42. Cora
Cora
When Brady leaves the back room, I feel exposed. The other members of his family clearly aren’t happy with him involving me on this, but I’m elated that he’s bringing me back to the high-rise.
It is your home, he’d said.
And I’ll be defending it with him. At my husband’s side, right where I belong. Whatever attack Seven’s going to launch at us, Brady and I will face it together.
Even when he’s upset with me, he still values my talents, a thought that makes my self-reliant heart proud.
But my confidence vibrates against an undercurrent of dread, two magnets with the same pole struggling to coexist. No matter how hard I try to stuff down my panic, I have to keep wiping my sweaty hands on my pants.
To reassure myself that I’m prepared for this fight, I run my palms over the contents of my front pockets every time.
Right pocket, left pocket.
Key, switchblade.
As soon as Brady had informed me we’d be coming here, I hurried to change out of my high-end dress into something more practical. When I pulled on these dark jeans, I felt the heavy-duty key from his nightstand drawer against my thigh, still in my pocket from the day I’d gone snooping.
The sharp metal of it comforts me now, creating a balance with my switchblade in my other pocket. Brady gave me the knife to acknowledge the violence he admires within me, and that violence quivers in readiness for tonight’s onslaught.
I wipe my hands on my pants again as the O’Sullivan patriarch issues his own orders for a simultaneous attack.
“Liam,” he says to his eldest, “send out the call. Gather every available man and take them up north. The target is Seven’s brownstone. No women or children. Vanleusen might not abide by the code, but we do.”
“Yes, Da.” Liam nods and leaves. Before the door closes behind him, Brady reappears, and my heart soars.
“Let’s go,” he says to me. “Finn—meet you at the high-rise.”
Together my husband and I rush out of the pub and into his car, and he speeds us into the night.
He zooms through red lights while other cars blare their horns at us.
Brady ignores them all, his teeth grinding, his hand constantly regripping the steering wheel.
It reminds me of how he acted during our stakeout, as if there’s something loathsome gnawing at him, something he won’t tell me about.
He’s so focused that he misses the first opportunity to turn toward our high-rise.
Then the second.
Then the third.
My soaring heart plummets like it’s been shot from the air.
“Where are you taking me?” I demand.
“My office.” He keeps his glare straight ahead. “You’ll be safe there.”
“What the absolute fuck? You told me you’d take me to the high-rise, that I’ll defend it with you!”
“I said no such thing.”
My jaw drops, and righteous indignation flares hot inside my stomach as my mind reels. I try to think back to his exact words, but I can’t, my mind is in turmoil. The one thing I know for certain is that he wanted me to believe he was taking me back to our home.
“So why fucking taunt me like that?” I shout. “You want me to be safe, fucking leave me in the pub’s safe room.”
“If I left you in the pub’s safe room, you wouldn’t stay put.”
I open my mouth to scream at him, because it’s another goddamn riddle, another fucking mind game he’s playing with me.
He knows I wouldn’t stay put in the pub’s safe room, and so he knows I won’t stay put in his office’s safe room either.
Which means the two rooms must be different somehow.
Slowly, I close my mouth as the realization washes over me, an ice bucket of truth.
His office’s safe room can lock from the outside.
He’s going to call it keeping me safe. But all that means is he’s going to take away my independence, to lock me away instead of letting me stand at his side like he promised.
The stupid part of me wants to weep. We were so close to being true partners, going on patrol and site visits and exchanges together.
The intelligent part of me doesn’t dwell on the past. Brady is going to lock me in his office’s safe room. I’ve seen the vault-like door, and I know it must have a heavy-duty lock.
My palms are sweating horribly now. It takes all of my willpower not to wipe my hands on my jeans.
And not to touch the heavy-duty key in my pocket.
* * *
In the elevator up to the eighty-third floor, Brady radiates fury.
His blood is up.
Knowing that he’s planning to lock me away, my blood rises too.
He clamps his hand on my arm and propels me through the dark, deserted office. The only light is the feeble glow from the city outside, filtered through multiple walls of glass.
We pass the main conference room, its glass wall newly installed. It reminds me of the strength of my husband’s anger. The first time he brought me here, the shatters of the previous wall were being cleaned up. Brady had explained it away as what happened when I found out you’d been hurt.
My husband’s fury is powerful, and so is he. That thought makes my blood pressure rise even higher. I’m so on edge that I feel my pussy getting wet too. Right now, my adrenaline response isn’t fight-or-flight.
It’s fight-or-fuck.
Maybe it’s messed up, maybe it’s depraved, but this is who we are. Not just how our world shaped us, but who we are deep down, violence calling to violence, desperation to desperation, hunger to hunger.
When Brady opens the bookshelf door in his office, I decide to dig my stubborn heels in, to remind him who I really am in the hopes that he reciprocates, showing me his true self too.
He does.
He grabs me by the back of my neck, steering me through the pitch-dark bathroom and shoving me into his dressing room. I stumble a little as he flicks on the lights.
“Clothes off,” he orders, and my body shivers with want.
He watches me with his possessive scowl as I scramble out of my clothes. I’m very very careful not to disturb anything in my pockets as I step out of my pants. When I toss my bra to the floor, my nipples are painfully hard.
Before I can lower my panties, Brady steps toward me to tear them off with his bare hands. The sound of lace ripping, the feel of him shredding my final defense gets me soaked. He grabs the back of my neck again and pushes me toward the chaise lounge.
“Ass up,” he commands, and I bend myself over the padded arm.
Behind me, I hear him undo his pants, and just the sound of his zipper sends another rush of wetness to my core. He grabs my hips to position me right where he wants me. With him standing behind me like this, he has all of the power, all of his strength to dominate me.
He grabs my hair to push my face down into the chaise’s pillow.
Then he thrusts himself into my pussy. I cry out in ecstasy, but it’s muffled, and all I can do is writhe as he pummels me with his cock.
He plunges into me again and again, up to the hilt each time, the sound of his hips slapping against my ass a mind-obliterating rhythm.
“When I tell you to stay put,” he growls, “you stay put. Do you understand?”
He pulls my hair to lift my head out of the pillow, and I gulp in lungfuls of air.
“Do you understand?” He twists his fingers to tighten his grip on my hair, and the pain in my scalp zings a bolt of pleasure straight to my pussy.
“I understand,” I gasp out. I can play this game of misleading truths even better than he can. Of course I understand what he’s saying. I have no intention of following it, but I understand his command.
“Good girl.” He rewards me with a stinging slap on my ass, more pain for my pleasure. I cry out as my pussy clenches hard around his cock. He growls in satisfaction, but then he pulls away.
A moment later I feel his tongue on my pussy, lapping me, and I moan. I’m so wet he’s practically slurping, and when he sucks my clit, I spasm. The sensation of him sucking on my clit and teasing me with his teeth is too much for me to handle.
I scream as my orgasm rips through me, with Brady never letting up, sucking and nibbling on my clit to force me through wave after wave.
When my spasms subside, I’m weak-kneed and breathless.
I go limp on top of the padded arm, but Brady isn’t nearly done with me yet.
He stands up and pulls my hips back up to where he wants me, my feet lifting off the floor.
Then he spreads my ass cheeks and spits.
The next second I feel the head of his cock nudging open my asshole, and he shoves himself in.
I scream, but he pushes my face into the pillow again, muffling my cries. I’ve never had anal before, and Brady is brutal, forcing the thick length of his cock inside me, giving me no time to adjust, stretching me so wide it burns.
When I think he’s as deep as he can go, he pushes even further, shoving himself into me until I finally feel him bottom out, his hips pressed against my ass cheeks.
He barely pauses before pulling halfway out, and I tense, knowing it’ll be too much and yet wanting him to overwhelm me.
He slams himself fully inside, both hands in my hair now, holding my head down as he pistons himself in my ass.
I cry out in pain and overpowering ecstasy, so filled with his cock I know nothing else.
If it’s wrong to love Brady fucking me like this, then I’m guilty as sin.
I scream into the pillow until my throat is raw, and he lets go of my hair to grab my hips again, giving himself the best angle as he starts to spasm.
He buries his cock so fully inside me that I feel the hot spurt of him deep in my body.
He cries out as he pumps into me, a bellow so guttural I’m aware of only the two of us, our basest selves, cleaving to each other with primal possessiveness.
I am his, without question, and as I feel him lose himself so deep inside me, I know that he is also mine.