Page 56

I throw open the door to my penthouse apartment and rush inside. The fuckers ambushed us at the press conference. Instead of disbanding in an orderly fashion, they wanted more from a woman who had given up too much of herself already.

The soulless leeches.

Then, a hotel staff member rushed up and told us they had Taylor surrounded by the side entrance so she couldn’t even get into the car. My heart nearly stopped when the staff told me she hopped onto a motorcycle of a random man before taking off. She hasn’t returned my calls or texts—her phone must still be on silent.

Please tell me she’s safe.

My feet come to an abrupt stop when I dart into the living room, finding Taylor sitting there with no one other than my brother.

“Liam?” I whisper, my pulse still clamoring in my veins.

He stands and smooths his hands over his leather jacket. “Charles.”

“H-How?”

“Liam saved me from the vultures outside the hotel,” Taylor murmurs as she strides up to me.

Relieved, I wrap her in my arms and inhale her familiar sweet fragrance of vanilla and patchouli. “Thank God you’re safe. I was so worried.”

“It’ll take more than a few aggressive paps to get me,” she mumbles into my chest and I chuckle.

Liam shifts on his feet before walking toward the door.

“Liam!” I holler and he stops and turns toward me. “Thank you.”

He smirks. “I was in the area when they aired the press conference live and I had to swing by to make sure you guys were all right. It was the least I could do.”

He looks at Taylor, his gaze softening. “You were a badass. Both at the hospital and at the press conference. My brother is a lucky fucker.”

Lifting his hand in a half wave, he slips out of the penthouse and quietly closes the door behind him.

Inhaling my first real breath since the press conference, I look at Taylor. “You did a great job at the press conference. I’m so fucking proud of you,” I murmur. “Are you okay?”

“I will be,” she murmurs. “Do you think it’ll work?”

Lead lines my stomach as I think about the plan Elias devised. The man scares me sometimes. You never know what’s going through his mind by looking at him.

“His plan has merit. Emerson and Elias are combing through the dark web to look for photographic and video evidence of that night, but the bastard probably deleted them off the servers now that he knows we are onto him. Absent hard evidence, we need a confession.”

Taylor swallows. “Because I washed everything away back then. There’s no more evidence.” Anguish fills her eyes.

I grip her shoulders, a fierce need to reassure her pulsing through me. “You listen to me. You did nothing wrong back then. You were a young woman who was just brutalized in the cruelest way. I read some books on assault victims and what you did was normal. You can’t blame yourself for this.”

She heaves out a deep breath as she nods at my words. I continue, “But to convict the bastard, we need admissible evidence. The bastard is obviously spooked since he’s threatening you. And now, with the press conference, you’ve essentially told him to shove his blackmail up his ass. You’ve also told him you know who he is. He will act. And we’ll catch him when he does.”

Dread slithers inside me, slowly coiling around my windpipe as I imagine who that culprit most likely is. “And if it’s Ian…if it’s him, I know my uncle, he wouldn’t be able to sit still and do nothing.”

The man practically raised me. The laughter and smiles he gave us with his tower of presents over the holidays when Grandma was busy and we were alone in the mansion. The trips to Coney Island. The way he flew back to help me with the scandal, no questions asked.

How could this man be the monster who raped Taylor?

Part of me wants to hold on to denial even as the pieces of the puzzle slide together, but another part of me wants to know the truth once and for all.

Dipping my forehead against hers, I ask the question that has kept me up at night. “If it is him, would you still stay with me? The nephew of your rapist?”

Would you leave me too? Like everyone else in my family?

Taylor grabs my face and presses her lips against my mouth, her kiss turning ardent and passionate by the second.

Groaning, I hoist her up and deepen the kiss, unmoored by the passion in her body as she grinds herself on me, her talented mouth sucking my tongue before she nibbles my lips, jawline, and rakes her teeth down my neck.

“Fuck,” I mutter, walking us into my dark bedroom, not even bothering to turn on the light. A slither of daylight seeps through the gap of the drapes as Taylor climbs down my body and pushes me into the black leather armchair I have in the corner of the room. “Tay?”

She backs away, and in the dim light, I see her eyes glistening with moisture. What’s this? Was that a goodbye kiss?

Desperation flits through me.

Gripping the leather, I move to stand, but she points to the chair again. Confusion swirls inside my chest and I sit back down, wondering what the minx is doing.

Without another word, she slithers out of her clothes, leaving her clad in only a black lacy bra and panties.

My heart racing inside me, I move my body to the music inside my mind. Running my hands down my neck to my chest, I cup my heavy tits before sliding my hands to my stomach, then my hips. Charles’s mouth drops open, his eyes darkening by the second. His throat ripples as he swallows, his fingers digging into the leather arms of his chair like it’s taking him every ounce of restraint to not bolt up and come after me.

I dip down and stick my ass out before arching up, throwing in a whip of my hair for good measure. I hear a sharp, tortured inhale, the sound a direct caress to my clit.

“I once told you I was never dancing for you,” I whisper, surprised at how hoarse my voice sounds. Brushing the straps of my bra down my shoulders, I watch his nostrils flare before slipping my arms out of the straps.

I massage my breasts, which are growing tender by the second, the bra slipping down so that we’re one inch away from a wardrobe malfunction.

Charles shifts in his seat, his legs parting—the perfect man-spreading—and I see his glorious cock tenting up his pants. Beads of sweat gather on his forehead as he digs his nails into the chair.

“But I want to dance for you now, because you’re the man who has awakened my heart. I thought I was dead inside. I thought I was doomed to live a loveless and sexless life because I couldn’t let anyone get close to me. But you came in and smashed my walls like a wrecking ball.”

Unclasping my bra, I let it fall to the floor and turn around and bend low, my hands grazing the floor, giving him a generous view of my ass, before I snap back up in a fluid and sensual motion.

Closing my eyes, I pluck at my nipples, needing the pain he doled out to me at the studio, the sharp pressure I can’t seem to give to myself. My moans echo in the dark room, joining his ragged breaths. My pussy is wet, the piercing rubbing against my panties as I gyrate my body to the invisible rhythm.

Pleasure flutters into my veins, curling around my core, but it isn’t enough. I need more pain, more aggression, more sensations.

Whimpering, I slip out of my underwear, kicking it to the side. I hear his sharp inhale as I drop to my knees and spread my legs. Arching back, I support my body with one arm, my tits thrusted in the air as my other hand travels between my legs and flicks at the piercing, pulling at it, then swirling my clit. Sparks continue to climb at my core, but the pinnacle is just out of reach.

I circle my clit harder, my motions growing more desperate as I thrash on the floor before him, letting him see how uninhibited he makes me. He vanquishes the darkness in my mind. The sparks come and go, the pleasure sharpening before receding.

Desperation climbs inside me and my lustful mewls echo in the room.

“Are you done yet?” A low, raspy growl.

I shiver. His words are like an electric current zapping through my body.

Opening my eyes, my vision clouded by a sheen of lust, I freeze at what I see before me.

Charles’s eyes flashing in the dim light, his shirt unbuttoned, abs rippling, his cock fisted in his hand as his lips twist up in a half-snarl.

He looks positively feral, the god of thunder here to dole out punishment. Nasty, filthy punishment.

I whimper, wetness flowing out of me, slicking my fingers.

“Are you done taunting me, you brat? Did you forget who owns you in the bedroom?” His hand moves faster, his grip tighter, white knuckled around the throbbing weapon between his legs.

My nostrils flare as my mouth waters at the sight of him becoming unhinged in my presence. Perhaps this side has been hidden inside me all along, this need to be forced into submission, to reclaim my control by driving him insane. Biting my lip, I continue gyrating to the rhythm of my fingers, his searing gaze the accelerant I need to fan the flames around my pussy.

I whimper, the sensations climbing, morphing into a beast of its own. I creep to the edge of the cliff, seconds away from detonating and falling into the pleasurable abyss. Rubbing harder, my eyes flutter closed, my breathing coming in quick pants.

“Stop!” he barks, his voice sharp as a whip, and I flinch.

He crooks his finger toward him and points to his lap. “You don’t get to come until I say you do. Get up here.”

My blood vibrates at the violence in his voice, the aggression leashed down in the tense set of his jaw, and I quickly scramble up from the floor and climb onto his lap.

He flips me over in one fluid motion, so I’m lying ass up on his lap, my face by the leather arm of his armchair, my legs dangling midair.

“Charles!” I screech.

“What did you call me?”

My core pulses. “S-Sir.” He rubs his palm over my ass, the sensations driving me wild.

Smack! Smack! Smack!

I scream as he rains hard slaps on my ass, one after another, in quick succession. My lungs seize and every atom inside me protests before the pain quickly blossoms into liquid heat, coalescing between my legs.

My mind mad with pleasure, I submit to him, to the man who has revived my heart and given me back ownership of physical pleasure. The man who wears his heart in his eyes even if the world doesn’t see it.

The man who thinks I’ll leave him if his uncle turns out to be the monster in my dreams. How could he think that? The sins of someone else aren’t his sins.

Charles bends down and licks the whorl of my ear. “Give me a color.”

I moan and jut my ass out, needing more of everything he’s willing to give me. “Green.”

His breathing is heavy as he rubs the pain away from my backside, then his finger travels between my legs, playing with the wetness there.

“Your body is mine,” he rasps, his words thick with promise. “Your pain is mine, your orgasms are mine, and your enemies are mine.”

He thrusts two fingers inside me and I thrash in his embrace, the sudden intrusion, followed by the hard pinches on my clit, a swift kick shoving me off the cliff as the world explodes around me. Stars appear in my vision as he continues his assault—the perfect blend of pleasure and pain.

Charles quickly gets up and tosses me back down on the armchair, his hands deftly arranging me into a position of his own liking—one of my legs is trembling on the seat while the other is perched across the armrest. I grip onto the headrest of the chair for dear life as my body quakes from the mind-blowing orgasm he just doled out.

I hear clothes rustling, the clicking of a belt buckle, a zipper being yanked down, a few buttons pinging on the floor. But these noises no longer cause a frisson of alarm because I know I’m safe. It’s Charles, the man I love, the Dom I’m submitting to, behind me.

He’ll take care of me. I’m always safe with him.

Then I feel his hot body plastered against my back, his long dick digging into my ass cheeks. He fists my hair and pulls my head back before he slams his mouth on mine, swallowing my gasp and moan.

“You’re mine,” he rasps when he breaks the kiss, “and I’m yours. You’re a warrior. Even when we’re in a scene, you’re the fucking goddess and I’m the commoner. Don’t you forget that, Taylor Peyton-Anderson. Don’t you fucking forget that.”

A rush of warmth spears into my heart as his fingers slip between my legs again, but this time, he swipes past my pussy, causing me to tremble before him. Then I feel a slight intrusion in my asshole.

“Has anyone taken you here?” He grunts.

I shake my head, my legs spreading, quaking at the idea of sharing another first with him.

“Someday, I’ll fuck you here, minx.” He dips the tip of his thumb in and the unfamiliar sensation adds to the inferno building inside me.

“Tell me you’re mine.” His other hand tightens around my hair.

My eyes flutter shut at the foreign sensations in my ass. More. More. More.

The thumb disappears and I whine before—

Smack. Smack. Smack.

I shriek from the sudden onslaught of pain as he slaps me.

“Answer me, minx.” He rubs away the blistering ache and perches his thumb back against my asshole.

Gyrating my hips against him, I whimper, “Y-Yes, I am yours, and you’re fucking mine, Charles Vaughn.”

A guttural growl tears out of him and suddenly, he slips his thumb back into my ass as he spears his cock inside me at the same time. I scream, my voice echoing in the room.

“Color?” he rasps, his voice pained.

“Fucking green.”

Before the words are fully out of my mouth, he unleashes a punishing rhythm, the sounds of skin against skin lurid, his thumb moving in the rhythm of his pistoning.

I feel full. So full. He drops my hair and pushes his body against me so the front of me is plastered against the chair. This gets him deeper, his cock hitting a sensitive spot inside me, making me see stars. The beginnings of another orgasm gather deep inside me—it’s different this time—everything is more intense. Charles thrusts his free fingers inside my mouth and I automatically suck them in, my tongue swirling around them, biting the digits all the while my body submits to his thumb battering my asshole and his cock hammering inside me in a maddening rhythm.

“Look at you, all your holes stuffed by me, your hot body thrashing for me. Need to come, minx? Does this cunt need to come hard around my cock?”

My muscles tense, my mind blanking as a torrent of pleasure so sharp, so unlike anything I’ve ever experienced overtakes my body—the tsunami obliterating all my senses as I scream and shatter in his arms. My cum gushes out of me and I try to stop, but it’s uncontrollable.

“Fuck yes!” He grunts, his hammering relentless. “You’re so fucking sexy. I’m obsessed with you.” With a few more deep thrusts, he lets out a raw, guttural growl, and unleashes ropes of cum inside me, the heat sending me off into another tailspin.

I don’t know how many minutes pass by before my mind finally flickers on, my senses coming back online. The first thing I notice is the pulsing deep in my core, the final twitches and aftershocks. Then, it’s his body heat and the dampness of his sweat dripping onto my back. Next are the quick puffs of air hitting my face from his ragged breathing. Finally, it’s the soul-crushing warmth sweeping into my heart, a bright light illuminating all the dark crevices I’ve hidden inside me.

“I love you, Charles. No matter what happens with the investigation. If it turns out to be Ian, that’ll never change the way I feel about you,” I whisper.

He answers by sealing his lips on mine.