"For you to learn what you need to learn."
She presses her delicate fingertips to her eyes. I’m unsteady, the flood of desire for this strange little mixture of vixen and innocence is taking a toll on my practiced indifference.
She’s awakening something vicious and yet euphoric inside of me.
It’s violently protective as well.
The need to claim her, mark her, chase her down, spread her legs with violence on the ground, shoving them apart, releasing the beast from its confines and stuffing her full of me, with a hand over her mouth and my teeth cutting into the ivory skin just below her ear, drills itself down into my marrow.
I want to pump her full of my cum, make her understand this is her place now, and nothing and no one will change her fate.
My hands curl into fists. I want to grab her, want to pull her against me and never let go.
"Hoover thinks you need to be broken in order to force your compliance." I step closer as she lowers her hands, and I watch her pupils dilate as my shadow blocks the sun from her face. "But I don't break my possessions." Another step. "I rebuild them. Make them into something better. And when you leave here, you won’t be the same girl you were when you arrived."
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.