Page 29 of Worth

“Shit!” I exclaim, leaping forward as his shoulders curl in and he cups his dick with the other hand. “I’m sorry!”

He holds up one hand, stopping me before I touch him. “Good hit,” he wheezes, then groans. “I think you’ve got it down. I won’t be worried about you keeping yourself safe now.”

I wince as he takes a shuffling step, still clutching at himself. “I really am sorry,” I say. I bite my lip, then hiss as it sparks with pain, letting it go.

Even though I just kneed him in the balls so hard his eyes are watering, his gaze locks on my bruised lip, oozing blood again after I bit down on it, and turns heated. “Don’t be. There is nothing sexier than a woman who can handle herself.”

A nervous little hum of a laugh escapes me. “Whatever.”

Aiden straightens and hobbles the short distance between us. “I was half hard from kissing you before still.” Snatching up my hand, he presses it to his crotch before I can yank myself away. “This is what you did to me when you took me out.”

I can’t tear my eyes away from my hand pressing on his jeans in a way that is wholly controlled by his own hand. Underneath my palm and fingers, Aiden’s cock is hard and solid as granite, and I can feel the heat seeping through the fabric that separates me from touching his skin. He’s...big. Not super long, but a decent length. But the girth—he’sthick.

Or at least I think he is. My only comparison is Damien, and I’m pretty sure he qualifies as being on the smaller side in all ways.

As I stare at his crotch and our hands, all smashed together, his dick twitches hard enough to move in his pants. Aiden lets out a low grunt as it does and releases my hand. I force it to fall away as soon as I’m able, dragging my eyes back up.

Aiden’s hazel eyes blaze into mine. His hand latches onto the back of my neck, jerking me forward so we’re chest to chest, and my hands come up to clutch at his t-shirt. With a tenderness that doesn’t fit the way he just grabbed me, he kisses my temple and my eyes flutter shut as I breathe in the scent of sweat and leather from his skin.

Lips skim along my jawline and press to the corner of my mouth. “I want you to be mine,” he murmurs, “but you need to be yours first.”

My mind stutters over his words, unsure of what he means, and I can’t tell if it’s just because I’m distracted by the way we’re locked together.

It takes me eons to realize Aiden has stepped away from me and, when my eyes open, he’s already almost back to the house, even though he’s moving with an awkward limp. I glance around, realizing if I wanted an opportunity to run, there would be none better than this.

I look back at Aiden and find him waiting on the porch, watching me. I realize, at the tight expression on his face that almost covers the hope completely, he’s giving me the option to run.

He’s doing what Zander won’t.

He taught me how to defend myself so I could survive when it came down to it.

He’s setting me free.

I don’t look around again. I start walking, head up, shoulders back. When I pause in front of Aiden, he’s biting back a smile, his fingers twitching like they’re trying to move of their own accord to grab me.

I go up on my toes to close the short difference in height between us, kissing his cheek. I make sure to meet his eyes, to show him my honesty. “You don’t deserve hell, Aiden, and you never have.”

I walk into the house without looking back, not even when I hear his breath catch at my words.

Chapter 10

I rake my fingers over my buzzed scalp as I search through the file in front of me again. I’m so goddamn frustrated. She had been right there. I had been so close to having her for myself—finally. And then fucking Ainsbury had to lose Blake.

I’ve pulled every string I have, and every source but one has gotten back to me. In front of me are stacks and stacks of possible sightings and information on the car she was last seen in, which, despite the rarer nature of the car, the plates are stolen and there are no cars registered like it in the entire region.

I shove away from my desk and stride to the wall I have dedicated to Blake. Four of the five screens, which usually hold the live streaming video surveillance of Blake’s room and the Ainsbury’s surrounding property, are glaringly dark. One is completely shattered, where it took the brunt of my anger as I watched Damien’s shithead nephew lead my girl into the guest house.

I was only slightly mollified when she resurfaced, decorated in blood, because that was when she ran. I’d gone over the footage a million times, trying to use different angles to catch sight of the guy she’d been reported to have left with, to no avail. Either this stranger knew there were cameras on the property and where they were—impossible—or it had just been rotten fucking luck that none of my cameras had caught him.

I scan over the pictures that cover the wall around the screens, all of Blake. Some of them are from before Father sold her, even pictures of her as a child, long before I knew she existed. Some are ones I took of her when she wasn’t paying attention after our parents married: while she was curled up on the couch watching a movie; while she was laying out by the pool, tanning; while she was sleeping.

A few of them are screenshots from her time with Damien, though those usually only serve to piss me right the fuck off. He never treated her well enough, in my opinion, which didn’t count for much since he held Blake’s ownership papers—not me. I have suffered through hours of watching him fuck her, but the consolation in it was that she had never stopped fighting back.

I growl as I rip a picture of Blake off the wall. It’s my favorite. I have a hundred more copies printed and accessible. It’s one I took after I snuck into her room one night to watch her sleep. The lighting is dark, but the full moon had cast just enough light through the paned balcony doors to illuminate her features; blonde hair in a tangle around her, lashes laying against her cheeks; pink lips parted; tight little body covered only in panties and a t-shirt that her rosy nipples are peaked and just visible through.

I’m obsessed—I’vebeenobsessed with Blake from the first time I laid eyes on her, and I’m not ashamed of it. Though maybe it would have been better for all involved if I had never met her at all. I know there are better ways I could be spending my time. But, even as I think it, I know I can’t begrudge my girl in the slightest. She’s made me better, made me focus, made me work harder than I ever had so that, when the time was right, I could finally claim her for my own without anyone saying a damn thing about it. Not like the day Father accepted the two million dollar offer for her, despite the rage I’d flown into.

I will claim her as soon as I can find her.

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