Exception To The Rule
Dani Wyatt
Chapter 1
Sebastian
I've killed men with my bare hands. Burned down buildings with people still screaming inside.
But sitting in this chair for the past hour, watching my eighteen-year-old step-niece sleep while blood pounds steadily to my cock is the most depraved thing I've ever done.
She’s a brat, I’m sure, even with her childish nightgown and pink cheeks. Even the worst of them look innocent and sweet in their sleep.
I let my eyes drift downward to the floor, shaking my head as I focus on a single quarter-inch scuff mark on the tip of my black wingtip, battling the urge to call for my valet and replace this soiled pair with a new one without blemish.
That obsession with detail, with perfection, with control… It’s what I do here. I train young women in the art of submission and obedience.
It’s not as gratuitous as it might sound. I use my powers for good, even if they don’t see it that way.
At first.
Larissa is my next rehabilitation project. She’s my brother's stepdaughter, shipped to my private island in the Mediterranean because, according to him, she's too wild, too defiant, too much trouble for his carefully constructed empire where everyone serves a purpose.
Everyone is a means to an end.
My fucking little brother, Hoover. If it weren’t for the promise I made to my father on his deathbed, I’d have killed him years ago.
I made two promises that day: to watch out for my little brother, and to take revenge on the men who murdered my dad.
The revenge was easy, even if it led to my exile here. But Hoover was a bastard back then, and he’s a bastard now, and if there’s anyone in this world who deserves to die, it’s him.
I quoted him triple my usual fee. She may be family, but that term carries zero weight in my world.
No attachments. No exceptions.
The girl in this bed means nothing to me. She’s a job, nothing more.
The relentless thickening of my cock tells me I'm a liar. Why do I keep circling the thought that she is the most beautiful creature ever to cross my path? The idea of shredding that fabric covering her body with my teeth gnaws at me relentlessly.
She stirs with a whine, a delicate hand lifting to shield her eyes from the light, and I lean forward in my chair. The air seems to evacuate the room as sunlight streams across her shifting form under the white sheets.
This is it. The moment I find out what color they are.
Blue.
No. Not just blue. That word is too simple, too pedestrian for what I'm looking at. These aren't blue eyes. They're the color of deep open water miles from the coast, of shadows bleeding into dusk, of every fucking shred of beauty and decency I’ve spent ten years in exile trying to forget. Rich and deep enough to drown in, with flecks of black gold catching the sun streaming through the window behind me.
Dust motes dance in the shaft of Mediterranean sunlight cutting across her bed, turning her dark hair to bronze where it catches the light. Her lips are full and lush, deep pink in contrast to her creamy skin.
She looks ethereal in this sparse, white room. Untouchable.
The room I've put her in isn’t exactly a cell.
White walls. A bed with hand-spun Egyptian cotton sheets. A single brown leather wing-back chair where I sit. A bedside table with a crystal water pitcher and glass.
The floor is polished Carrera marble, staying cool even in the hottest of months here. Through the window behind me, the Mediterranean sparkles, all azure water and endless sky.
There's no handle on the inside of the door. No phone. No mirror she could break into a weapon.
