Page 3 of The Last Time You Break Me

He could destroy it.

For just one, unrestrained night within his arms.

His cold hand threaded through my hair, and gripped me at the nape as he yanked me backward. My neck strained, the pulse thumping with wild abandon as he growled at me. A sneer of disgust was on his lickable lips while he towered above me, hunkered down to get his nose locked against mine, while his lip curled back.

His breathing was heavy. Untamed. I loved that I drove him wild.

“Watch what you say to me, love. These pretty delusions may just get you killed. I won’t tell you again. Go. Back. To. Bed.”

A bitter taste seeped onto my tongue. My gaze once again found the yawning entrance to the dungeon basement just as the thunder roared like a lion and lightning flashed. Both swallowed whole the sound of the helpless man being tortured to death below our very feet.

Oh how badly I longed to see such a thing.

“Bones. Yo, where you at, man? This pig is ready to be roasted,” Dalton, my eldest brother shouted up the stairs. I imagined him to be standing at the bottom as he looked for him. Still, we stood bathed in the shadows, tucked into the corner of the hallway where Bones quickly covered my mouth to keep me silent until Dalton sighed and retreated.

“Pig?” I asked with wild eyes. “You have a fed down there?” Horror filled me as I thought about all the ways this could backfire. As I thought about all of the ways those I loved the most could be ripped away from me by the deadly and unforgiving hand of a cop.

“Time’s up, darling,” he growled as he bent low at the knee and put pressure on the hold he had placed right across my mouth which stalled any protest. He hiked my ass right over his shoulder and began stalking down the hall.

I yelped and his bloody palm consumed the sound of shock that exploded from my throat. As he charged back to my room, I pounded closed fists brutally against his back. Once we were inside, he spun and slammed the door shut before carrying on toward the bed where he threw me down carelessly. Before I had the chance to throat punch him, he was there. On top of me, pinning my slender frame beneath him at the same time as his unyielding hand collared me by the throat.

Oh how pretty tatted hands were. They were made to collar a woman’s throat so perfectly.

I almost choked on the air taken from me so quickly. But my sick mind craved it.

Wanted more of it as I arched into him.

“Stop trying to piss me off, darling. And stop with your heartless ways. You know what he’d do if he caught you on those steps listening. You’re not ready for his kind of training. The training needed to be within this family with a seat at the table, silly girl. You never will be. It would break you, going through what he thinks would make you. Prepare you. All it would do is destroy you.” There was such a coldness to him, such an arrogant certainty that I was a delicate wallflower who couldn’t handle the life.

The life I was born into.

Anger replaced the taboo lust I was feeling and I narrowed my eyes. I bit down on my lower lip as I brought my knee between us, embedded where it hurt him the most and he grunted, face blue as he wheezed for a painless breath, but none came. I shoved at his shoulders, trying to roll him away from me but he held fast, hand tightened until I began to see the most welcomed stars in my darkness.

My right hand swung up as it caught him on the inner wrist, weakening his hold. The move forced his hand to drop from my throat while I shoved and kicked him the fuck away from me.

“I’m not as delicate as you like to think and believe me when I say... You have no fucking idea what I can handle, Reggie Ramero. What I’m capable of. Now get the fuck out of my room.” Standing from the bed, I folded my arms across my chest and scowled at him. Imploring him to get the picture and get the fuck away from me. The embarrassment bled hot through my blood and stained my cheeks scarlet. His face contorted when I used his full name. The only person around here who would ever do such a thing.

Good thing, really.

It only sounded like a place of sinful paradise when it rolled off my tongue.

I knew what I wanted.

I knew he wanted it too. But at every turn, he treated me like a child and I decided tonight would be the last time he ever thought of me that way.

Clearing his throat with a vicious growl, he straightened while he turned to face me. “You will always be his daughter and he will always be my best friend. Stop with these games, little girl. You’ll only get hurt. I don’t want you. I never will.”

Those words did something to me. Something I can’t explain nor will ever, ever fucking attempt to. Because from that very moment, I realized he might be right.

That maybe all of my efforts to get his attention were void because he truly, wholeheartedly did not want me. That I was a fanatic with an eye for her father’s best friend. That every soulful look and veiled caress as he passed was nothing but a dream. A sick and depraved dream that kept me warm at night.

I had read the signals. How foolish of me to believe that once I turned eighteen, he’d finally make me his.

The man who could very well be my father himself if we wanted to throw around the age game.

But I didn’t care.

I knew what I felt.

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