Raw, A Dark Romance (7 page)

It was him.

He was here.

The kidnapping bastard.

At my side so quickly.

He must have been watching from somewhere close by. Stalking me. Like a wild animal.

Saying nothing, he carried me into the house. His movements were smooth. He was strong. Very strong. Lithe. Like a skilled athlete.

He set me on my bed and inspected my ankles and feet. “You’re hurt.”

My gaze met his. What did I see in those dark eyes? Was it...concern? His brows drew closer as his jaw clenched.

“I fell.” I watched as he gently flexed my foot. His hands were those of a cultured, rich man. Finely boned and nails groomed but still masculine. Gentle but strong. His touch was firm but not cruel.

“Does this hurt?” he asked as he tested my ankle.

I winced. “A little.”

“
Mierda
,” he growled.

I didn’t know a lot of Spanish, but I knew what that word meant.

He straightened up, stared down at me with sharp, cutting eyes and rumbled a string of words I didn’t understand.

Why was he yelling at me? “You shouldn’t be blaming me!” I snapped. How dare he blame me for this! “If you weren’t holding me here against my will, I wouldn’t have tried to get away!”

His eyes darkened even more. He bent low, until his mouth was no more than an inch or two from mine. “I’m not blaming you,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’m blaming myself.”

I was shocked by his admission. Tongue-tied. I stared into his eyes and saw pain and frustration and guilt. And suddenly I wasn’t angry anymore. I wasn’t desperate to leave. I didn’t want to run.

What the hell was wrong with me?

One minute I was risking my neck to get away from this monster, and the next I wanted to understand him. In a blink he had changed. He wasn’t just a cold, heartless beast anymore. He was…a beautiful, complicated, hurting man. I wanted to strip away his defenses and reveal all his secrets.

Shadows whipped and swirled in his eyes like specters. Dark, frightening shadows. I’d thought, in the dungeon, that those were evil shadows. But now, seeing him like this, I knew he wasn’t only evil. He was both good and evil. Man and beast.

Things had happened to him, had scarred him. Terrible things.

His hand cupped the back of my neck. His tongue swept across his lower lip. His gaze slid to my mouth.

Was he going to…kiss me?

A pulse of erotic need surged through me.

Yes, please. Yes.

He moved a tiny bit closer. His gaze lurched back up to my eyes. I saw resistance warring with wanting. “I always get the innocent ones. They have to be innocent.” His voice was so low and his accent so heavy I had to strain to understand.

“Why?” I whispered as I told myself I shouldn’t care.

“I won’t want them.”

His lips brushed across mine, and my breath caught in my throat. Again, his mouth caressed mine. It was the gentlest, shiest kiss I’d ever experienced. And, oh God, it was making me fall apart.

A pulse of aching crashed through me. My body stiffened. I wanted more. I wanted him to really kiss me, like he meant it. And I wanted him to touch me again. Down
there
, between my legs, where the aching was getting worse by the second.

You need to stop this. Now!

Dire warnings screamed in my head, but my body’s plea drowned them out. Those soft, fleeting kisses were like the strongest drug.

Addicting. Making me crave more. Desperate.

I looped my arms around his neck and pulled, hoping he would deepen the kiss. My lips parted and I slipped my tongue into his mouth. A deep growl vibrated in our joined mouths. His body stiffened against mine.

Suddenly I was slammed backward, flattened on the bed. He was on top of me, his weight smashing me into the soft mattress and holding me there. I was trapped.

Panic buzzed through my body. I pushed against his chest. But when his kiss turned feral, my fear evaporated. I groaned and slid my hands up, over his shoulders. His lips and tongue ravaged my mouth. His hands cupped my cheeks, holding my head in place so I couldn’t break the kiss (not that I would anyway). His tongue plunged into my mouth, over and over, filling it with his decadent flavor and mimicking the motion of what I hoped might happen next. His kiss was no kiss. It was a claiming. A thorough possession. And I was completely lost in the feverish need it sparked inside me. Gone were any and all thoughts. I merely existed to satisfy the desperate urge pounding in my cells.

I wanted.

I ached.

I trembled.

The sound of my gasps filled my ears as he broke the kiss to start licking and nipping along my jaw line. He rolled off me and his hand slid down, following the column of my neck, lower, to my breast. He cupped it through my clothes and my spine arched. The heat and pressure against my hard nipple felt so good and yet I ached for more.

A whimper bubbled up from deep inside my chest. I clawed at the covers beneath me and writhed as he explored, licking a burning path down my neck. Stopping at the neckline of my t-shirt, he growled and sat up.

I opened my eyes.

His face was a deep red. His eyes as black as coal. “What the fuck am I doing?”

What was he doing? Seducing me?

And what was I doing? I was laying there, squirming, practically begging him to take me. A man who’d paid money to have me. A man who didn’t give a shit about me.

Except he did care. At least a little. He’d cared enough to watch me climb that rock. He’d cared enough to be there to carry me home when I fell.

“Tell me to leave,” he said as his gaze wandered over my disheveled form. I could feel my clothes were all bunched up. And my hair was mussed, some of it thrown across my face. He reached down and brushed those strands aside. “Now. Before it’s too late.”

He cared enough to tell me to make him leave, before I wasn’t a virgin anymore.

And yet he didn’t care enough to give me back my things and send me to a hotel.

“Leave,” I said. It wasn’t a strong command. More, a plea.

He jerked his hand back, as if my skin had burned him. His expression changed a tiny bit, shifting from something resembling pure wanting to hard determination.

What was happening?

“You’re in no position to make demands.” His voice had lost that edge to it. Gone was the need, the lust, the desperation. In its place was cold, hard control. I wasn’t sure which I feared more.

“What kind of mind games are you playing?” I snapped. “One minute you actually seem to...you’re gentle and kind. And the next, you’re a cold-hearted bastard.”

One side of his mouth curled into a sneering smile. “Mind games? I don’t play games. I told you that.” Sliding his arms under my body, he hauled me up and strode through the door and down the hall, and I knew, as ribbons of icy dread curled through my body, that he was taking me back to that room, the dungeon. And this time I wouldn’t escape whatever punishment he was thinking of carrying out.

When he’d kissed me, he had almost lost control. And I realized, now, that he didn’t like that. I would pay for it. I would pay the price for his weakness.

And for mine.

For a brief minute, I’d forgotten what kind of monster I was dealing with.

Big, huge mistake.

Once he had me back in that dungeon, I knew I was in trouble.

He set me down next to a bench thing, positioning me on my knees. Then, by pressing on my upper back, he forced me to bend over the bench, chest resting on the flat surface, arms dangling on either side.

“You must remember what you are, esclavo. You are my slave,” he said, very calmly as he buckled cuffs around my wrists. “You are here to take my pain, not to give it.” Once he had my wrists bound, he flipped up my skirt and ran his hands over my buttocks. I thought for a moment he might have second thoughts about whatever he was planning on doing, but then one of his hands came down hard, smacking my satin and lace-covered ass cheek and I yelped in surprise then screamed a curse. Chuckling, no doubt at my reaction, he ripped the back of my panties in half and the shredded material slid down my thighs. “Ah, a blank canvas. All for me.”

“Fuck you,” I growled. “None of this is yours. None.”

“We’ll see about that. I can have it all. I can mark every inch of your body if I want.” He left me.

“You might be able to mark me, to scar and maim me, to make me cry and bleed, but I will never belong to you. Never!” My ears pricked as I listened to his retreating footsteps. There was a creaking sound as he opened a cabinet somewhere close by. This time I knew he would be back. And I knew I would not like what was coming.

I tracked the sound of his footsteps as he slowly prowled closer again. My skin prickled everywhere. Back. Arms. Legs. Scalp. Dread wound through my body. Adrenaline flowed. I twisted my wrists, hoping I might wriggle free. No luck. I was fucked.

And yet, even as I knelt there, fear and apprehension pounding through my body, slick heat pulsed in my pussy. I was turned on. Very turned on. Like more aroused than I had ever been in my life.

From fear?

From apprehension?

That made no sense to me. But there it was. The undeniable truth. Dripping down my inner thigh.

Furling my fingers into tight fists, I closed my eyes and tried to battle the thrumming lust inside me. I didn’t want to feel this way. Not now. Not with a man I despised. If I liked this kind of thing, would I ever be satisfied with a normal, good man? Or would I be constantly drawn to dark, dangerous men who would break my heart and scar my body?

He was standing behind me now. God only knew what he would do next. I sure didn’t.

He reached between my legs, cupping my wet tissues in his palm. “Hmmm. What is this?”

I was so ashamed my face burned.

“Beg for mercy,” he commanded.

Beg? My pride had already taken a beating—worse than my ass would. I would beg for nothing. Remaining silent, I braced for what I expected would be a painful lashing.

A soft whir was the only warning. Then white hot pain seized me, burning across my buttocks. The bastard.

“Beg for mercy,” he repeated.

I would not beg. Hell no. I clamped my lips tight.

A second blast of pain ripped through my body. I bit my tongue. Tears burned my eyes. But I said nothing.

“How I enjoy beating the pride out of a strong-willed slave.” Dipping down, close enough for his body heat to burn my back, he whispered in my ear, “You won’t win. You cannot.”

Fuck him. I would.

He struck me a third time and possibly a fourth. By then the pain was throbbing so hard across my entire ass that I couldn’t tell when he was hitting me or where. How many lashes had he given me? I couldn’t say. Colors swirled behind my eyes.

Images.

Nightmares from the past.

“This is what happens when you don’t listen, you little bitch,” he said.

He was not Kace Ramos, Spanish billionaire.

He was Uncle Doug, grease monkey. Uncle Doug was the bastard to whom the state, in all its wisdom, had handed me and my sister over after our parents died. My eight-year-old sister
Karrie was bent over his knees, tears streaming down her face. But no sound came from her mouth. She was taking a beating because of me.

For me.

And she was taking that pain in silence so I would suffer less guilt.

The image of Uncle Doug’s face faded as the pain ripped my mind back to the present. But not Karrie’s face. Hers remained, haunting me now like it did every night. But as more pain razored through my body, I whispered to her, “This is for you.” Over and over. And each time I said it, each time another blade sliced through my body, a tiny bit of regret faded. Just a tiny sliver. Enough that soon I welcomed the next strike. And the next.

Pain? Could it be so simple? One tear for every tear she had refused to shed for me?

I could pay her back. I could. “Thank you,” I uttered as another strike sent piercing pain whipping through me.

“Beg for mercy, esclavo!” Ramos demanded, louder.

Keeping silent, I clamped my eyelids shut and braced for more.

A bruise for a bruise.

A strike for a strike.

A tear for a tear.

I would pay my sweet sister back for every single one. Kace Ramos would make sure of it.

At least out of this nightmare I had discovered something. I had found a way to pay for my past mistakes.

I had found redemption.

When Ramos stopped. I blinked open bleary eyes. Tears had saturated my cheeks and the bench beneath me. But I hadn’t sobbed. Just like
Karrie, I hadn’t made a sound.

Moving quickly, he unfastened the cuffs and stooped down. His gaze drilled mine. “What the fuck was that?” he demanded.

Before I could answer, a torrent of Spanish words flew from his mouth and he stormed out of the room.