Page 27

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

FREYA

Rage floods my veins. “How dare you!”

His hand shoots out and grips my wrist, pulling me against his body. “I’ve been patient, sweetheart,” he says. “I have. But Aiden knows about us now, and he’ll use you to get to me. I’m in charge now. I’ll keep you safe.”

I swallow—I’m the weak link.

“If I have to pick between my land and you…well, I’d rather not,” he says. “I’m taking you out of this, so I can fight dirty.”

My anger ebbs and flows. This isn’t my fight. This is men doing what they do best. I’d have been just as happy with a shack in the woods, so long as I could be at peace. But no, they have to fight each other for money, for who’s got a bigger metaphorical dick. And, of course, land.

“Look at me,” he says.

I drag my eyes up. He’s towering over me. His palm touches my elbow and drags up to my throat, wrapping around it. Thump, thump—my pulse flutters in his grip and between my thighs. My body understands what he’s doing, even if my head doesn’t.

He leans in, mouth brushing my hair. “Run again, and I won’t be gentle. ”

I’ve learned that Deacon Ryder is gentle, but only until he chooses not to be. He has complete control over himself. But sometimes, he likes to unhook the leash and let whatever this dark shadow is out to play.

I go limp in his arms. The only way out is forward, but he won’t let me go, won’t let me leave until he reclaims what he thinks is his.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

I should have never let him pick me up in that storm. Maybe I never had a choice. He lied, said the highway was closed. He said so many things. Now, he has a lock on my pussy.

I underestimated Deacon Ryder.

“Get on your knees,” he orders. “Hands behind your back.”

I glance up, unsure if he wants me to kneel on the floor or the bed. He points at his feet, facing the fireplace. Shivering, I sink to my knees and tuck my hands back.

The fire dances before my eyes. Everything else is darkness, even him.

I think I’ve been hunted and captured.

The dresser drawer opens and shuts. He sinks down on the end of the bed so I’m kneeling, facing away, between his boots. Cool leather slips over my shoulders. I feel him securing a row of straps down both arms and pulling them snug. My arms are completely pinned in a sheath of leather.

“Sit up off your heels,” he says.

His words are thick, sitting deep in his chest. I know beneath his work pants, he’s hard.

I lift an inch, and he slides two thick bands of leather around my lower thighs. They secure with black buckles, like garters. Everything smells like real leather, and the inside is soft silk. I tilt my head, noticing there are words burnt into the leather, one for each thigh.

Cum.

Slut.

Oh God, I wasn’t expecting that. He gets up again and returns, crouching behind me. His inked hand appears in my lap, holding a smooth rod with two clips at each end. I’m nervous, but I don’t speak. I want to believe he won’t hurt me. He hasn’t yet, but he’s never been like this before.

My spine tingles, warning me to be careful.

But my pussy is wet, like it’s already been conquered.

He clips each end of the rod to the leather garters, shoving my legs further apart to make it fit. It clicks, and my legs are locked open. He rises and circles me, the front of his pants just above my head. I look up, and he looks down, touching my temple.

“You want out, you say your safeword. If you can’t speak, you shake your head hard, side to side,” he says. “Understood?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

With his boot, he shoves my thighs further apart, and the rod clicks again, keeping me spread.

“No, you address me the way I taught you.”

Cowed, I drop my head. His boots swim in my vision, heavy tread, steel toe.

“Yes, daddy,” I manage.

His hand brushes my hair, petting me. “Good girl.”

It’s gentle. Without thinking, I press my cheek to his thigh and let him stroke me. Warmth and safety move through my body. I’m so tired of being strong. I want someone to share the weight sitting on my shoulders.

He lifts me from the floor and sets me on the bed, on my knees. Face burning, I lift my eyes to the mirror. My stomach twists. Arousal pours through me like fire. I’ve never seen myself like this, so softly erotic against the dark backdrop of his bed.

My nipples are hard, flushed deep rose. My eyes are glassy. I’m beautiful, curvy, punctuated by silver chains and black leather.

His pants and boots hit the ground. Then, he’s behind me, his hard body naked. Our eyes lock in the mirror. He puts a hand over my throat, thumb against my jaw. His eyes have an edge of stern ice to them.

He’s jealous, but I don’t know why. He has no competition.

I wonder if he knows .

Or if he sees something I don’t.

“Who do you belong to?” His voice is hoarse.

My lips part, but I don’t know how to answer that. I’ve never belonged to anyone, and it feels good. He drags his hand up, gathering my hair in his fist. He guides my head back so I’m forced to watch him in the mirror.

“You belong to me,” he says. “Mine. You don’t leave.”

Ice cold fingers trace down my spine. Between my thighs, I’m drenched. He shifts back less than an inch, reaching between us. I gasp as he notches his cock into me. From this angle, sitting on my heels with my legs locked open, my pussy is so tight. It fights him, but he forces himself in, jaw locked, eyes on me.

“Oh God,” I gasp, vision flickering.

His chest heaves, ink glittering with sweat. “Is it too much? Or too little? Maybe I should fuck your ass.”

I twist, shocked. “No, no, don’t.”

The corner of his mouth jerks up. He pumps his hips hard, pushing himself more than halfway into my pussy. A dull ache sparks in my belly. I don’t understand how he can be so gentle, so amusing, so kind, but get him jealous, and he’s an animal.

If he fucks me there, I don’t think I can take that. He’s already stretching me to the limit between my thighs.

He pushes me down, and I half expect to fall onto the bed on my face. But then, he slips his forearm through some kind of loop on the sheath that holds my arms locked behind my back.

Shocked, I hang from his arm, bound in place. His other hand grips the garter on my right thigh. He drags my head up again, hand fisted in my hair.

“This is my pussy,” he breathes. “It stays right here.”

My eyes water. I sniff, swallowing.

“Yes, daddy.”

“Say it, tell me.”

Heat burns from my head to my curled toes. “This is your pussy, daddy,” I whisper. “It stays here.”

He ruts his hips hard, slamming his cock up against my cervix .

“Good girl.” The words force out from between his teeth. “You watch me fuck you. If I see your eyes leave the mirror, I will turn you over and fuck your ass. Understood?”

My breasts heave. The whites of my eyes flash.

“Yes,” I gasp. “Yes, daddy.”

He keeps his gaze on mine as he starts fucking in earnest. The bonds on my body, the rod between my thighs, keeps me at such an angle that I’m not taking any of my own weight. No, I hang from my arms, and he fucks me like I’m nothing but his toy.

Weakness, warm and welcome, pours into me. I don’t have to do anything to please him but keep my eyes open and watch him ravage me. I never expect it, but tonight, I find myself slipping into submission.

My sense are wide awake. The heat of the fire is calming. The dull pain from the way he ravages me is a drug, burning me, tearing at my seams.

He takes, I give.

I see his lips move. I think he calls me his.

He pulls from me, pressing me onto my back, his inked body moving over me. The scent of our desire, mixed, is heady and raw. It makes my head spin.

One hand braces above me, the other reaching down to grip his length. I gasp, eyes darting down his tensed abdominals, down the trimmed hair above his groin to the hard cock in his hand. He jerks himself, his jaw gritted. There’s something shocking about seeing such a powerful man so desperate.

“Say it,” he groans. “Say you’re mine.”

I try to, but my mouth is so dry. I wet my lips.

“I’m yours,” I whisper.

It’s the first time I’ve given those words real thought.

Am I Deacon Ryder’s woman?

His body tenses, his hips riding against his hand. Warmth hits my cheek, my breasts. The dip of my navel. He moans like he’s satisfied but not satisfied at all. My eyes fly open and lock on his, glittering with sweat and lust .

“Deacon,” I whisper.

I think I know what this is.

He bends over my helpless body, and his tongue drags over my navel, licking his cum up and shifting down. His rough fingers push apart the tender skin of my sex. My eyes roll back. I hear him spit his cum, hard. Then, those fingers are in me, plunging brutally, pushing his release deep into my body.

His teeth graze the inside of my thigh.

He’s working his way back up. I moan, writhing. His strong, hot tongue curls in the pooled cum between my breasts. Then, he shoves my jaw with his hard head, forcing me to face him. His fingers push my mouth open, and he spits his cum onto my tongue.

My hips lift. Salt and Deacon.

“Swallow it,” he orders.

Obediently, I swallow him. His eyes glint with satisfaction. He uses the tips of his fingers to rub the rest of his cum into my skin, into my neck, my face. His touch is harsh at first, but then it grows gentle, like the Deacon I know.

He picks me up, unclipping the rod keeping my legs apart. He tugs something behind my back, and the leather sheath falls to the bed. I flex my stiff shoulders and arms.

“Alright, sweetheart?”

He’s back. I let him sit back against the headboard and set me in his lap, facing him. We’re both breathing hard. The metal harness around my hips is still there, although it’s warm and pliable enough that I barely notice it.

“Are you?” I whisper.

“I can handle my shit,” he says. “Answer me.”

I nod. “I’m alright, just shaken up.”

He doesn’t answer. His cock is still hard. I feel life thrum through him, beating against the underbelly of my thigh.

“Put my cock back inside,” he says hoarsely.

I falter, but he gives me a look. Wincing, I take him by the base and push his cock back into my pussy. My body is learning his, all the ridges, the veins, and it welcomes him. He groans softly, fingers tracing my stomach. My brain buzzes with the pleasure of his skin on mine.

My body craves him. My fear is gone, dissipated. I wonder if this is what it feels like to hunt down a great beast like a wolf. The pulse racing pursuit. The clash. Then, the big warm body beneath mine felled to the ground.

Maybe it was me who got the best of him tonight.

I touch his face, the rough stubble of his jaw. He watches me, silent.

“Who are you?” I whisper.

The corner of his mouth turns up. “What’s that mean?”

My touch runs over his mouth. It’s beautiful, masculine and cleanly cut but full. It somehow fits perfectly with the brutal cut of his face. I don’t know if I would call Deacon classically handsome, but he is wholeheartedly beautiful, like raw rock, like the gray landscape, like black mountains.

“I don’t know,” I whisper. “Would you like me to ride you?”

He shakes his head, reaching up to tap my chin. “Just keep me in that pretty little pussy while I have a smoke. You mind?”

I shake my head. I don’t like cigarettes, but I’m used to them. There are a lot worse things he could be indulging in. He leans over and takes a cigarette and a lighter from the bedside table. Flame flares. He inhales and leans back against the headboard.

“Are you satisfied?” I whisper.

“That you’re mine?” He looks at me through a haze of smoke. “You’ve been mine since I put you on your knees the night you got here. Just because you didn’t know that doesn’t make it not true.”

My stomach twists.

“What happened to you?” The words slip out before I can stop them.

His brow rises. “Why? You mean, why am I an asshole?”

I nod. He laughs quietly.

“I’ve always been an asshole. That’s why I got kicked from one family to another,” he says. “I was adopted out and handed back. Ended up in the foster system until around twelve. ”

My lips part. “That’s not your fault.”

“No, that’s not the fault of other kids. I’ve always been too much. The world made that pretty clear from day one. Some of it was dumb luck, some of it because I got a hard head and a personality problem.”

He’s smiling, but there’s real pain in his voice.

“I can’t figure you out,” I say. “All the men I know are violent. You’re like them, but you aren’t like them at all.”

His eyes soften. “I’ve been on the receiving end of violent men. The man I killed, he pushed me hard, and I let him because I knew if I hit back, he’d be done.”

The bottom drops from my stomach. I should be horrified, but I grew up with Aiden. I’m hard to horrify.

“What did he do to you?”

He inhales, leaning back to release the smoke. “He got jealous and put a fence stake through my shoulder, stuck me right to the tree behind me.”

Oh.

There’s a distant roaring in my ears. I look, but he has so much ink on his shoulders, it’s hard to see anything else from here.

“A fence stake?”

“The iron stakes I was making in the blacksmith shop,” he says. “I use them to hold the bottom rung of the split rail fences in place.”

My head spins, a chill slipping down my spine. He put one of those stakes inside me. He fucked me with a weapon.

“What did you do?”

He sighs, his jaw flexing. “I ripped it out, walked back to the house with blood just fucking soaking me. He was inside, so I went into the living room and shoved the stake into his temple.”

Oh God, I might be sick.

“Why?” I whisper.

He shrugs. “Because I’d been kicked in the teeth from day one. I kicked back once, and that motherfucker never put a hand on me again. There’s only so much beating a dog can take before it bites.”

He has such an inelegant but effective way of describing his pain .

“That’s how I got the ranch,” he says, voice dropping until it’s a soft rumble. “It belonged to that man’s father. Now, it’s mine.”

The sickness in my chest is overwhelming. I wrench myself back, heart thumping for a different reason than before. His hands are still on me, hands capable of so much hurt.

And yet, hands that have never hurt me.

BEFORE

I’m twelve. Not a woman, not a baby anymore.

But God, do I know about grief. It aches in my chest like a wound as I sit, hunched on the porch steps. Behind me, in the depths of the house, a door slams. Aiden is yelling, and I know I should make myself scarce. Bittern says something back. Somebody hits the tabletop, the coffee table that used to belong to my mother’s mother.

I never met her, but I know she was young too.

A tear slips out. I wipe it back instantly.

The hot summer wind makes the goldenrod in the field ripple. I see it through the trees—a net of yellow, like a little bit of heaven just out of reach.

The screen door slams open, and Aiden appears. I turn, getting to my feet. I’m in one of Bittern’s t-shirts, tied at my hip, and my feet are bare. My legs, bruised from God knows what, stick out like bird feet from under my shorts.

Lady Hatfield had big, tall children. Laurel Rose had me, short and inconspicuous. The advantage is, nobody would be tempted to send me to the factory or the mine. The disadvantage is, I’m no use to Aiden, and that makes me his favorite target.

He pauses in the doorway, glistening with sweat. His t-shirt is off, shoved into his belt. The beer swinging from his hand is empty. I don’t know if he notices because he’s so high, his pupils fill up his bright blue eyes.

For the first time, I can’t blame him.

His son is down at the coroner’s office. Not just any son, but Wayland, the big, strong firstborn .

Behind him, the door jiggles and swings open again. Aiden steps out of the way to let Bittern edge sideways around him. He slumps onto the bench, back against the house, and digs in his jeans for a pack of cigarettes.

I hope he’s out. Then, I hope he isn’t, because they’ll send me down to the gas station for more. But maybe that would be better than being here.

He finds a wrinkled pack, takes one to give to his father and another for himself, and tries to light it. His hand shakes so bad, it hurts my heart.

I skirt around Aiden and take the lighter. Bittern gives me a soft look from the depths of his haunted russet eyes.

“Thanks, Frey,” he says.

I flick the lighter, and he inhales. I wish he’d quit the cigarettes now that his lungs aren’t working right, but I get it. He just spent a week trapped in a mine. I know he needs something to take the edge off.

Especially because they pulled him out of that prison with his heart still beating, but Wayland came out dead. The guilt from that must be eating him alive.

The days since we got the call about the collapse have been horrifying. Every night, I laid on my back in a cold sweat, thinking about Bittern down under the ground, all alone with nobody to hold his hand. When they let us know he’d been found, I went out into the goldenrod field and sobbed.

Aiden wishes it was Wayland who lived. I’m so grateful it was sweet Bittern, who doesn’t say much but calls me Frey and brings me butterflies and beetles for my collection.

I glance over at him. He puts the cigarette to his lips, and his eyes focus through the trees. Smoke slips out. His eyes stay where they’re at, locked into the distance.

He looks, but he doesn’t see anymore.

“I’m gonna kill them both,” Aiden says.

He keeps saying that about the two managers up at the mine who sent Bittern and Wayland underground that day. Maybe he’s right and they were negligent. Maybe they were just doing their job and couldn’t have predicted the collapse. It’s hard to say, but it doesn’t matter, because Aiden’s made up his mind.

He’ll go with the boys from the factory and kick somebody to shit for it either way. It’s just the way of things.

Aiden puts the cigarette back to his lips. He blows smoke out.

Nobody says a word.

The next morning is Saturday. I hear boots on the floorboards. The doors smash, the truck fires up. I curl on my side in Wayland’s old room. Aiden took my things off the couch and threw them on his empty bed yesterday.

“Might as well sleep here,” he said. “Get you off the couch.”

The bed smells like beer. I lay there, waiting until the truck engine dies away. Then I get up and strip the sheets and haul it out to the washing machine in the tobacco barn. I have breakfast, and while the sheets and quilt dry, I sweep the floor and scrub down every surface with bleach.

Wayland wasn’t kind. He put his knuckles through the drywall the way Aiden does, tripped me with his big boots, and called me a whore. But I never wanted him to die, crushed beneath a ton of stone. At least, I hope it was quick.

Bittern comes out to where I’m sitting on the porch. He’s in just his sweats. His ribs strain through his pale skin. He spent too long down there with nothing to eat and no sunshine. He looks like a cave cricket now, and I hate it.

“Let me make you breakfast,” I say.

He nods and follows me into the kitchen. I make up leftover bacon, dip stale bread into eggs and fry it sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. Then, I put it on the nice plate, the blue willow one, and set it in front of Bittern. He offers me the first smile I’ve seen from him in days.

“Thanks, Frey,” he says.

We eat in the living room. After a while, Bittern gets up and turns on the TV. I sit with him and watch reruns and listen for the trucks in the driveway. It comes, around three in the afternoon, after Bittern falls asleep from his medication. I give it to him with a glass of water and a cup of applesauce so it won’t hurt his stomach.

The trucks come to a halt. Aiden and Ryland’s voices boom out, deep and loud, frightening because they’re not sad right now. They sound like they got what they came for.

The back door kicks open. Aiden strides down the hall, knuckles bloody. Ryland comes in behind him with a shiner and a rip in his t-shirt. They go right for the liquor cabinet, probably in need of something to dull the pain from their bruises.

I stand in the doorway, pressed up against the wall. Aiden takes off his shirt and uses it to wipe his face and hands before shoving it in his back pocket and reaching for the moonshine. He’s talking about something, but I can’t hear through the roaring in my ears. Then, like he can sense my presence, he pauses and looks right at me.

“What do you want, girl?” he snaps.

I swallow hard. “Did you kill them?” I whisper.

He uses his teeth to take the cork out of the bottle and spits it into the sink. “Yeah,” he says.

NOW

“I—I can’t,” I gasp.

Deacon’s eyes glint, soft black like the sky. “Revenge isn’t wrong,” he says. “It’s just the balance of the world.”

The pastor in my church back home taught us that an eye for an eye makes the world blind. Apparently, Deacon thinks differently. He stabs out the cigarette against the empty package. His hands come around my waist, almost touching over my spine.

Holding me tight.

I squirm, but I can’t get free. His cock hardens, filling me once more. He’s an animal. A gentle, brutal beast, and I’m afraid I’ll fall for him.

“If you hit back hard enough, no one ever hits you again,” he says. “And if you can’t, find someone who can. ”

I go still. There’s no point in fighting. His brow is creased, dark eyes fixed to mine. His cock twitches inside my pussy.

“Take it out,” I whisper.

“No,” he says.

I gasp. He spits into his hand and pushes it between us, finding my clit. Electricity hums between us. I could shake my head like he told me, but I don’t. Maybe he’ll listen if I do, maybe he won’t.

But it’s a comfort I have in the back of my mind, like a weak collar around a dog’s neck. So long as the dog wants to be restrained, it’s obedient.

He breathes out harshly. “Come on my cock, sweetheart.”

I start riding him, my head falling to the side. He gathers my hair, bunching the curls in his fists. His eyes shift behind me. I turn and slow, entranced by the sight of us in the mirror.

My body is beautiful. My waist dips in, his hand on it, and my hips widen, full like an erotic painting.

“Lean into me,” he orders.

Transfixed, I let him pull me against his chest. We both gaze at our tangled bodies. Flushed, I let my eyes slip down my arched spine to where my pussy is visible. It’s wet, stretched around his cock. It’s the prettiest, filthiest thing I’ve ever seen, and he can’t tear his eyes from it.

The darkness of the room falls away.

The horror of his past melts.

It’s just me and him, bodies fused together. The firelight sheds an orange glow over us. The chains on my hips glitter as I rise and fall, watching my body pull him in and let him slide out, glistening with my arousal.

My arms go around his neck. He circles my clit with his finger, and his other hand goes from my waist to my lower belly and applies pressure. A tight coil of need springs free. There’s a hot ache that pushes right over the edge, and I cry out, my voice echoing in the room.

“God, girl, fucking come on me,” he says, jaw tight .

I pump hard, pleasure twisting my spine. He holds me upright, hips still rutting into me. A vein stands out in the side of his neck. His collarbones are flushed as his body tenses. Then, he swears softly, and I feel him pump more cum into my pussy.

His lids flicker. My pleasure dies away, leaving me glowing.

“Pull off slowly,” he murmurs. “I want to watch.”

He’s filthy, and he makes me want things I can’t speak aloud. Humiliated, I let him lift me off his cock, and we both watch as he slips out. My pussy is flushed and swollen. His cock is drenched in what we did together.

I cling to him. “Kiss me?”

I didn’t mean to voice that out loud, but now that my head is clear from orgasm and he’s slowly softening, there’s a cold dread in my chest. He flips me onto my side and pulls me against his chest.

His mouth finds mine. His kisses burn my lips and tongue. Reverent, generous. The same hands that know how to kill wind into my hair and hold my throat.

Dimly, I hear him tell me all the things I want to hear. That I’m beautiful, obedient, that I belong to him.

I don’t know if those things are true, but after the way he fucked me, I need to hear them.

My heart is open.

He could break it if he wanted.

But I don’t pull away because he knows what I need. He doesn’t hold back his affection. My body is kissed, stroked, praised, and held until I forget everything. Until the stars flicker out as my eyes shut.

I don’t want to float away in them tonight. For tonight, I’m safe down here on Earth.