Page 35 of Dark OZ

Dorothy huffed. “If you don’t mind, could you wait until you’re in private before you start stroking that ego so vigorously?” She didn’t bother hiding the snark in her tone, and I couldn’t help but chuckle at it. She never backed down. Even when she was being playful, Dorothy pushed every boundary and button she could find. Why did that make me want her bratty ass more?

The images rolling through my head couldn’t be stopped. It would take nothing to lift her onto the counter and spread her wide. Dark hair splayed against the grey marble, and lips parted on a rapturous scream, fighting me and loving it every step of the way. The vision was exquisite. There would be nothing to stop us. The boys were gone until tomorrow. I could take my time, driving her body until Dorothy begged for deliverance.

Fuck.Why had I thought this would be better than talking at a dinner table?

“Problem?” she asked, looking coyly over her shoulder.

I cleared my throat. “No. Just trying to decide where I want to start.” A lie. I knew exactly where I wanted to start. By sinking my teeth into her ass right below those two adorable divots.

“Just start at the top and keep telling me your story. It’s a good distraction.” She flexed her fingers, shifting her weight from one foot to another and making her ass sway with an impatient wave.

“You seriously want to hear this?”

“Yes, now stop being a pussy and start talking.”

“Mmm. Keep pushing me, Dorothy.” I gave her ass a hard slap. I couldn’t help it. She was being a brat. A man could only hold out for so long when faced with this kind of temptation.

She yelped and glanced back at me. Where I expected to see anger, there was only amusement and absolute lust. Fuck, of course she loved it. She probably got off on the fight as much as I did.

“Behave, or there’s more where that came from.” I made a twirly motion with my finger.

After rolling her storm-cloud eyes, she twisted to face forward again.

“I was fifteen, running the coat check at La Maison Rouge, a fancy French restaurant in town.” I didn’t particularly like sharing, and I rarely offered up information about my childhood. By rarely, I meant never. Inevertalked about those years with anyone, ever, but it would help distract us both.

I needed that right now, because I was finding it hard to focus…on anything. My mind and my eyes flitted from one part of her body to the next, each more alluring than the last. At the moment, the way her hair pooled around her shoulders was completely mesmerizing. In this light, it was made of so many colors. Brown, black, amber, red. I pushed the errant strands over her shoulders, briefly closing my eyes to the rose-petal softness of her skin. Dorothy sucked in a breath at that first subtle touch. Shit, she was so responsive—if that didn’t make me want to start stroking down each exposed inch of flesh.

“Danny?”

I blinked. How long had I been staring at the slope of her neck? I didn’t even have a good excuse for why I’d stopped talking. I cleared my throat and continued the story. “The valet station was beside mine. The box where the keys were stored was mounted to a wall in my cubicle.” I redirected my hands to the bandages bracing her ribs. Removing the fasteners, I unwound the long fabric from around her waist. Each pass of my hands brushed the underside of her breasts, revealing more and more skin. It was like unwrapping a present, one that was most definitely not mine.

“That’s how they planned to steal the car?” she said, her voice broken by an unrestrained breath when my hand finally pulled the bandage free. Dark green bruises blossomed like a spray of flowers along her side. At least they looked like they were healing.

“Exactly. They staked out the cars, and when the one they wanted pulled in, Nick would distract the valet while I handed the key to Crowe.” I grabbed gently at the edge of the highest strip of tape. This piece curved along the side of her left shoulder blade. Dorothy jumped from the brush of my fingertips. It was thrilling enough that I let my pinky trail along as I pulled just so I could drink in the way she shivered inch after intensifying inch.

Dorothy’s voice was tight, “Did it work? Did you give them the key?”

Gingerly, I removed the first gauze pad. This time, it wasn’t Dorothy letting out the broken exhale. The roadmap of cuts was a mess. Some of the marks, while puffy and pink on the edges from healing, were obviously deep. Last night, there had been patches of dried blood that soaked through her shirt, but not enough that it concerned me. Of course, at the time, she had just kneed me in the balls, so I wasn’t very inclined to care about the state of her shirt.

Crowe tried to explain the extent of the wounds, but I hadn’t expected anything like this. There were four more covered areas to change after this one.Four MORE. Fuck. How had she strode so confidently into my home while carrying the weight of this damage? I’d seen strong men broken by half this much pain. There was no way this was caused by a typical whip, even one with many tails.

Staring at those wounds, for the first time, I saw Dorothy for what she was. A fighter. To think I had been calling her Princess all this time. No wonder she hated me. I was a prick. The very fact she’d refused to let us see any sign of weakness while enduring this level of torment was a true statement of her character.

Last night, she screamed loud enough to be heard in the office. I shut the door so I didn’t have to listen to her crying. When, an hour later, Nick told me she’d passed out from the pain, I chalked it up to a weak constitution. Now I understood the woman who never flinched and met me blow for blow. She wasn’t a princess at all. Dorothy was a fucking queen, looking to reclaim her kingdom in the name of everything she’d had stripped from her.

Chapter 16

“Iseverythingokay?Youaren’t afraid of a little blood, are you?” She tried and failed to cover up her concern with snark.

“Describe the whip to me.”

“What?” Caught off guard by my abrupt change in topic, her voice sounded small.

“Crowe said you were whipped.”

The slender fingers gripping the edges of the counter tightened. Her weight shifted back on her heels. It was what she’d done when we first asked her what happened with Eastin. It was a hesitation I hadn’t wanted to observe before, but now, felt so obvious. Suddenly, I was seeing so many small ticks that I’d been blind to, a vulnerability in this girl that she kept hidden so effortlessly—like she’d spent her entire life afraid of showing weakness and had formed a natural defense against it.

“It was shorter than a regular whip. Red, braided leather with faceted gemstones running the length of each strand. There were a dozen tails, maybe more.”

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