NINE

There was a small antique clock on the mantel in the lounge, and its swinging pendulum had been quiet up until this moment. Now, every tick was a gunshot as I stared at the belt Macalister clutched. His makeshift whip he planned to use to flog his wife.

Alice had gone absolutely white and backed away from her husband but had not yet fled the room, although she looked like she was considering it. She’d given him her submission and told him she’d do whatever he wanted, but now she was much less sure.

My stomach filled with acid, and the sour taste quickly made its way into my mouth. He wanted to know what number an appropriate response was.

“Zero,” I spat. “Zero is the appropriate amount.” He had the audacity to look at me like I was the crazy one, and I couldn’t believe I had to say it out loud. “I’m not going to watch you beat your wife.”

A jolt shot down Macalister’s back. “Jesus, I’ll do no such thing.” He looked offended at the accusation. “I’ll deal with her the same way I handle any bad behavior that needed to be stopped—with punishment.”

I pressed my hand to my chest to try to stop my heart from cracking. Had Macalister done this to his sons while growing up when they’d needed to be punished?

Oh, God.

Had he done this to Royce when he’d refused to get out of the limo at his mother’s funeral?

“No,” I snarled. I balled my hands into fists so tightly, my fingernails were sure to leave crescent mark indentations on my palms.

His expression hung. “You don’t think she deserves to be punished?”

“Not like this.”

The clock continued its loud, persistent click. His eyes narrowed a degree, and his voice was incredulous. “After what she did, you find it acceptable she walks away free and clear?”

I was petty, and excellent at holding a grudge. “Well, no. But . . .” The belt remained in his hand, taunting me, right along with Alice’s panic-stricken face. I could barely look at her because it made me feel the same fear she was experiencing. “Macalister, please.” It bordered on begging from me. “Don’t.”

“You prefer I use a different method.”

Visible relief flooded her face, and I nodded. “Yes,” I said quickly. “Anything else.”

He cast the belt aside, dropping it so easily onto the floor with a loud thunk, it sparked suspicion in me. Had he really intended to use it, or had this been a test for her? Or a bluff for me? His half-smile all but confirmed it.

“I find it fascinating that, after everything, you have compassion for her,” he said.

I was still struggling to catch my breath and get my heartrate back down to a normal level. I wrinkled my forehead. “I don’t, I just—”

His eyes were all-knowing, all-seeing. “Then why are you holding that rook?”

What was he talking about?

I looked down to discover the white castle piece clasped in one of my hands. I didn’t respond, but we all knew why. He’d told her she couldn’t move unless I was touching a piece, and subconsciously, when the belt had come out, I’d wanted her to run.

I hesitantly put the chess piece back on the board. All Macalister had to do was get me to see genuine fear in Alice’s eyes and she was essentially forgiven. Maybe there was hope for me after all and I wasn’t turning into a Hale. I still cared about people other than myself.

“Alice, come,” he said in a harsh voice, like a master calling a disobedient dog.

When his belt had thudded to the hardwood, it had dispelled a significant amount of the tension in the room, but the undercurrent remained, and as she carefully approached him, it ramped back up. Whatever alternative form of punishment he’d crafted, he seemed ready to dish it out.

The last thing I’d expected him to do was kiss her.

Judging by her reaction, it was the same for her. When his large hands seized her face and tilted it upward so he could lean down and capture her mouth, she let out a sound of surprise. It was followed instantly by an excited whimper that was quieted under his kiss.

Her perfect posture evaporated beneath his lips, and she arched up onto her toes. She kissed him with a desperation I knew all too well. It was the same way I’d kissed Royce in the hedge maze the night he’d sold me to his father. Alice kissed her husband like she hated his guts, but she’d also walk to the ends of the earth for him.

Her hands slid up his neck and cupped his jaw, and the kiss deepened. The way she responded to it and how she touched him . . . was this the first time in months they’d done it? They’d never been affectionate in front of me, but I had assumed behind closed doors they were, at least occasionally.

But maybe she’d only had Vance, playing the role of stand-in for her husband’s duties.

The longer Macalister passionately kissed her, the more I began to wonder who, exactly, he was punishing. Her sigh of contentment announced he was giving her all the attention she’d craved, basically rewarding her. And I was the one who had to sit there and endure my future in-laws making out with each other.

Macalister awkwardly broke off the kiss, dragging his lips across her cheek. She swayed, looking adrift for a moment, his mouth temporarily drugging her, and she blinked her cloudy eyes at him.

“There. I gave you what you wanted.” His tone was unexpectedly flat. “Your lipstick smeared on my face. Does it make you happy?” His upper lip curled into a cruel smile. “Because I was imagining you were Marist the whole time.”

Oh, my God.

The blissful expression on her face froze, and I shirked back in my seat. This was just the beginning of it, I knew. It’d get much worse before he was done. The alternative method of punishment he’d selected was psychological warfare and—oh, shit—maybe I should have let him use the belt. It likely would have been less painful for both of us than what he had in store.

He grabbed her around the throat and pushed her roughly down to her knees. She nearly fell, putting a hand down to stop herself, and turned her surprised expression up at him, wordlessly asking what he was doing. The only answer he gave her was to step forward, putting the fly of his slacks right at her eye-level.

“Let’s see if you can even get me hard, or if I’ll have to imagine she’s you.”

Oh, my God!

There were a million tightly wound springs beneath my chest that all broke at the same time, leaving me a jangling, chaotic mess on the inside. They screamed at me to run, to fucking do something. But there was a reason I shouldn’t, some part of me remembered on a basic level. I couldn’t remember it specifically because my brain was barely processing, but the warning was enough to make me hesitate.

Alice’s gaze darted to me, but he was prepared for that. “Would you like her to complete your task?”

Her focus snapped back to him like his words had magnetized her. “No.”

Determination overcame her as she accepted his challenge, and then her hands were crawling up over his legs. He stood still, his head tipped down to watch and his hands hanging relaxed at his sides as her palms worked their way toward the center of his pants.

My mouth was dry and full of dust, making it impossible to swallow. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Sit here and watch as she gave him a hand job? My body was a cage, locked tight with horror when her fingers focused in on what she’d been searching for and began to massage him through his slacks.

They were positioned sideways to me, so I could see one half of each of their faces, and behind them the view of the mountains surrounding us. We were on Mount Olympus now, the mortals below in Aspen. Zeus stood motionless as his jealous wife knelt on his expensive inlaid hardwood floor and tried to service him.

Her glossy pink fingernails scratched over his fly, and she cupped him, twisting her grip along his length, but there was no reaction from him. He stared at her with impatience etched across his face, and the atmosphere in the room began to shift as Alice fully committed to what he’d asked her to do. I was forgotten, all that mattered now was pleasing him.

But he wouldn’t let her forget. While he had her full attention, she had none of his.

He turned his head and stared at me with a look that was scary as hell. It threatened dominance and control and promised wicked pleasure if I’d allow it. When our gazes connected, he inhaled a deep breath, and his wide shoulders rose. I was cornered, trapped by his intense stare, but I let loose a silent scream inside my head.

He didn’t tell us what he was thinking about, or what awful fantasy with me he was conjuring up. But whatever it was, it was working. The crotch of his pants grew tight and it began to tent.

Alice’s excited fingers curled on the top of his slacks and the button holding them closed, but his focus flew back to her. He seized her hand and twisted it away, his thumb pressing deep into her wrist to stop her. “Did you want something?”

The word was barely a breath from her. “Please?”

He considered it for a long moment, and time suspended. Then it launched forward when he released her, flinging her hand away. “Go on, then. Take it.”

She attacked his zipper with renewed energy, eager to have him unrestricted in her hands. He crossed his arms, grabbed the sides of his sweater, and tore it up over his head in one swift move. It was balled up in his hands and thrown away with force before his glittering gaze swung back to me.

“I’m going to imagine this is your mouth, Marist.”

He wasn’t smiling, and he hadn’t said it just to provoke a response from me or her—he was deadly serious. A ruthless, cutthroat businessman during a hostile takeover, and I was the target he was determined to acquire.

Move, Marist! Fucking move!

Suddenly free, I leapt to my feet so quickly I nearly toppled over. My gaze reeled around blindly, searching for the exit, and although I avoided the worst of it, out of the corner of my eye I saw her latch onto the sides of his pants and jerk them down.

I made it two steps toward the door before his dark taunt rang out. “Leaving so soon?”

My shoulders tightened to my ears, and I closed my eyes. Blocking the scene out gave me just enough of a reprieve for my brain to start working. If I left, things would go back to how they used to be, and I’d lose everything. Giving over control to Macalister would be handing him the passcode to the security system I’d built around Royce and myself. He’d get inside and break us down, and I couldn’t let that happen.

“Stay,” he commanded. “I want you to watch, like how you wanted me to.”

The shudder started with my shoulders but graduated to my full body as the image of him looming in the shadows, watching as Royce went down on me, sliced through my memory.

Was I really considering this? Staying in this room and witnessing this deeply intimate act I had no business or desire to see?

His voice was loaded with the sinful challenge. “Unless the sight of me with someone else is too difficult to bear.”

Holy fuck. I whirled around to face them, refusing to let even a molecule of the shock I felt show on my face. It wasn’t too difficult to bear. I couldn’t care less, and I’d fucking show him that.

And I reminded myself I’d partially seen this before. It had been dark in the woods, and Alice had been with Vance when I’d spied them together the night of the initiation, but a blowjob was a blowjob. It couldn’t be all that different with another partner.

I kept my voice firm and my head up as I marched back to my chair. “I don’t give a fuck who you’re with, so long as that person isn’t me.”

Macalister’s eyes shrank to slits. But the sides of his mouth lifted in a joyless smile, telling me he didn’t believe me. Worse, he wanted to test the theory. His fingers worked to undo the buttons on his shirt, releasing them one by one.

As each one popped free, the tension inside me multiplied. It held my muscles stiff and made it difficult to sit, but I managed somehow, dropping into the leather chair with barely a sound. It unfortunately meant I couldn’t avoid the scene before me any longer.

He had the legs of a runner. Powerful and toned, the tan from countless summers spent on his yacht fading to pale as it went up his thighs. The classic dress shirt had a longer front and tail than the sides, covering the indecent parts, but I got a flash of his buttocks as he worked to undo the last few buttons.

The shirt was pulled open, revealing the full bare swath of him from chest to knees, and he left the white shirt to hang on his shoulders. Alice already had both hands on him, obscuring part of his cock, but it was unmistakably and unavoidably there. Hard, and long, and thick, and turning my insides to glass. If I moved, I’d shatter.

He watched me intently and curiously as I took in the exposed sight of him. He was cold steel, but the room was scorching, and the needle on the thermostat continued to climb as she heaved both of her hands over him, pumping her fists on his angry cock.

Chess was over, but we were still playing a game, and as I shot him an uninterested look, I made it clear I considered it his move now.

He didn’t want me to miss a thing, which was why he pushed the side of his open shirt out of the way and set the hand closer to me on his hip, displaying as much of him as possible. The other one drifted into the glossy strands of her blonde hair and urged her head toward him, signaling what he expected.

She parted her rose-colored lips and complied, her eyes fluttering closed as the head of him slid into her wide mouth.

I didn’t like the way Macalister and I both sucked in a deep breath at the same moment. It was like I was involved, a part of this, when I was desperate not to be. It made me angry how my gaze kept wanting to slip from his and better watch what was happening at his waist. I absolutely hated the low, dull ache it created in my center when his eyes lidded with desire.

At least he looked mortal like this. He wasn’t impervious to what she was doing to him.

Gravel edged into his words like the pleasure he felt was stuck in the base of his throat. “I’ve imagined you on your knees for me a thousand times.”

Don’t, I whispered to myself, but it was already too late. I saw myself in her place, my knees squeaking against the wood as I rocked on my legs, my mouth steadily sliding over him. A traitorous muscle deep between my thighs tightened, causing a horrifying spark of satisfaction.

His hips remained perfectly still, but his grip on her hair clenched, twisting the strands to the point of discomfort because her eyes burst open and peered up at him with surprise. And while she looked at him, he looked at me. His wife was nothing more than an instrument. A toy to appease him while he gazed at what he desired but had not yet had.

Was he aware she did the same thing with his son? Used Vance as a substitute for the husband who wouldn’t even look at her anymore?

The table between us had a glossy finish, and it was safer to watch the fuzzy reflection in it as Alice bobbed her head and kept up with the demanding tempo her husband required. She had one hand wrapped around the base of him and the other cupping underneath, and saliva dripped over her shiny fingers.

The lens of the table allowed me to tell myself it wasn’t real. Her head didn’t rock side to side as she inched down and slowly took his cock all the way to the back of her throat. The soft sound of her cough broke the spell and drew my gaze back up.

The pleasure made his eyes smolder toward me. “I look forward to training you to do this.” Macalister’s tone was seductive. “Just like I did her.”

Oh, fuck. I could picture it all so clearly in my head. He’d loved teaching me chess and enjoyed the role as my instructor. He’d probably try to make a game out of it. Benchmarks and rewards for improvement on my deep-throating lessons.

Thick sludge, hot like lava, moved through my veins.

“No,” I said, both to him and the shameful response thrumming through my body.

As Alice retreated, her cheeks carved into hollows and her hand clamped down at the edge of her lips. She moved her fist in perfect time with the steady seesaw motion of her mouth, and I saw mostly the whites of her eyes as she stared up at her husband.

God, the way she looked. Couldn’t he see how badly she longed for him? It was cruel. I’d wanted to see her punished, but this . . . it didn’t satisfy. It only made me feel unease, like it was too much.

Enjoyment twisted on his face as our gazes were horribly locked together. The hand on the back of her head pushed with more urgency, and his hips succumbed to a craving to move that he’d held back until now. He thrust forward, stabbing in her mouth, and her cheek bulged as the head of his cock pressed into it.

It was a raw display of sex and power, and he was utterly in control of everything. Her pace. His pleasure. My emotions.

My face burned, and my pulse was in overdrive. I tried to control my breathing, but it came and went in ragged bursts. The physical response to the lewd scene playing out before me was that I grew embarrassingly damp between my legs, and it was like he knew. He licked his lips and gazed at me as the hungry Minotaur.

“I want you,” he growled.

Three plain words, but they carried an enormous gravity coming from him, especially when there was a woman at his feet, surrendering over again to him with each stroke of her hand and swirl of her tongue.

Pinpricks of anger stabbed at my skin and injected fire into my bloodstream. “You can’t have me.”

“I already do, Marist.” His grin was more like a sneer. “I haven’t been inside you or tasted your pretty little cunt yet, but I own you. You’re mine.”

Alice pulled back off him and jerked to a stop. “What? You haven’t . . .”

Her stunned eyes searched his when he glanced down, her hair still clenched in his fist.

“That’s right. You weren’t made aware.” He was condescending. “She made Royce my proxy that night and gave him my time. So, the answer is no. I was denied my two minutes and wasn’t allowed to touch her.”

Her shocked gaze swung from him to me, and the room went still.

Her lips were swollen and glossy from what she’d been doing, and they parted like she wanted to say something, but nothing came out. Regret built in her, layer by painful layer, as she realized she’d tried to kill me based off her assumptions.

And those assumptions had been wrong.