Takeover: A Step-Brother Romance (The Legacy Book 1) (30 page)

It was like she got off on challenging me. Like she didn’t understand the game she played or how desperately foolish her resistance would be.

I didn’t give her a reprieve. I didn’t ask if she were ready. I didn’t even grant her a moment to adjust.

I slammed inside of her, taking every last inch of the body my brother tried to claim.

She arched, scratching at me in the pitted heat of my aggression. Her moan shrilled, but the pounding water and closed doors of the estate would prevent anyone from hearing how she cried my name.

Her tightness gripped me. Her heat drowned me. Her slickness infuriated me. My brother didn’t deserve to take root within the sanctity of her body. I thrust hard. Instinctual. Demanding. Each forceful push and deliberate pull cleansed her of the past moments and centered her completely on me.

Sarah clutched me as I pinned her against the stone. She shook. Her eyes glazed with excitement, but she flared with a heat that seared through me.

“I made a deal with Max,” she whispered. Her words chopped as I thrust deeper at the mention of his name. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

My cock was too hard and her body too broken for me to concentrate on anything but taking her for my own. I silenced her with a kiss. She resisted.

“Nick, what are you planning?”

As if fucking one of the most beautiful, temptingly forbidden women in the world wasn’t enough, she demanded I reveal what madness I devised. The sheer power in my plan, the absolute carnage it’d cause and the wealth it’d generate would have hardened me without her heat clutching my cock.

“You don’t deserve to know, Sarah Atwood.”

Her breathless groan earned my grin—a predatory bite that should have frightened her. Instead she shuddered and pushed against me, trying to unpin herself from my length.

It wouldn’t happen.

I fucked her harder, forcing her arms over my shoulder and driving her again and again against the wall until her welted and bruised back punished her for me. She embraced me, whimpering into my neck as the wracking pleasure weakened her within my hold. She panted and cursed me and kissed my neck as my hardness thickened for her.

“You’re going to take over the Bennett Corporation.” Her words brushed my skin with silk and sandpaper. “Why?”

“I have to.”

“Bennetts don’t turn on each other.”

I slowed, propping her against the wall to watch the rising of her chest. My movements drew more waves of pleasure from her. She stared at me, wide-eyed, eager.

Waiting.

It wasn’t an opportunity to capitalize on my family’s misfortune. She genuinely wanted to know what I thought.

She wouldn’t like the answer.

“I had no choice.” I kissed her lips, her chin, her neck. “You played your hand. I played mine.”

“But your father—”

“My father demanded we imprison and rape you,” I whispered. “And, had I not convinced Max and Reed to fuck you, he would have killed them.”

Sarah stiffened. I didn’t let her escape. It destroyed me more than it hurt her, and the only sanity and reason I could find was buried with her warmth. I moved faster. She shook her head.

“He…he’ll
kill
them?”

“I need you, Sarah. More than you know.”

“Nick, you can’t…your father wants you to
breed
me.”

“And I will.”

“No, listen—”

“You have to let this happen. You have to let them take you, and we have to impregnate you.” I kissed her again. Her lips parted. “I will do everything I can to overtake my father, but it depends on you.
Everyone’s
safety depends on you.”

“Nick, you don’t under—” She groaned. “How can you ask this of me?”

“Because Reed will never fuck you. He’ll refuse.” I slowed my movements. “And if he doesn’t take you, my father will.”

She tugged me closer. Just the thought terrified her. She couldn’t imagine the horror, but I knew exactly what my father would do to her.

He’d kill her. He’d kill Reed. He’d kill Max.

And I’d be left with everything and nothing.

“You have to convince Reed to take you even if he means he’ll be the one to…” I cursed the thought. “Even if he’s the one to give you a son. I’d rather he claims you—”

“No one is claiming me.”

Odd words for the woman imbedded on my cock. I thrust deep just to watch as her head fell back. The dark bruises on her neck exposed her shattered innocence and re-forged strength.

“You’re wrong.” I held her tight, grinding as deeply within her pussy as I could get. “You are made to be claimed. Built to be taken. Ready to be bred.”

Her smile quivered. “And if I’m not?”

“It won’t matter. I’ll have you anyway.”

She shuddered. The heat pitched within me, and her parted lips whispered my name and secrets and truths I had no patience to hear. I seized her mouth and buried inside her, losing myself with a perfect heat, a stolen body, and my own ragged obsession demanding every ounce of my seed be lost in her tightness.

Sarah arched as I did. Cried out as I grunted. Submitted as I took.

The heat seared inside her. Jet after jet, promise after promise, intent after intent.

Sarah Atwood would be mine.

Her body would warm for me. Her will would break. Her pleasure would submit to mine.

And the child she’d conceive would belong to me.

I’d possess her completely—mind, body, and soul; past, present, and future; in defiance or utter obedience.

If she didn’t conquer me first.

I was to be nude at all times.

Darius’s perversions weren’t sated while he watched Max beat me.

The instructions came in the morning. No clothing. No covers. Nothing but the brush of cold air against my aching skin.

The remnants of the punishment striped me with bruises. Darius inflicted the worst of it. My ribs screamed from the strike with the cue, and Max’s flogger did the rest. What hadn’t been jostled and pitched, beaten and broken, was driven into the shower wall again and again within Nicholas’s feral thrusting.

I despised Nicholas for leaving me with Max.

I hated that he returned to mark me as his.

And I silently begged he wouldn’t leave me alone for the night.

He did, and I slept, but it wasn’t enough. I needed all of my strength for Darius’s next demand. It was Reed’s turn to fuck me, and the thought scared the hell out of all of us.

I didn’t fear Reed. He vowed never to hurt me, but I had no idea how he’d react. It was just as likely he wouldn’t touch me. Or, in his kindness, he’d deny his urges and tempt his father to take his stead.

And so I was naked, and I hoped my body would appeal to a base impulse buried deep in my step-brother.

Darius offered me a new gift.

“A proper collar, my dear.” He snapped the leather into place, forcing me to my knees before him. Max handed him a leash—leather, tailored, and remorselessly expensive. “You will crawl for your brothers. Bend over when they say. Present when they order. Take their cocks when they wish.”

I didn’t dare glance to Nicholas, standing silently at his father’s side. I’d already been fucked when they wanted to take me, positioned the way they longed to see me, and filled with their every dark desire.

Except I knew something Darius didn’t.

Secrets that would tear the Bennetts apart.

Secrets my family would have killed to learn. For years, Dad longed to watch Darius Bennett writhe like the worm he was. He didn’t live to see it.

But I would.

Darius passed Reed the leash. He held it too tightly. I coughed and edged closer to his legs.

“She’s all yours, son.”

Darius reserved no patience for Reed. His stare bore through him, just as fierce and unforgiving as the flogger stuffed in Max’s pocket.

Reed wrapped the leash in his hand, pulling me closer, as though that would protect me from his father. It wouldn’t. Nothing would. But I was glad he did it.

“You will fuck her,” Darius said. “Think you can figure it out?”

Reed tensed. “Yeah, I got an idea of how it’s done.”

“You will come inside her.”

“I don’t need instructions.”

“Are you sure?”

Reed said nothing. Darius scowled.

“Don’t worry.” Max snapped the flogger with a sadistic precision. The leather cracked against my side. I lurched onto Reed. He nearly dropped the leash. “Her pussy’s so tight you couldn’t pull out if you wanted to.”

My stomach prickled with sickness. The insult came so easily. I curled my fists, hiding the roughened carpet burns from when he took me.

Nicholas pulled his phone and answered an email, as though he didn’t even care that his youngest brother held me by a leash and Max gloated his victory over me.

God, I was trusting
Bennetts
.

Nothing could be more dangerous, but I wallowed through indignity and regained an ounce of control. It’d be worth it. It had to be.

Reed tugged the lead, leaving his father with a humbled nod. I attempted to rise.

Max slashed the flogger again. I dropped to the floor.

Nicholas’s bronze eyes briefly passed over me.

“Crawl,” Max said. “It suits you.”

I shivered. The heavy darkness in his voice carried the same authority as it did on my knees yesterday. He didn’t do it to correct me. He played a game for his father.

But what was he thinking? His order would only discourage Reed. I tugged his pant leg to offer my reassurance. Reed ignored me.

The hardwood hurt against my raw knees and hands, but it wasn’t as bad as where my skin pulled tight over the welts and bruises. I had to crawl slowly, and I knew, without a doubt, every Bennett savored the view of my slit as my hips rolled.

I flushed under my step-brothers’ gazes, but I loathed that Darius saw. He didn’t deserve the sight. Not that my step-brothers did either.

What was I getting myself into?

I inched over the carpet, stumbling as Reed’s pace increased. He didn’t look at me, and the hard jade in his eyes was not the Reed I knew lingering beneath the shell of the Bennett name. I jerked to keep up with him.

Nicholas walked by my side to the stairs.

I didn’t want to know how he matched my speed so effortlessly.

I didn’t want to know why his presence soothed my jumbled nerves.

Every strike that bit my skin faded under his touch. Every humiliation transcended shame and morphed into a beautiful expression of utter lust in his embrace. But every secret I kept from him burdened me with a horrible weight.

I should have told him before all this happened. Before Max and the beating, before Reed damned himself to a darkness he didn’t deserve.

Before I’d shuddered in absolute pleasure in Nicholas’s arms.

Instead, I kept my mouth shut, and now wasn’t the time to blab secrets and jeopardize everything.

We reached the stairs. Reed swore as I timidly attempted to push myself along the marble. He reached down, hauled me into his arms, and then settled me over his shoulder.

The leash swung free. I didn’t know what to do. I grabbed it, clinging to the leather as Reed adjusted me against his body.

“Reed, make her crawl.” Darius’s displeasure echoed in the hall. “How else do you plan to teach her respect?”

“I’m gonna fuck her, aren’t I?” He said. I held tight to him as a simmering rage tensed the muscles pinning me against him. “Christ, all this voyeur shit is getting old. I got her from here.”

His shoulder dug into my bruised ribs, but Reed didn’t let me go until he reached his suite. The door slammed behind us. He tossed me on the sofa and immediately covered me with a shirt that missed the hamper by two weeks.

“Wear that.” He turned so I could dress. “And take the fucking collar off.”

I tugged the shirt on, catching his scent of salt and ocean. Reed’s hair bleached light in the sun. His suite was decorated with surf boards and pictures of reefs and corals. Newspaper clippings and blog posts framed his sea-side décor. I didn’t have to ask why all of his photos were taken when he was a teenager. The surfer in Reed existed in a world before college and Bennett responsibilities.

I unraveled the leash as Reed sunk into the chair before the TV. He didn’t turn it on.

“I haven’t been in any of your rooms before.”

I was reduced to small-talk. My summer finishing classes never taught me how to engage a man ordered to rape and impregnate me. They always were a waste of money.

“This isn’t my room,” he said.

“But—”

“I have a penthouse in San Jose and a home on the coast—Half Moon Bay, for the surfing.” He gestured toward the surfboard on his wall. “But, my father decided that we should all be under the same roof to accommodate our
guest
.”

I hated the edge in his voice. He didn’t look at me. Didn’t move. Didn’t even glance at my bare legs tucked under me as I sat. His shirt hung loose over my curves.

It should have comforted me.

I felt as exposed as ever.

I wasn’t naked, but it was close enough. Stripped and vulnerable and forced into a situation neither of us could handle.