Takeover: A Step-Brother Romance (The Legacy Book 1) Read online

  “Your fate is decided, Sarah.”

  I bit my lip and stared at his. Mistake.

  “And what fate is that?” I asked.

  “You’re mine.”

  For the first time in a week I took deep, healthy breaths, but my body refused them all. Nicholas towered over me. The button on his suit jacket slipped, revealing a trim waist and broad, muscular chest waiting beneath the dress shirt.

  He was close enough to touch.

  Close enough to be dangerous.

  “I don’t belong to anyone,” I whispered. “Least of all a Bennett.”

  His attention lingered on the ottoman where his family displayed my nudity. I didn’t react. He prowled closer, herding me toward the desk.

  “I should bend you over right now.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  Why did I challenge him? I should have just run.

  He seized me, and I twisted in his arms. Nicholas was far stronger than me. He forced me over the desk and I thudded on my stomach. He avoided an awkward kick and pinned me with an arm over my back.

  My skin prickled in a sudden sweat as he moved behind me. His hips pressed against mine. I arched. Reflexively. Instinctually.

  Completely inappropriately.

  He curled his hand in my hair and chuckled. “You like this.”

  Yes.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Why lie to me?”

  “I’ll scream.”

  “And who would save you, Ms. Atwood?”

  No one.

  “You’re scaring me.”

  He didn’t care. “Am I hurting you?”

  Was that the distinction? Hurting me?

  Physically, no. He simply held me against my will. Again. Wielded his strength over me and dragged my body where he liked. I couldn’t scramble away without pressing harder against him. He chided me with a soft whisper of my name—an angel’s voice with a devil’s intent.

  He liked that I still tried to struggle.

  “This as an opportunity,” he said. “We’re offering you every luxury. No responsibilities. No commitments. Just a beautiful home for you to enjoy with every amenity at your fingertips.” His hands slid over my hips. “This could be a life of pleasure.”

  I tried to focus on anything but how our bodies touched. “You think this would be pleasurable?”

  “Exceedingly.”

  “Raping me?”

  His voice lowered to a growl. “When I take you, it won’t be by force. You will surrender.”

  My breath rattled in my chest. “Never.”

  “It’ll happen. Soon. Why deny me?”

  “Why would I ever give into you?”

  His hands tightened. I resisted a groan. “I’m offering you a place in my bed. A partnership with a sweet reward.”

  “Nothing you ever do to me will be sweet.”

  “Another challenge?” Nicholas hauled me up only to sit me on the end of the desk. I groaned, too dizzy with fatigue to stop him from spreading my legs. He stepped in, pushing against the part of me he planned to capture. “Would you like a demonstration?”

  Yes.

  “No.”

  “You’ll have to be more convincing than that.”

  “Don’t touch me.”

  His fingers teased over my legs. I beat his hands away, but his warning prevented me from running.

  “Just behave, Sarah.”

  “I will fight you every day until I die.”

  “Don’t tempt fate.”

  “You plan to rape me,” I whispered. “Impregnate me. Your family killed my father and stole my research. Believe me, Nicholas Bennett, you might take everything from me, but you’ll never win. I’ll bring you all down, man by man, brick by brick, dollar by dollar.”

  “I’m sure you’ll try.”

  He gently caressed me, his hands tickling my thighs, hips, arms. Every swipe of his fingers cascaded goose bumps from his touch directly to my heating core. I clenched and didn’t understand why. I debated kicking, but he was far too strong. He’d never let me escape, not when he had me where he wanted me.

  “You’re fighting the wrong battles.” He drifted lower. I flinched as he followed the pajama’s pink stripe along my inner thigh. It didn’t lead to the trembling crest between my legs. It was either a relief or a travesty.

  “Just relax, Sarah. I won’t hurt you.”

  “Why should I trust you?”

  “Because you’re enjoying this.”

  The indignity of his words flushed my skin. His fingers teased, but not where they would do the most good. Or evil.

  Christ, I didn’t even know anymore.

  “You’re molesting me,” I whispered.

  “Another fight. Where do you find the strength?”

  “Get used to it.”

  “I do enjoy a challenge.” Nicholas’s inspection traced up my body, the hardened devotion of his stare was a caress of my soft skin. He leaned in. “But I’d much prefer a taste.”

  “Don’t kiss me.”

  His lips brushed along my throat. He respected my wishes, but the punishment was worse. He latched onto my neck. Hard. Expecting a squeak or protest.

  He earned nothing but a cascade of shivers.

  I arched, my chest bumping his suit. The warmth of his body charred every raw and exposed part of me. I filled with his scent, his strength, and the pleasure of his teeth capturing my neck.

  I wasn’t losing this battle.

  I couldn’t.

  Surrendering to Nicholas Bennett wasn’t an option.

  I couldn’t permit his touch, not when his hands brushed my inner thigh. He nipped at my tender neck. Heat overwhelmed me, but I’d never feel warm until I pressed against his chest without the barrier of his clothing.

  What was wrong with me? I wanted, lusted, for the man who captured and threatened to claim me in every bestial way I could imagine.

  I’d deny him.

  He’d take it anyway.

  “Consider this another strategic concession.” Nicholas released my neck only to nibble on my ear. He wasn’t gentle, but his sharp bite intoxicated me. “This is a system of incrementalism. Learn it, Ms. Atwood, it may one day protect your company.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Little gains. Piece by piece. Grant me these simple pleasures.” His lips trailed along my chin, tasting me as he spoke nonsense and business and threat. “Enjoy this and save your strength for when I take you to bed.”

  I bit my lip. If that night were anything like this moment—where his touch forced me to imagine every dark and traitorous delight lost beneath him—there would be no fight.

  His hand brushed over my belly, tickling lower and lower. He waited for my protest.

  I stayed silent.

  He slipped under the waistband of my pajamas with a victorious hum. The barrier of my panties offered no protection as the tips of his fingers drifted to the softness between my legs.

  Bare.

  Completely smooth.

  Just as he had requested days ago.

  It humiliated me. It gave me a sultry innocence and sensuality.

  It worked.

  Nicholas exhaled a profanity. His every muscle tensed, strained against an urge to seize me with brute force.

  I tempted him with a soft, silky trap. He’d never escape.

  “Consider it a strategic concession,” I whispered.

  His finger flicked down. Beyond the shaven softness, I had no control over what happened with my body. I closed my eyes and welcomed the betraying pink over my skin.

  Wet.

  Too wet.

  The damning, revealing desire sealed my fate.

  As if it hadn’t already been decided.

  He kidnapped me. He stole my kiss. He saved my life.

  And now?

  Was it was a survival instinct that protected me from the ultimate violation, or simply my undeniable need for an unimaginable man?

  A hardness pressed against my t
high. It was only a taste of what was to come, but the heat incinerated my logic and reason. His touch ground against me, and the cup of his hand claimed the secret it stroked.

  I flinched as he slipped between the soft petals, exploring the offered wetness from my slit. I arched. It wasn’t to escape.

  My gasp revealed my every amazement.

  Nicholas loomed over me, twisting his free hand in my hair. I parted my lips. He accepted the invitation. His touch gentled when I groaned, as though he understood I had never been pleasured beyond my quick, unsatisfying rubbing in the quiet dark of my room.

  “If you knew how vulnerable you look...” Nicholas captured my mouth. He flicked a finger over my clit and tasted my whimper. His tongue mirrored his fingers, tracing an aching path within our kiss. “I may never let you go, Sarah Atwood. Not when you submit so perfectly to me.”

  I escaped his lips. “I haven’t submitted to you.”

  “Why are you pretending to be so brave?”

  “Why are you pretending you’ve won?”

  “Because I have.” His touch drew a hesitant plea from me. The shudder rolled through us both.

  His finger drifted low, dipping into a wetness that should have been sinful and horrid, deceiving and humiliating. He offered me no warning before slipping into my desperate slit.

  He swore as I clenched upon the intrusion. I seized, trembled, and absolutely ached. I lost my grip on the table. He moved quickly, wrapping an arm behind my back as my body fell limp.

  I endured the invading pressure within my core with a slight cry.

  Instant. Pleasure.

  I had no idea I’d respond to the violation—the conquering masculinity of a man touching, taking, and exploring an unexplored part of me. His breathing shuddered. Mirrored mine.

  I either needed another kiss or to scramble for my inhaler.

  “I’m going to take you, Sarah,” Nicholas whispered. “Again and again. You’ll belong to me. You’ll offer yourself to me. You will give me everything.”

  Not everything.

  But close.

  I smiled. He captured it with a kiss. Stole it with a quick thrust of his finger.

  “Secrets, Ms. Atwood?”

  “What secret could I keep from my captor?” My voice teased with the same threat that melted from his words like dripping wax.

  “I’ll learn them.”

  “I’m sure you will.” I lost myself in the golden halo of his gaze. “But, by then? It’ll be too late.”

  “Too late for what?”

  “To save yourself from me.”

  His jaw set. Enough challenges. Enough games. Nicholas Bennett was a gentleman and villain—a man wrapped in the elegance of his status and the power of his name. Beneath the suit and tie, jackets and dress shirts, a feral beast lurked, savoring my every weakness.

  I tempted it. I teased it. I offered myself to it with spread legs and a wetness that revealed just how badly I’d lost against his prowess.

  Nicholas wanted more from me than threats and promises.

  He wanted me.

  He wanted to watch me surrender and cry out for him and him only.

  I was helpless to refuse.

  My body ached without permission. It clenched and fought and bound itself in a passion that squeezed the more I resisted.

  He thrust a finger within me. Testing my responses. Laughing at my desperation.

  Higher and higher—desperate and twisted— shameless and refusing, I trembled and realized just how much power Nicholas Bennett wielded over me.

  I was in trouble.

  The pleasure was as inescapable as him.

  I silenced my cry. My body took what it needed and devoured what he forced upon me. He watched as I jerked and tumbled, plummeted from the highest heights of desire to the lowest crest of base pleasure.

  He withdrew as I shook, and the mew that slipped from my clenched jaw wasn’t gratitude or profanity—but a sense of loss and regret that he released me. I trembled, hard, practically crashing to the floor as my clenching body demanded more. Something terrible and necessary.

  What did I do?

  What did I just offer?

  Sanity returned, and with it every shame. I flushed, fiercer than ever. Nicholas didn’t miss a single rise of my chest or loose lock of hair from my ponytail.

  I pushed from him and hopped off the table. My legs nearly crumbled beneath me. I panted for breath.

  Nicholas surveyed his prize and offered me the inhaler.

  God damn it.

  I rushed past him, darting up the stairs to my room too slowly to escape the realizations of my temptation.

  I’d never be able to resist Nicholas Bennett.

  And now he knew it.

  The Bennetts served dinner at precisely eight o’clock, and I wasn’t permitted to decline the invitation. My luck had run out on me, leaving me trapped at the table.

  I took my seat in silence. Darius preferred that. No one spoke. The roast beef tasted of ash and the mashed potatoes paste. The clinking silverware scratched hard against the plates. Reed didn’t eat either. He also didn’t look at me.

  His avoidance was my first warning something was wrong.

  Very wrong.

  It had only been a day since Nicholas trapped me, touched me, and nearly destroyed me. I spent twenty-four hours hiding in my room, sleeping to replenish some strength. I felt a little better, I woke in the morning with Nicholas’s name on my lips. My nap in the afternoon ended with a new ache between my legs.

  And now, my troubles were only beginning.

  “Doctor Rimes visited you today, my dear.” Darius bit through his meat and licked the bloody juices from his lip. I didn’t answer. “He tells me you are doing well.”

  I waited and tensed, as if I could turn a salad fork into a trident.

  “It’s time.”

  Even Max stopped eating. I didn’t understand.

  “Time?” I asked.

  “For your breeding.”

  The fork dropped.

  Nicholas sipped his wine. I watched the goblet from the corner of my vision, studied the strong hands that grasped the frosted glass. Those hands had touched me. Pleasured me.

  Tormented me.

  “She hasn’t fully recovered.” Nicholas swirled the crimson liquid. “Would it be wise? The strain might prompt another attack.”

  “Nonsense.” Darius tossed his napkin onto his plate. “Her only job is to spread her legs. If she fights and becomes ill, she’ll have only herself to blame.”

  “She will fight.”

  “Then we’ll bind her to the bed.”

  My heart thundered.

  They wouldn’t dare.

  They wouldn’t be so cruel.

  Darius slipped from his chair. I didn’t make it away from the table.

  His hand snaked through my hair. Reed stood, but Max hissed his name and forced him to sit. I panted in Darius’s clutches. He shook my head, pulling me around with a sadistic satisfaction.

  Not a sound emerged from my clenched lips.

  “Go upstairs. Bathe. Then wait in bed for your brother.”

  That slimy, grating way he said it. He got off on the idea of abusing his step-daughter with the incestuous threat.

  But Nicholas wasn’t my brother. He wasn’t my ally. And he would never be my lover.

  “You’ll regret this.” My whisper shouted within the dining room. Reed clutched his fists and stared down. Max returned to his roast beef.

  Nicholas sipped his wine, unfazed, as though his father had simply prattled on about his day attempting to undermine my family’s corporation.

  “Upstairs, my dear,” Darius said. “Quiet now. No sense aggravating your condition.”

  I shoved away from Darius.

  These men were eager to breed me. Not only would they ruin me forever, they’d steal my child once they were done.

  What the hell was I supposed to do? Scream? He was right. That would prompt another attack. Escape was a dre
am. I’d never outrun them, not while the stairs still winded me and panting long sentences revealed just how weak I was.

  “For Christ’s sake, drug her at least,” Reed said.

  Darius shook his head. “She deserves this lesson. It will teach her to respect her family.”

  I’d never respect them. “No drugs. I plan to remember this torture so I can return it tenfold.”

  “Upstairs, child.” Darius twisted his smile into a sneer. “Don’t keep your brother waiting.”

  My false confidence burned through me the instant I hid in my bathroom. What flakes of bravado remained charred to cinders in my rage.

  I started the shower if only for the comfort of the steam, but I stepped within to bide my time.

  Was. This. Worth. It.

  I still didn’t know. I had a plan. Dodgy, like everything I tried to do. Risky, but my father told me everything in the world came with risks—capital, market, corporate. No great accomplishment was completely protected and free from failure.

  I had one chance to end the Bennetts once and for all.

  I rested against the shower door.

  At least I wouldn’t die.

  They’d hurt me, but I was far too valuable to lose. Still, the dread coiled in my stomach. I heaved with chills despite the swirling steam.

  What scared me more: The loss of control…or giving that control to Nicholas?

  Nothing more dangerous existed than passion. Passion confused hatred with lust and transformed resistance into submission. I had no defense against Nicholas, not when my own instincts twisted my enemy’s threats into aching promises of pleasure.

  I slammed my hand against the shower handle. The water trickled off. I let the air dry me.

  The heat didn’t diminish.

  Nicholas Bennett waited for me.

  I swaddled in a robe and returned to my room. Darius greasy excitement terrified me, as though he already witnessed the crime and relished in every glorious moment of my undoing. My fingers tangled in the robe. I tied the knot tighter. It wouldn’t save me.

  “You’ll behave for your brother, won’t you, my dear?” His voice crawled over my skin. I wished I could leap back into the shower just to wash the filth from me. “I don’t expect it to be pleasant, but certainly you understand what’s expected.”

  Max and Reed remained silent, poised near the door, preventing my escape.

  One step-brother.

  I could handle one man.