He glowered at me for a long second before I remembered my lesson from the beachfront hotel.
“Yes, sir,” I managed. “I understand you.”
It seemed to appease him.
With that he dragged me up the main steps and slammed me into the wooden panels at the side of the main entrance. “Stay here and don’t fucking move,” he said. “I’ll be watching.”
Even through the fear of him, I hated how he paced away inside and left me in the middle of nowhere under the dim glow of the overhead porch lantern.
I hated how my body pined for his the moment he pulled away.
He was gone for what felt like an age. Out of sight but not out of mind. My brain was nothing but him as I shivered and shuddered and fought the urge to run off into the wild in a crazy bid to make it back to my sister.
I was slumped against the building with my arms wrapped around my chest when the front door swung back open. I didn’t even straighten up as he stepped out.
He raised his nose to the sky with a terrible smile on his face when he stepped up to me.
“Take a breath of that,” he said. “The great night air.”
I took as much of a breath as I could manage, face puzzled. “Nice,” I said, in a faded voice.
And that’s when he leaned in close. So close that his gorgeous mouth was an inch from mine, breathing his great night air right at my open lips.
“You’d better make the fucking most of it,” he snarled, and his eyes were sparkling with rage and hate and the seeming need to crush the life right out of me.
My heart span. Fluttered.
My nerves jumped up and threatened to burst in my throat.
And there it was again. The devil on my shoulder.
It did a little dance along my spine and laughed its dirty little laugh at my dirty little soul.
“Say goodbye to your freedom, little girl,” the beautiful stranger said, and dragged me inside.Chapter TwoBrandonIf I wasn’t already well aware I was out of my fucking mind, the faces of my idiot crew members would have told me so in no uncertain terms. They’d stared mute, dumbstruck as I’d charged through to the office and told them in no uncertain terms that the order of business was changing for the next sixty days.
Not even my gormless brother had dared challenge my instructions.
A bunch of the dumb fucks were gathered in the office doorway, Eric at the centre, when I dragged my pretty little prize in from the front porch.
“Eyes on the floor,” I barked at her, and for once the girl listened, cheeks flushed pink as she avoided the stares from the sidelines.
I wasted no time leading her through the main hallway and up the central staircase, taking the steps two at a time as she struggled to keep up on nervous legs. She stumbled at the top but I didn’t slow my pace, yanking her forward hard enough that the bulk of me caught her weight.
I marched us past Annabel Fisher’s room at the end of the landing, turning left into the north wing and on through to my own private quarters.
If I was rough with Paige in the hotel bedroom, I was a whole new league of savage as I threw her headlong into my suite. Her knees struck the carpet and she cried out as she landed full force, yet she’d learned enough not to raise her eyes to mine, keeping her stare down low as I slammed the door behind me and flicked on the overhead lighting.
I stared at her through the red mist, temples ticking with the need to belt some sense into her, welts on top of welts without fucking mercy. I thrust my hands in my pockets, holding back on everything bar scorching her very fucking soul with my rage.
“May I ask something, sir?” she whispered after a few long moments, and at first I ignored her, approaching in silence until I was looming tall before her. “Please, sir?” she asked again, and I hated how the softness in her tone made my dick pulse.
“Dirty little sluts don’t get to ask questions,” I said. “They do what they’re told and keep their mouths shut.”
That’s when she first forgot herself, eyes flickering up to land on mine. “I’ll do what I’m told,” she said, “but first, please sir, I need to speak to my sister. I’ll do anything if you’ll let me speak to my sister. My phone… maybe my phone is in the car…”
I’m sure my smile was nothing short of evil as I took a fistful of her hair. “You’re in no bargaining position, Miss Emmerson. Everything you are belongs to me for the next sixty days, unless you want me to deliver both you and your sister to those druggie cunts and leave you to pay the debt in kind.”