4. Brynn
“ Y ou’re safe with me.”
Those words don’t ease my fear in the slightest. Besides, I know it’s a lie. I know this man is not safe. That he is a selfish, conceited, arrogant piece of shit that considers his own wants far more than he considers anyone else’s. That’s shown by the way he behaves, by the way he treats my aunt. Sure, she’s a bitch but if he had any manners, he would at least give her the decency of being respectful in public instead of showing the world how much he does not want this marriage to take place.
As his hand reaches up to touch me I jerk back, pushing my body back, and my spine connects with the hard surface of a hundred-year-old bookcase.
“You’re a flighty little thing, aren’t you?” He teases, as if this is a game. As this is some sort of joke.
Only, I know the consequences if this goes wrong, if I’m caught here alone with him. He’ll walk away scott-free and me, I’ll be carted off, sent to Oblivion on a one-way ticket.
“I, you, we shouldn’t be here.” I stammer, trying to sound far more in control of this situation than I feel. My heart is already slamming into my chest. My pulse is already erratic. And in my head, I’m already chastising myself. Lamenting my stupidity. Because I was safe in my room. I was fine. I had enough books. I should have been content with what I had stashed away. But I was greedy, reckless, I wanted this book, this one damned book, and now look where I am.
I’m teetering on a cliff edge, about to be ruined and all because I couldn’t wait a few days for Wuthering bloody Heights.
He tuts, as if my words mean nothing, as if my fear is nothing. And he flicks through the book like he thinks it’ll be full of silly pictures instead of actual words.
“You like reading romance?” He questions.
“It’s not, not romance.” I reply. “It’s not a love story. It’s about ha-ate. Anyone that’s really read that book, that really unnnnderstands it, knows that that is the real plottt.”
He arches a brow, and those stupidly full lips of his curl up into a grin. Does he find my speech impediment amusing, is that it? He’s acting like if I’m flirting with him. Christ, does the man have no sense whatsoever? Does he really have such little regard for anyone else’s life but his own?
He places the book above my head, too high for me to reach. I feel like a child being tormented by a school bully. Only I’ve spent my life with bullies, I’ve grown up in a nest of them, and if he thinks he can intimidate me that easily then he has another thing coming.
Fuck Bronte, fuck Heathcliff, none of this is worth the risk.
As I push past to leave, he yanks me back. Wrapping a hand around my throat, he pins me right back against that unforgiving shelf once more.
“Whatttt are you doing?” I gasp.
“You want the book? I’ll make you a deal.”
My eyes narrow. Suspicion fills my stomach. I don’t give a fuck about anything anymore, I just know that I need to get out of here, need to escape before all this escalates even further.
“Let me go.” I say as forcefully as I can. Please just let me go.
“For a price.”
No . I shake my head. No price. No deal.
He lets out a little laugh. God, he really does see this entire thing as a joke. For a second, I wonder what it would be like, to be a Lord and not a Lady. To know that the rules are different, to know that I can do whatever I want, and the repercussions won’t be utterly catastrophic.
His spare hand skims up my body, coming to a rest on my arse. I jerk more, shock and something else quickly replacing the suspicion that was there before. The problem is that he’s so much bigger than me, he towers over me, and I already feel like I’ve lost this fight before it’s even begun.
But my leg comes up anyway. I jam it into his crotch and he groans, falling forward, pinning me further in place.
“That was rude.” He states, regaining his composure far quicker than I would have liked. Clearly, I didn’t knee him hard enough.
“Let. Me. Go.” It takes all I have to enunciate every word, but it still makes no difference.
His hand grips my throat tighter and tuts with obvious annoyance. “You just hurt me.” He says like I’m a child, like I didn’t do it on purpose. “I’m a guest in your home.” He says like I don’t know it, like it needs to be stated. The air seems to grow more tense. My head screams bloody murder, and I jerk uselessly in his grip. “I think you should kiss it better.” He adds with a smirk that makes my heart stop.
“Ex-xcuse me?”
He undoes his belt, pulls his actual dick out and I stare, dumbfounded at it.
This can’t be happening. This can’t possibly be real.
I can barely wrap my head around the fact that that is what they look like when he yanks my neck hard.
“Kiss it better.” He orders. “Or I’ll tell your aunt what a naughty thing you’ve been, up after hours when you should have been tucked away in your bed asleep.”
My eyes fill with tears. I don’t want to cry, I don’t want to give in either, but I also know that’s not an idle threat.
“She’ll sennnd me away.” I state, revealing my hand, as if I think he might just realise how awful this place is, as if he might just have mercy on me, apologise and let me go. No harm, no foul. “If, if you do that, she’ll send me to Oblivion.”
We both know the truth of my words, just as we both know it’s his family that runs Oblivion. The horrors of that place don’t need to be spoken about out loud. Everyone knows exactly what goes on there, what the Blakes allow to happen in the name of ‘penance and redemption’.
He raises an eyebrow, that cocky look back on his damned face. “So, what’s one cock versus the hundreds you’d have to endure there?”
He’s right. On a certain level he is right, but I still refuse to give in. I still refuse to let him beat me.
He wiggles his dick. It’s hard, growing harder. No doubt the bastard is turned on by this prospect. Does he do this regularly? Does he get off on trapping and assaulting girls? Is that some sort of kink that he has, some sort of powerplay?
“Kiss it.” He says.
I gulp, hating myself but hating him more as I drop my knees, shuffling down enough that I can bend down and kiss him right where he wants. There’s a bead of something wet right at the tip - I don’t want to think about where it came from. As my lips make contact with the very head of him, he rocks his hips and my head screams out to lock my jaw, to clench my teeth, to not let him force his way into my mouth under any circumstances.
I might be a virgin, I might have zero experience when it comes to the opposite sex, but we’re taught in school all about this and with a family like mine, I’ve seen enough demonstrations of how women are expected to comply, to know what he really wants.
He receives little more than a peck, but it’s enough to make me feel utterly disgusted all the same.
He tangles his hand into my hair, and I know from that action that he does want more. That he’s going to take it too.
But as his other hand moves to grab his dick better, I seize my moment. I scramble away, crash onto my knees and then I’m up, running for the door. Not caring about the noise, not caring that he’s got a whole handful of my hair snatched up in his grasp.
It’s only when I get to my room, it’s only after I secure my door so I know he can’t get to me, that I let out the last breaths of panicked air as I let devastation take over.
He’s here for six more days. Six days in which I won’t relax, I will barely sleep.
I thought my life here was bad enough before he came to stay. Now, I realise how blessed I really was.