Total pages in book: 30
Estimated words: 28083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 140(@200wpm)___ 112(@250wpm)___ 94(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 140(@200wpm)___ 112(@250wpm)___ 94(@300wpm)
I pause, wanting to add, if you leave here.
I gesture toward the water, needing to move, needing distance before I do something stupid. "Walk with me. There are rules you need to follow while you’re with me."
I continue down the beach. Every cell in my body is screaming at me to touch her. My palms itch, my fingers twitch. I can feel my pulse in my throat.
"The water." I stop when we reach the shoreline. "Looks calm. It's not. Currents here will pull you under. Riptides. Drop-offs."
She's watching the waves. I'm watching her. The breeze catches her hair, and I want to fist my hand in it. This girl is more dangerous than I ever was. I should end this now, because my well-thought-out plan for her is beginning to crumble.
The thought of this marriage taking place turns me murderous. The idea of her crying out when another man rips away what’s mine—
“Are you okay?” she challenges, wetting her lips against the salty air.
I almost groan with the need to touch her, to taste her, to feel her cunt tight against my dick.
"Yes. Rule one:" I draw a line in the sand with the toe of my black wing tip, a brand-new pair, as the scuffed ones had to be replaced. "You do not go in the water. You don't even get close without me present. This—" I point to the line. "—is as close as you come. Break this rule?" I pause. "There will be consequences. Understand?"
I’m staring into her eyes, and somehow I know what she’s going to do.
And I’m willing her to do it.
Break the rules, little girl. See where it gets you.
My pulse is pounding in my ears as she grins, then her tongue is trapped between her teeth as if she’s thinking, considering her options. She has none, I’ve made that abundantly clear, but somehow I know that Larissa won’t accept that reality. Not until I make her. Not until I show her what happens to little girls who defy Daddy.
The urge to protect her and teach her and fuck her and be her father figure spins in my head as this little bird challenges my control.
“This line?” she asks, quirking one eyebrow.
And then she does it.
She steps across the line. Her eyes pinned to mine, and she might be acting like a brat, but I see the way her nipples are pulled into pebbles, a rush of pink flying up her chest to cover her neck.
Patience is my mantra. Defiance is to be expected, and punishments are best served cold, when their full weight can be appreciated.
She’s mine. And the danger of the ocean here is real.
But it occurs to me that she’s more than that.
She’s my brother’s stepdaughter. His precious little bargaining chip to make an alliance with George Makefield.
I know how these alliances work. The promise isn’t just a girl in his bed, it’s purity. The prize of being the first to conquer that seductive territory, of being the only one that will take the thing that can only be claimed once, what she sounds like when she’s being stuffed and filled and broken in. That’s what makes the alliance. That’s the offer.
I promised my father I would watch out for my younger brother, and I have. But I never promised to make sure he always gets what he wants.
I won’t kill him, but right now I have an opportunity to twist the knife, and since my exile, alliances mean nothing to me. I’ve been put out to pasture, yes, but also my safety is secured as long as I stay put. I never told anyone it was with my father's last breath that he ordered the hit on the Corniglia family that shot him.
His reputation was more important than my life.
Before Larissa can speak, I move. I sweep her tiny body up and under my arm in a single stride, lifting her from the sand as she struggles, calling for help that will not come.
“You think screaming will do you any good here?” I ask furiously as I carry her across the beach to where my cabana stands silently watching the waves. “Nobody here would dare defy me. Nobody will take you from me. Nobody will stop what is about to happen.”
“I want to leave!” she screams, and those four words shred my heart. “You don’t get to tell me what to do. I’m not some little child to be molded and formed into some Stepford daughter.”
She kicks and twists, little feet pattering ineffectively against my shins as she struggles. Her head flinging back and forth, snapping her teeth like a wild animal trying to bite me.
God, she’s a work of art. Small and subtle and broken one minute, then like a cornered rabid dog the next.
My cabana is an open-fronted structure of slatted wood and thatch, but inside is a daybed covered in soft cushions. I throw her down, shoving myself between her legs. She can fight, but she won’t win.