Cruel Conquest: A Dark Romance, page 4
Why the hell I just stand there, gaping, is a mystery. I mean, I’ve seen genitals before. I’ve even watched porn. But this… this is so wrong.
In a deliciously fucked-up way.
He mumbles something. For some screwed-up reason, I think it’s my name.
I almost laugh. I almost take a peek under the towel. But thank God, my rational mind knees its attacker in the groin, and gets away.
Logic rams all thoughts of what’s lurking under Leo’s towel out of my head, and I spin on my heel so my back is to him. Then I force out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding, and hurry over to his computer. I spot my coat hanging over his office chair. Oh, right. I forgot I’d left it in his room. Leo must have found it and put it here.
Why the hell does the thought of him touching my things make me bristle with… God, I don’t even know what. Annoyance? No. It’s not that.
I peek at him over my shoulder—only to make sure he’s still asleep—but my eyes gravitate to his enormous cock before I can stop them. I glance away, but the damage is done. There’s a playful tingle between my legs, the same as I’d felt when I’d been thinking about him in bed a few minutes ago.
Forget about that, Hannah. You have a job to do.
I grab the mouse and give it a few quick swipes, hoping that the computer is just in sleep mode. The screen switches on, lighting up the room with a bright glow… and a loud beep.
Shit!
“What the fuck are you doing?” Leo rumbles from the bed.
Clapping a hand over my mouth does nothing to stifle my gasp this time. I squeeze my eyes shut as I hear the bedsprings groan in relief when Leo slides off. I can’t make myself look at him, can’t bear the thought of seeing him walking over here with that hard cock of his.
“I asked you a question, Hannah.”
A shiver rifles through my body at the way he says my name.
I don’t even know how I can speak, let alone lie, but I manage a stuttered, “M-My coat. Just came to fetch my—”
His voice is closer now. “And you thought you’d take a quick look through my emails while you were at it?”
My eyes flutter open. “That… I didn’t… it was an accident.”
He laughs, but there’s zero humor in the sound. “I warned you, Hannah.”
I don’t imagine the threat in his words. I spin around, my entire body on high alert, my eyes glued to his—so darkly shadowed, they could be black. He gazes at me with a tilt to his head, as if intrigued by my suicidal tendencies.
I can’t move. I can’t speak. Fuck it, I can’t even breathe.
I watch him approach, knowing full well how fucked I am… and that’s before I spot the leather belt dangling from his powerful hand.
CHAPTER 8
Leo
A beep rouses me from a lurid dream where I’d been about to thrust between Hannah’s shivering thighs. I open my eyes to a room cast in a pale glow from my computer screen and I blink in surprise at the petite silhouette crouched over my desk.
Hannah.
For a moment, I think this is part of my dream. But if it was, then she’d be naked… and not going through my fucking emails.
Blood pumps through my veins like lava—hot, thick, and as infernal as the dark thoughts filling my mind.
I knew she was up to something. I knew it, and I dismissed it.
Why?
Because she’s young and pretty and I’d convinced myself I needed her? Because I thought, just for a moment, that I’d met someone who didn’t have a fucking agenda?
My naivety disgusts me.
My illogical reaction shocks me.
Instead of calling the police, instead of throwing her out of my house, I get my belt.
All I can think about is disciplining this slip of a girl who thinks she can take me for a fool. I feel like a fucking idiot for letting her get this far.
Her eyes drop to the belt when I fold it in half and close my fingers around the buckle. The metal warms fast, before I’ve made it halfway across the master suite.
“What are you doing?” she breathes, her gaze dancing between my eyes and my hand. She tries to back up, but the desk is in her way.
If she’d made a run for the door, she might have made it.
But she just stands there, waiting.
At first, I’m convinced she’s in shock. Maybe she truly thought she could snoop without me catching her. But no… the blanket slips from her shoulder. Tight nipples poke at the thin fabric of her shirt, and I know she can’t be cold. Not in this room, with all the heat still trapped inside.
“What are you doing?” she asks again, her eyes darting from my hand to my eyes, then back again.
“Teaching you a lesson, girl.”
CHAPTER 9
Hannah
Run, Hannah! Run!
Now I understand why so many animals get run over. My body can’t seem to decide between flight or fight, so it plays possum instead. Leo’s intense, brooding stare is part of it, but there’s something else too.
Neurons in my brain are misfiring, because my breath is catching in my throat… and it’s with anticipation. Not even dread anticipation.
Maybe it’s the detective in me. This girl who’s been playing amateur sleuth ever since her mother died can’t bear not knowing what’s about to happen.
Screw survival.
Self-preservation… what’s that?
Instead of doing the intelligent thing—the logical thing—I’m standing here waiting to see if Master Grayson is indeed going to use that belt… or if he’s just bluffing.
One look at his face gives me my answer. There’s not a flicker of mercy on his face, not a trace of a smile. He’s dead fucking serious.
And yet, here I stand. I don’t understand why the thought of him touching me—hurting me—doesn’t make me want to turn feral and claw his eyes out.
Maybe it’s because I know I don’t stand a chance.
He snaps the belt between his hands, the crack so loud that I let out an involuntary gasp. “If you’re not who you say you are, then you’re trespassing on private property and I am in my rights to deal with intruders as I see fit.”
“Trespassing?” It comes out with a bark of a laugh. “You’re joking, right? You let me in the front door.” I stab out a finger. “I’ve almost cleaned your entire fucking McMansion!”
He chuckles. Then another snap of the belt, all brevity gone in that whip-crack of a sound. “Drop the coat. Drop the blanket. And then drop your pants.”
Every command is accompanied with another snap from his belt. He stops less than two feet from me. I could try to dart around him, but I don’t doubt for a second that he’d catch me.
And then what?
“My pants?”
“This is happening.” There’s the faintest hint of a sadistic smile on his mouth when he adds, “One way or the other.”
Oh, God, Hannah. You saw the white-capped waves, but you swam out anyway. Now you’ve been swept into the ocean. And that ocean is the formidable Leo Grayson… who’s apparently quite serious about disciplining you in the most corporal definition of the word.
I give my suddenly dry lips another lick. “Look, Mr. Grayson, there’s no need for—”
He rips my coat out of my hands.
There’s a wild light in his eyes. If it wasn’t him, and this wasn’t me, I might even have called it desire. But that’s just plain ridiculous.
“Lose the pants,” he rumbles, so close I can feel the warmth of his body.
Suddenly, I’m not frightened anymore. Even more proof that I’m losing my damn mind.
“Or what?”
He snatches the blanket from my shoulders. I barely have time to grab his wrist before he twists open the button on my jeans.
“You’re only making me angrier, Hannah.”
His smell drifts into my nose, and my body tenses, my pussy tingling in response to the brush of his fingertips against my belly.
“I—”
“Five.”
I glare up at him.
“Four.”
He draws down my zipper, and I swear I feel every single one of those teeth rasping.
“Three.”
I swallow hard, pushing away his hand, trying to pull my fly back up.
“Two,” he murmurs.
My heart kicks against my ribs like it’s trying to break free. Maybe it can sense the hellfire that’s about to rain down.
“Fuck you.”
He steps even closer, until there’s no space between us. That’s when I feel the hard ridge of his cock digging into my hip. After all there’s just a towel between us now.
“Last chance, Hannah.”
We stare at each other a beat, and then I tug down my fly, nearly losing my nerve when my knuckles brush against his cock.
He breathes warm and slow over my upturned face as he towers over me while I slide my jeans down my hips. He said nothing about my underwear, so I leave my panties on.
My jeans are barely past the curve of my ass before he grabs my arm and whips me around. A shove between my shoulder blades has me bending over. My hands shoot out to catch me before I face-plant on the edge of his desk.
I don’t even have time to brace myself before he lands the first blow. Pain blossoms bright and furious on my flesh.
Even though I knew what was coming, I’m so shocked I can’t scream.
Crack.
I jolt forward, but Leo grabs the back of my jeans and wrenches back my hips, forcing my ass to plump out.
Crack.
“Ow!” I yelp, pulling forward against his grip to get my ass out of reach.
“Hurts, doesn’t it, Hannah?”
Crack.
“Fuck!” White-hot agony sears through me. Tears spring into my eyes as I claw against the polished wood of his desk. I squeeze my eyes shut as he lands another blow, but they just pop open a minute later.
That’s when I realize his computer screen is still on.
And his emails are open.
The pain is ferocious. It makes my ass cheeks coruscate with fire. And then there’s the ache. It started in my tortured ass and dug deeper and deeper, coming to settle deep inside my core.
I’ve been able to put pain aside before… and I’m determined to do it again. I hang my head, whimpering, but I keep my eyes glued to Leo’s computer screen, reading his emails through my lashes.
All I have to go on are the email addresses themselves and the subject line.
One of them catches my eye. It’s from a woman called Sophie.
Re: Meeting…
Crack.
20:15 suits me. I look forward to…
“Please!” The word shoots out of me in a rush. “Please stop! You’ve made your—”
Another blow cuts me off.
“Leo, please!” I might have been able to block out the pain for a moment or two, but now it’s back… and it’s worse than before. I try to keep an ounce of dignity, but it’s impossible. I’m wriggling my hips, desperate to break out of Leo’s grip. My ass feels like someone poured lava over it.
“I’m sorry, okay? Please, just stop!” In my furious attempts to break free, I push back into Leo. The moment I feel his cock press against my scalded cheek, I hurriedly buck forward again.
I don’t know if it’s my incessant begging, or that brief contact, but that’s when Leo releases me. I stagger forward, wincing when my hipbones slam against the edge of the wood, and ending up in a crumpled heap on the floor.
He stares down at me, his erection so blatant through his towel that I’m convinced he’ll throw me on the bed and shove his cock into me before I can get my breath back. And for some fucked-up reason, I know I won’t stop him. I might even welcome it, if only for some relief from the pain strobing through my backside.
Leo leans back on one foot, blinking like he’s coming back to earth. Then his eyes dart up to the computer screen.
“That all you got, weakling?” I grate out hoarsely as I grab his chair and use it to haul myself to my feet. I swipe a hand over my eyes to dry my tears, and sniff loudly. “I thought you’d have a gym installed in this big fucking mansion of yours. Or are you too busy to work out?”
I don’t know if he realizes I’m baiting him, or if he refuses to rise to the challenge, but Leo drops his belt to the floor and gives me a cold-eyed stare that goes on just a little too long for comfort.
“Who are you, Hannah?”
I open my mouth to say something glib, but a sharp ping from my cellphone cuts me off.
For a big guy, Leo can move pretty damn fast. I didn’t even realize my phone had fallen out of my pocket, but I guess if you consider the fact that I was just beaten by the man of the house, it makes sense. Leo snatches my phone from the floor and stares at the screen. I want to be angry at him, but I’d be a hypocrite. After all, I was the first to invade his privacy, right?
“You’re leaving?” he asks quietly, the disapproval in his gray eyes sending a jolt of shame through me.
I hug myself. “You weren’t exactly welcoming, Mr. Grayson.” I take a deep breath.
It’s now or never, Hannah. This is your last chance.
I hold out my hand for the phone. “I’m sure the agency can arrange someone more suited for this position.”
I don’t look up at him despite how my eyes want to glide over his firmly sculpted chest. Instead, I make a point of staring at my phone. His fingers curl over the device until I’m sure he’ll shatter it. My heart hammers in my throat, rendering breathing impossible.
“Cancel it,” he rumbles as he gently lays the phone on my palm.
I don’t have to feign the shock on my face when I blurt out, “Excuse me?”
“I say when you’re done, Hannah. And you’re not done.” His eyes rove over my face, but I can’t tell a thing from his stony expression. No one would think this man had just been belting me with a foot-long erection springing from his lap.
I sniff, tipping my chin up. “And what if I tell you I don’t want to stay?”
One side of his mouth pulls up into a humorless smile. “We both know you’d be lying.”
CHAPTER 10
Leo
Hannah cancels her Uber with a sullen light to her green eyes, but she doesn’t argue. And thank God, because every atom of my being is telling me to let this girl leave.
What just happened is proof of how dangerous she is. I lost all control—and not only did she survive, she taunted me.
It’s all for show, of course. I know she’s hurting. I can see it in the way she moves—slowly, stiffly, like she’s trying to put as little friction on her ass as possible.
She lets out a small gasp of surprise when my computer screen switches off, plunging the room into darkness. It only takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the faint illumination cast by the embers in the distant fire, but it’s enough to make out Hannah’s profile as she turns away from me to swipe at her eyes.
She’s even pretty when she cries.
I take a hurried step back, grabbing a pair of sweats from the floor and tugging them on under my towel so I can shove a hand in my pocket and keep my cock flat against my belly. Neither of us needs a reminder of how aroused I am—there’s a fucking damp spot on the towel where my cock was weeping in joy with every blow I landed to Hannah’s plump little ass. I toss it on the bed, trying to rid myself of the memory of how translucent her panties became after a few lashes.
“There. Happy?” she says, shoving the phone into her back pocket and then grimacing with pain.
That she won’t be able to sit for a few days without being reminded of my belt is the only thing that’s made me happy for weeks.
I huff through my nose as I turn my back on her and head for my en-suite bathroom. “Delighted,” I grate out.
Opening the vanity, I take out a tube of ointment. Hannah straightens hurriedly when I step back into my bedroom, and I swear I saw the glow of my computer screen a moment before she snuffed it out.
Fuck knows what she thinks she’ll find on there.
“Perhaps I haven’t made myself clear,” I tell her as I come closer. She eyes the cream warily, and then stiffens when she looks up and sees my expression. “I’m not done with you, but I am done with your snooping.”
She gives me that forced smile again, the one that makes me think nothing in her life gives her much pleasure these days. “I wasn’t—”
I’m leaning over her a moment later. She pales. The only color left on her face is a touch of pink on her plump lips. “That will be your last lie, Hannah.” I grab her chin, tipping her head back so she’s forced to look at me. She keeps my gaze with a resentful gleam in her emerald eyes and a sour twist to her mouth, but keep it she does.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Grayson.”
I’ve decided it’s better than Leo, and a far sight better than that sarcastic Sir. In fact, there might even be a modicum of respect in her voice. That or she’s even more full of bullshit than I gave her credit for.
“Sorry about what?”
“That I was snooping.” She glances away for a moment before locking eyes with me again. “It’s just… the rumors…”
Her eyes are glittering, but I’m pretty sure it’s not with fear. Oh, no. If Hannah feared me, she’d never have made it this far.
She’s curious. And rightly so. I haven’t been back here since Cindy passed. But now that I’m selling the estate, I’m sure the town’s rumor mills are churning.
“It will never happen again,” I say, pinching her chin even harder.
She blinks rapidly. “No.”
I shouldn’t believe her. I should still toss this girl out on her ass. But when I look into her eyes, there’s a flash of defiance.
Do your worst.
Well, Hannah… if you insist.
CHAPTER 11
Hannah
