Page 34

JAMES

I ’m not sure what makes her sprint out the door. The threat in my voice. A desire to get out of this place. A survival instinct.

As I hear her footsteps pounding down the hallway, then the staircase, I smile. Neither of the options is why she’s running.

I scare her, sure. Fuck, the things I’ve done to her are awful. The things I have planned for her are worse.

But she was right. She’s my property. I do take care of what’s mine.

She is exactly that, mine.

I crave her with every fiber of my being. From the first moment she walked into my home, I’ve been biding my time. I see that now. Having her, keeping her, this was how it was supposed to end.

Bam!

Bam!

Bam!

Her fist must slam on the locked front door. “Help!”

My lips tick up. My feet itch to follow her. To have front row seats to her feeble attempts at getting away.

All part of our game.

A few miles of driveway, trees, and greenery separate us from the outside world. My staff is gone for the week, though they wouldn’t have helped her, either.

Not to mention she’ll have to pick the elaborate lock on the front door first.

That why she’s running. She wants to play this game, knowing she’ll lose.

Wanting to lose.

I’m so fucking gone for her.

“Help! Somebody get me out of here!”

I tread closer to the door to hear her better. Her feet hit the floor at lightning speed. She’s once again on the run, this time darting across the main floor in the other direction. Toward the other rooms.

Where the expansive windows are.

Clever as she is beautiful, my little sonnet.

“Fifty.” Though I don’t shout, Ophelia’s reaction is a scream.

Fuck if the sound doesn’t reach all the way down to my balls.

Something heavy crashes against the glass. Could be one of the end tables, by the sound of it. Nothing too heavy.

“Forty.”

The naked woman in my house sprints across the floor again. Her footfalls are light. Sweet, like her.

I spend about five seconds imagining her ass and tits and hair swaying as she runs. As fear and excitement and fight take over her.

A second crash. The sound echoing around the house is different. Metal hitting glass.

My unbreakable windows.

“Fuck.”

“Thirty.” I haven’t been counting. I call the number out anyway. Her anxious energy bleeds across my home. It’s intoxicating.

Soon enough, she’ll pay for making me weak for her.

No , I tell myself as I slowly descend the stairs, my steps loud enough for her to hear me coming. This won’t be a punishment. It’ll be a pleasure.

“Twenty.”

“No!”

Before I enter the living room, where the breaking and huffing sounds emanate from, I stop by my den. Open the ten-by-ten safe behind my desk, extract the item that was delivered to me this morning, lock the safe, and head out.

“The damn thing won’t break.” She’s completely in her element, focused on thrashing the metal fire tongs into the window. “This house is—Argh!”

It’s obvious she doesn’t hear me enter the living room. By the time she will, it’ll be too late.

It’ll be exactly the right moment.

I’m aware of how sick I am. How far gone. The flames that crackle in the fireplace—the ones I started before I returned upstairs to devour her—are a testament to that.

Nothing to do about it. No way to fix me.

Highly likely that neither Ophelia nor I are interested in that.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

The other doors in the house are as tightly locked as the front door. Ophelia must realize it. She’s putting everything she has into bashing this window with my antique metal tongs.

I stroke my hard cock as I lean my hip against one of the leather couches. Six feet from Ophelia and to the right. Hiding in plain sight, where she won’t see my reflection in the window.

She’s breathtaking in her attempts to break free, as she tries to please me.

The muscles of her legs, back, and arms flex whenever she rears her hands back, then flings herself into the window. Her hair is such a beautiful mess from fucking her earlier.

This game means something to her.

I mean something to her.

“Zero.”

Her shrill scream is followed by the metal tongs landing on the floor.

“You.” She whips back to me, fire in her eyes. Red spreads across her cheeks. Her neck. Her tits. Everything’s on fire. Her hands clutch into fists at her sides, and God. Fuck. She walks backward until her back hits the window she just tried to break. My sweet little prey. “You cheated.”

“Me?” I push myself off the couch. Ophelia flattens her palms against the window as she walks along the wall. Away from me. Feeding my desires, my sickness. “I told you to run. Said I’d count down from a hundred.”

“Where would I have run? There’s no getting out of here.” Her eyes narrow as she growls the accusation. “You knew, and you let me try anyway. Is that why you’re hard? You get off on making me look like a fool?”

“You don’t look like a fool. And I would never. Come here.”

She hasn’t noticed what I have in my left hand. I prowl toward her, releasing the handle of the branding iron, only to throw it in the air and grip the center of it.

“Is this…” That gets her attention. That turns her flushed cheeks pale, making the blood smears on her cheeks stand out. She ducks to pick the metal tongs off the floor. She straightens her spine, wielding it at me. “You’ll beat me up? For failing?”

My eyebrows shoot up my forehead. “Of course not.”

“What’s this for, then?” A couple of steps back, and she’s near the doorway leading to the kitchen.

The kind thing to do—the decent thing to do—would be to comfort her. She’s desperate to be mine. Does her best to please me.

I’m insanely obsessed with owning every part of her.

But since I’m neither kind nor decent…

“When I say come here, I don’t mean raise your voice at me. What I mean is come. Here.”

“Don’t you dare hit me.” She passes the threshold into the kitchen, wielding her makeshift weapon. “I’ll kill you. I swear. I can take a lot of things, James. I enjoy many things.” Her breath catches. What embarrasses Ophelia gets me really fucking hard. “Beat me up, and I’ll ruin you.”

The space that she’s put between us is only there because I allow it. I hold very still, feeding off her fear. I never possessed anything as remotely as mouth-watering as Ophelia.

“Come. Here.”

Her nipples peak, chest heaving. “James.”

The flames crackle in the fireplace, a background noise to my pounding heart.

“Sonnet.”

Lightning flashes in the sky. The burst of light illuminates her determined face for a second. Then comes thunder.

“I bet you’re wet.” Raindrops patter against the window. Picking up speed. Sleet joins them. “Soaked. Why deny yourself of this?”

“I don’t know what this is, but I’m not wet for it.” Shadows hide her from me as she backs further into the kitchen. Still pinning her body to the wall.

“What is it, dirty girl?” I take two steps forward having to be near her. “Is it the metal handle? It is, isn’t it? You just lost your virginity and now you’re imagining this”—I tap it against my leg—“in your tight cunt. Open your legs for me. Let me see how right I am.”

“You’re sick.”

I’m done playing games; that’s what I am.

She shrieks as I pounce toward her. I’m silent and determined, prying the metal tongs out of her grip. I hook an arm around her naked waist and drag her to the living room, her back pressed to my chest.

“James.” Arms and legs fly in the air. I get a kick in the shin. A finger—almost—in my eye. “James, let me go.”

“You’re mine.” The simple fact silences her. She still kicks me. “I’m not going to hit you. I’m going to make it official.”

The kicking stops too. We’re a few feet from the fireplace when she turns her head to me. “You haven’t proposed.”

Christ, she’s adorable. I bet she would’ve said yes. If I were any other man, I probably would’ve asked. The thought jars me, but there’s nothing to do about it.

“Marriage is overrated. A wedding even more so. Calling in a priest. An official. Couple of witnesses. Ridiculously big ceremonies.” Truth is, I never cared to think about my wedding day.

I knew I wouldn’t have one. “A commitment before God, the city hall or the government. A farce that ends with fifty percent of them getting divorced.”

She remains silent for the few seconds it takes us to reach the fireplace.

Then I stop, glaring at her in complete silence.

“What do you want?” Her question is a frustrated scream when I say nothing.

My cock jerks at her new wave of terror. I turn her around then tighten my grip around her while.

“What do you want?” Again, this time, it’s more of a sigh.

“You.” I twist us together until she’s facing the fireplace and so do I, thrusting the branding iron into the fire. “You’re an obsession. A snake. A terminal illness.”

“I hate you.” Tears streak down her cheeks. Some land on my arm.

“No, you don’t.” I press my lips to her neck and groan at her raging pulse. “What we have is sick, unnatural. Obsession is a mild word for it, isn’t it?”

Her sobbing recedes. The tears slow.

“Talk to me.”

She nods, and the wetness runs onto my skin.

“What we have was never meant to happen.” The backing of the branding iron should be heated by now. I pull it out and away from the flames. “Life is cruel. Fate is crueler. And you…”

“What? I’m what?” Her focus darts to the heated branding iron. She doesn’t put up a fight when I manhandle her to her hands and knees. She lets me, trembling and hot and a sin. A terrible one. “I’m what, James?”

Her hair hides her face, so I swipe it to the side and over her other shoulder.

Better. I tower over her. The branding iron is at a safe distance away from her face. “You’re stuck with me.”

Ophelia’s consent isn’t necessary. For thirty million dollars, I became the owner of the most beautiful, precious, addicting thing this world has to offer. A walking, talking, and fucking seduction.

Nonetheless, I search her eyes. Wait for them to land back on me.

“I’m cattle to you,” she says to herself, looking at me without really seeing anything. “Cattle.”