I tried to give him a look of discomfort, hoping to mask the true emotional turmoil ripping through me. But the effort was wasted; he was no fool, he knew exactly how I felt. I could see it in his sneer-like smile as he turned his attention back to Emma, his hand still fixing her head in place, the brutal pressure of his hold making the surrounding area swell unsightly around his fingers.
“I can’t really blame you,” he said impassively, his eyes scanning her face in a proprietorial fashion, his palm slipping around the back of her neck.
“I mean, she really is an alluring specimen,” he continued, his voice full of stomach-churning appreciation now as he started to toy with her hair, twirling it playfully about his fingers. “She’s a feisty one for sure, both in and out of the sack.”
I could sense danger on the horizon, could see it in his whimsical manner and the rapid flaring of Emma’s nostrils in her otherwise motionless body.
“Such a delightful little vixen, wouldn’t you agree, Abi?”
He sent me a fleeting look and I wanted to say something, do something, anything to stop whatever was to come.
But it was all too late.
As his attention returned to Emma, his hand twisted in her hair and he yanked back hard. There was an anguished cry that could have come from me or Emma, I was so distressed I couldn’t tell. And he loved it. His sinister smile growing ever bigger.
“But you see, Abi,” he said, as he surveyed Emma’s unnaturally arched form, her quivering mouth and half closed eyes, “you’d be surprised at just how tame she can be once she accepts who’s really in charge ... isn’t that so, Emma?”
His fist tightened in her hair and she winced, her lips parting on the sound.
He raised his chin a fraction. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
My eyes stung as I refused to blink, not wanting to leave Emma unguarded for a second. Not that I was any help right now...
Please just go!I wanted to scream.
“So as you can see, Abi, Emma ismywhore and mine alone.” His eyes flicked to me and I could read the challenge I saw there. “She does as I say, when I say. Is that clear?”
I nodded, words failing me completely.
“Good,” he said, his pleasure ringing through as he finally released Emma’s hair and gave her chin a dismissive flick. “I’ll see you shortly, now be good the pair of you.”
He laughed on the last, loving how they were wasted words in his view — as if we would dare to be anything else — and turning on his heel, he strode out of the room, the door closing quietly behind him.
I let go of a shaky breath, the word “bastard” coming with it.
My blood was boiling with anger and yet I was immobilized by fear. Had he really gone or was this some cunning ploy so that he could return and catch us in the act? Either way, there was one question burning a hole in my brain that I just couldn’t hold in.
“What thehelldid you ever see in him?”
Chapter Twelve
The words were out before I could rein them in. The full force of my anger toward my stepfather hitting Emma square on.
She looked at me now. Her tormented green depths shaming me with their shock and rising humility over my words. How could I be so heartless? She had already explained herself to me, to make her think on that again when she was so bruised and battered emotionally was downright cruel.
“I’m so sorry, Emma,” I hurried out. “I just hate seeing him treat you like this, to speak to you like he does, to have him all over you like that ... it makes me sick.”
“He only does it in front of you to get a rise out of us,” she said quietly. “Especially as he knows deep down it’s you I can’t get out of my head.”
Her startling confession blew me away, a rush of elation making my head spin. She couldn’t getmeout of her head...
“I don’t know why you look so surprised,” she said. “But then, I guess it makes sense with what you know of me and my relationship with your stepfather and what I do for him ... I suppose you think what we’ve shared is just another fling for me?”
She said it so matter-of-factly, her voice lacking any warmth or emotion that it was almost eerie.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized again, wanting desperately to take it all back, to hear her confess her feelings for me without my stepfather overshadowing them. “I want more than anything to believe what we have is special.”
“Itwasspecial,” she said, a slight spark to her voice as she corrected my tense. “But your stepfather is a dangerous man, Abi, and I refuse to put you in harm’s way anymore.”
