Page 27

TWENTY-SIX

DEFIANT

NICOLETTE

S ick asshole still thinks I do. Why else would he look down at me with a slight curve to his lip after he drugged me, kidnapped me, took me captive… and then, without breaking eye contact, unbutton his jeans?

He doesn’t stop there. At my growing horror, Kieran unzips his pants, shoving them down past his ass before dipping his hand beneath his jeans and pulling out his dick.

No surprise that he’s hard. He’d deny it, but he was always more turned on by my fear than anything else.

Like now. As he shows off the erection, complete with pre-come already beading at the tip, I know that this is his way of proving to both of us that he’ll always consider me to be his—and if I know what’s better, I’ll give him what he expects.

Of course. As a teen, I learned to give him what he wanted because he’d get it, one way or another. He wouldn’t rape me—or, at least, because he never got that consent under constant duress could ever be considered rape , he wouldn’t think of it as that—but that’s because he did everything he could to make me agree. When I was young enough not to know better or understand that a twenty-one-year-old shouldn’t be fucking his sixteen-year-old stepsister, he’d push and nag and cajole until I gave in.

Later, Kieran would punish me if I acted out. He’d make me go without food for a couple of days, and when that didn’t work, he had no problem hitting me, knocking me around to get me to behave the way he wanted me to.

But no matter how he treated me, and what I let him have, there was one thing he couldn’t do: he could never stamp out the last bit of defiance in me.

I show him that now. I’m at his mercy, no purse in sight, my phone gone, and the realization that no one probably has any idea what happened to me… but when he grabs my arm roughly, forcing me into a kneeling position, then shows me his cock, there isn’t anything on earth that will have me obediently sucking him off like I’ve done a hundred times before.

He expects me to be the naive girl I was. To show that he owns me, that he controls me, he’ll shove his cock in my face and wait expectantly for me to worship him.

I won’t .

“I waited too long for you, darlin’. Now be a good girl and open up.”

I clench my teeth, keeping my mouth closed.

Kieran moves closer. Spreading his legs, bracing them against the cement floor, he bumps his cock against my lips.

I shake my head.

He blows out a rush of air. Then, as though I’m being unreasonable, he sighs, then digs his thumb into the underside of my jaw, cutting off my breath.

Fuck. Panic makes me stupid. I forget I can breathe through my nose and, instead, gasp out a breath.

As soon as I do, he shoves the head of his cock past my lips. Once he’s in, he assumes that I’ll give up. I’ll stop fighting.

For a moment, I do .

His hand goes to my hair to keep me in place. He tugs on the strands, making sure I can’t go anywhere as he rocks on his heels a few times. It’s obvious to him that I’m not going to start out willingly licking him, nibbling him, sucking him… but he wants a blow job, and knowing Kieran, he’ll do whatever he thinks he must to get it.

It’s not just a blowjob, though. This is showing me that I was fooling myself with all the time I spent with Royce. Kieran probably thinks that he was being magnanimous, giving me a few days with my ‘boss’ to get it out of my system—but the way he spat out ‘pretty boy’ like that before, plus knowing where I’ve been… he knows way more about my relationship with Royce than he should.

Enough that he’s being even rougher than usual to replace him.

That’s what he’s doing. It’s not about pleasure for him. It’s ownership, and he shows me that again and again as he begins to flat-out fuck my mouth.

I’m gagging now. Choking. Tears fill my eyes as he forces himself in and out, the head tickling the back of my throat as my stomach lurches. My gag reflex just about triggered, I’m so close to hurling.

I snap instead.

This wasn’t my choice. None of this is. I told Kieran three years ago that it was over. I mean it then, and now that I have Royce in my life? I know what I was missing, wasting all that time with a bastard who treated me like property instead of a person.

No. He treated me like a pet .

Well, this bitch is about to bite back—and that’s exactly what I do.

I bite his cock, a broken part of me being reforged as steel as Kieran howls .

Of course, I knew he wouldn’t let me get away with that. I wasn’t thinking that far ahead, but I should have because his reaction is worse than anything I might have expected otherwise.

He punches me at the same time as he tears out a chunk of my hair. Not once, either, though it takes the one close-handed hit to get me to release my teeth. As he pulls his cock out of my mouth, his punch sending me to the floor, he kicks me in the side with his boot, then punches me dead-center in the face at least twice more before he stalks away, cursing under his breath.

This time, I do curl up in a ball, trying to protect myself from the rage I unwittingly let loose.

I say unwittingly… I fucking knew what I was doing. It took a lot to provoke Kieran to violence—the manipulative monster preferring to convince me that I wanted everything he ever did to me — but he also wanted me to believe that when he did lose his temper, it was something only I could do.

Because he loved me, right? And because he expected my love—and obedience—in return.

Not this time, bro.

“Damn it, Nicolette!” His voice is further than before. Squinting through the pain, I see he’s storming around the other side of the space, cock out, pants just below his ass as he fumes. “You shouldn’t have done that!”

He shouldn’t have tried to force me into going down on him.

It was worth it. I don’t know how bad he beat me for biting him, but it was worth it.

Almost reluctantly, but knowing I have to, I bring my hands to my face. One touch. One touch to feel that my crooked nose isn’t the right shape before the pain has me nearly blacking out from it.

“You broke my nose,” I gasp. I figured… but, wow. It is that bad.

“You bit my cock,” Kieran snarls, marching closer again. “You’re lucky that’s all I did to you. Look at it, Nicolette! I see fucking teeth marks!”

I wish I could. The slap on the street left me with one swollen eye. He backhanded me then, but his cruelty is unmatched. He might want me to think it was an instinctive reaction, striking me because I took the chance to make him hurt, but he couldn’t have landed a better punch. He smashed my nose, following through right to the other eye, and I can barely see anything but shapes—not details—through the tears and the haze of pain.

He slugged me with my teeth digging into his cock. If only I’d snapped down and bit the fucker completely off.

I finally realize that hot blood is streaming down my face. My broken nose is bleeding, heading right into my mouth. I choke when I get the first rusty tang against my tongue and lips, sputtering it out.

Even in this state, I know better than to hike up my shirt and use it to stem the flow of blood. If Kieran hasn’t noticed that his brand on me is gone yet, that I replaced his tattoo with a seahorse… he’s already pissed. I don’t really want to make him any angrier.

Shit. My sudden burst of adrenaline from before is beginning to wane, and while I don’t regret what I did, I definitely set him off way easier than I used to.

I remember the murder I saw… if I’m not careful, I might be his next leaf.

Just as I have that thought, Kieran proves that he really is one scary fucking bastard. Pulling back his obvious fury, he blows a breath out through his nose, and when he walks over to me again, he’s as calm as he was the night he ‘ran into us’ in Riverside.

Standing over me again, he tucks his cock back into his pants. “Fuck. What a waste of time. All I wanted was a little head, but I make you suck me off again, you’ll choke on that blood. I went to a lot of trouble to get you back, darlin’. I’m not gonna let you die on me now.”

No. Kieran’s just going to make me wish I was dead.

“It’s fine,” he says in a tone that says it’s not . “You’ll make it up to me. And if you don’t? When I go after McIntyre, I’ll make sure to cut off his dick first so you have something to practice on. You like that, darlin’?”

Damn it. Damn it. I’m not surprised in the least that he’d immediately jump to threatening Royce, but if I’m careless with my own safety, Kieran knows me well enough to guess that I won’t be with Royce’s.

I collapse to the floor, all of my defiance sapped out of me at the thought that he would target Royce because of me .

I’m so tired . Whatever he did to me outside of the Suites, I could just lay down, close my eyes, and fall back asleep. It wouldn’t escape the nightmare I’ve found myself in—would probably only make it worse —and I know better than to give in.

I have to stay awake. If anything, to prove to him that he’s not going to control me so easily… I will stay awake.

But I won’t fight him again. Not until I can figure out a way to convince him to spare Royce. I’ll give him whatever he wants if he does, though I’m careful not to tell him that. In this mood, sacrificing myself for my lover would only give my abusive ex all the more reason to go after him.

For now, I have to bide my time and hope like hell Royce cares enough to find me.

Whether it was threatening Royce or because of the damage he did to my face, Kieran accepts it when I go quiet and still— until he crouches down again and, instead of trying to feed me his cock, tries to take my chin in his hand so he can eye his recent handiwork.

I can’t help it. I jerk my head out of his reach. It sends another wave of unbearable pain flashing through me, but I just can’t help it. To have him lay those brutal hands on me… I’d rather the pain.

Kieran sighs. “This isn’t the way I thought our reunion would go, darlin’.”

“Fuck you,” I spit out, spraying blood with it. He’d expect the venom, and I’m glad to give it right now.

Tsk -ing, he says, “Bad girls get soap. Is that what you want? I’ll wash that fuckin’ mouth out with soap and see if that changes your tune.”

Hypocrite. Kieran’s always been such a goddamn hypocrite—but he doesn’t bluff. I remember that. If he says he’s going to shove a bar of soap in my mouth, he’ll hold me down and make me suck on that the same way he expected me to blow him to make his point.

“Don’t make me be the bad guy, Nicolette. I don’t like it when you make me the bad guy.”

Then maybe he shouldn’t be the bad guy.

He taps my cheek, sending even more agony through me. At my hiss of pain, he asks, “Maybe you want water instead, hm? That’s a good idea. I’ll get you some water, you can wash out that blood, and we can start over. What do you think?”

He doesn’t want to know what I think.

“That’s my girl.” He presses his lips to my forehead. “Don’t go anywhere, darlin’. I’ll be right back. And in case you get any idea of leaving me again?”

Kieran pulls something out of his back pocket. When he jangles it, I squint. It’s a key ring with a single key on it. Smirking down at me, he twirls it on his pointer finger. “Door has an automatic lock from the inside so that we can get in, but it takes a key to get out again. Walls are soundproofed, too. A perfect place to keep you until you remember that we’re meant to be.”

Oh my god. I’m going to die down here, aren’t I?

Especially since, when I force myself to my knees, ready to chase after him to see if the door really did lock behind him, I don’t make it more than a wobble before I collapse back onto the floor.

After that, I can’t do anything but drift between unconsciousness and the new nightmare I’ve found myself in.