would pay. That I would always make them pay.
Because she was mine to hurt. Mine to protect. Mine to break.
