Page 16 of Prohibited

His Evie.

And then he thought of his brother. White and blue from blood loss, his eyes dull. How frightened he must have been at the end. How he had suffered.

No, she wasn’t his Evie. Her father had unceremoniously fired him and made certain no one else in the city would hire him. Destroyed any chance he might have had at having a respectable life, and she didn’t give a shit. He’d sent her letters in the post and handed them off to the house staff, telling her that he loved her, that he wanted to see her. That he just wanted to say goodbye.

All of them went unanswered.

She had made it abundantly clear that he was beneath her notice, just a nobody. Someone she had used and tossed away like trash. Not good enough for her.

And then, betrayal to injury, she’d resurfaced after all this time as Walter Stanley’s paramour. Accomplice to the murder of his brother.

The former was cruel, the latter was unforgivable.

Ryan swallowed hard and gritted his teeth together, gathering his resolve around him like armor.

This was his idea. His idea. And he wasn’t going to allow an old fling fuck this up.

Between them, his cock was an iron rod that brought him a twinge of shame. He was suddenly very aware that she was in a state of undress. And pinned neatly beneath him. Her eyes widened as if she’d just noticed this fact, too, and she renewed her struggles, which caused her breasts to swell against the top of her camisole. He stared at them for a helpless moment, wanting to dip his head and caress the curve of each with his tongue. Disgust with himself and excitement at her terror warred inside of him.

She was a means to an end. He had to keep reminding himself of that. And she deserved everything she got now. But it wouldn’t serve his purpose to satisfy the lust burning him up from the inside out. It could very well compromise him.

He focused on her face, hardening his own. He forced himself to look at her, to remember who and what she was, pleasures of the flesh be damned.

“Shut. Up.” He said in a steady, even voice, their faces almost nose to nose. “I will tie your mouth shut if you don’t keep it shut on your own. No one can hear you except for me, and all you’re going to do is make me angry. And that’s not going to end well for you.”

She tried to say something into his hand, but he shook his head.

“Don’t. Don’t say a word.”

Then he moved his hand slowly away from her mouth and started to say something else when she brought her head up and smashed it into his mouth. In their current situation, she didn’t have enough leverage to get him good, but it still fucking hurt and shocked the hell out of him.

In his rage and surprise, she got out from underneath him like a slithering eel before he could get a good grip on her. Fury came down over his vision like a blinding red curtain. He caught her again before she could reach the door to the room the cell was housed in.

Shrieks penetrated the air like blades, but he hadn’t lied to her. No one could hear her scream. All the sound did was blow into the furnace of his temper like a bellows.

Well, perhaps she was going to need to be taught a lesson. He caught her around the waist and she fought him, scratching at his hands and trying to throw her head back into his face again. To no avail. He had the measure of her ferocity now, and if he wasn’t so pissed off, he would have been impressed. He put her over hisshoulder and took her back into the cell like a sack of potatoes, spitting blood on the dirt floor as he went.

One of his hands was already undoing his belt. He whipped it out of its loops as he dumped her on the ground. She scrambled to kick at him, beautiful legs snapping through the air. She managed a kick so near his groin that he felt his balls draw up inside of his body. Reflexively, he slapped her. Not with a fraction of the force he could have managed, but it still made her head snap to the side. Shock overtook her, causing her lips to part and holding her prisoner just long enough that he had her hands together and bound with the belt before she could stop him.

He hauled her to her feet, ignoring her efforts to fight him and dragged her to the iron bars of the cell. With quick, steady hands, he had her tied to them in the blink of an eye.

Panting, he stood with the line of his body pressed along her back, both hands taking his weight against the bars on either side of her while he tried to calm the rage boiling inside of him.

“Fucking bastard,” she said. She turned her head and spit at him. Most of it missed, but a little bit landed on his face.

That little fleck of spit obliterated the last ounce of restraint he had. A dam broke inside of him and a river of boiling lava rushed through him, consuming every shred of sense in its wake. With both hands, he ripped her skirt off so that it fell in pieces around her,and then ripped down the girdle and the soft cotton drawers keeping her flesh from view, exposing her ass to the cool air of the cell. She screamed and tried to move away from him, but she was tied fast and there was nowhere for her to go.

“Ryan, please–” she said, voice rising with panic. “Ryan, please, don’t do this!”

The words coming out of her mouth were muted, distant. Just the sight of the sweet swell of flesh made him smother a moan and then sent another surge of lust tangled with rage through him.

His hand crashed against her bare ass with the force of a thunderclap.

She screamed, but it was a sound that held more shock and fury than pain. Too bad. He hit her again, harder. She screamed again, the sound sharpening into a cry of pain. It ground into him, drawing a smothered groan of pleasure and hatred from his lips.

“How dare you! RYAN!” She struggled against the belt. She tried to kick back at him, but it was useless, especially with her drawers caught around her thighs, binding them together. “You fucking bastard!”

He hit her again, and again. Punishing her for daring to speak his name. Punishing her for everything that she had done to him. Punishing her for even breathing when his brother lay in the ground, cold and dead. Harder and harder. So hard that it hurt his hand to strike her. Her screams transformed into wails that echoed off the walls of the earthen room and went straight to his cock like lightning bolts, urging him on and on.

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