11. Dawson
Dawson
I’m so angry, but I swear I might have an aneurysm if I can’t find a way to calm down. A part of me wants to find Harper and fuck her senseless just to relieve some of the stress. Maybe there will be time for that later, but right now, I need to figure out what the fuck just happened.
My dad told me that Malik was going to be there, that I was going to be meeting with him. But I was pushed to the side, and Harper was the star of the show. What the fuck was that about?
I need answers, and I need them now. But I know my dad is probably still there schmoozing Malik and trying to befriend the notoriously disgusting, horrible criminal that he is.
I go to the bathroom and splash some cold water on my face, hoping it might calm me down a bit. Of course, it does nothing. I try taking some deep breaths and letting the stress wash away, but nothing I do seems to work.
I’ll call my dad in the morning and try to get to the bottom of all of this. There’s something he’s not telling me, and I need to know what it is. If he wants me to be doing business with him, then I need to be clued in on everything from here on out. Especially when it comes to Harper.
I’m pacing back and forth in my room, running my fingers through my hair when my phone rings. It’s him.
“Dad?” I answer, taking a seat on the edge of the bed and waiting for him to elaborate on what the fuck is going on.
“Are you home now? Is Harper with you?” he asks. I don’t hear any loud music in the background, so I assume he’s left the nightclub. Hopefully, that means Malik is nowhere nearby.
“What the fuck was that?” I can’t contain the rage in my voice, and it spills over in a way that my father has never heard from me before.
“What do you mean?” he asks, apparently deciding to play dumb with the whole situation.
“You told me I had a meeting with Malik, and you decided to parade Harper around him instead,” I explain. “A heads-up about that would have been nice.”
“I didn’t want many people to know before I knew it was official, but I can tell you about it now,” he begins, excitement light and airy in his voice. “Malik really liked her. He wants to go forward with it too.”
“Go forward with what?”
“Marrying Harper.” He’s as nonchalant as someone putting in an order for takeout. I blink a few times and replay the last three seconds over and over, trying to figure out if I misheard him or if he was actually serious.
“Marrying her?” I ask, clearly dumbfounded.
“Yes, you heard me correctly,” he says on the other side, moderately annoyed about having to repeat himself of all things.
“We’ve come to an arrangement with Malik for this.
Harper is going to marry him, and in turn, we get a generous financial package and several of his men for protection.
We’ve been having a lot of trouble moving products over the border lately, and Malik’s men are some of the best in the business. ”
How could I have not seen this sooner? My dad has been trying to do business with Malik for a long time, but he’s never had anything to offer him other than money.
For men like Malik with more money than he could possibly ever spend, it means nothing.
To trade with Malik, he would have to bring him something truly valuable. As it turns out, that’s Harper.
He couldn’t tell me sooner because it was a secret; that’s why he made me think I had the meeting. That’s also why he had me dress Harper up like some common whore to parade her around in front of him. He wanted me to show off as much of her to her potential buyer as possible.
I saw the way Malik looked at her. He liked what he saw.
“Does Harper know about this?” I already know the answer is no.
But it’s the only thing I can think of to ask right now.
Maybe, just maybe, there’s some shred of a moral compass hiding deep down within my father to get him to stop this.
It’s the 21st century—trading a young woman off to someone for money is barbaric by anyone’s standards.
“She doesn’t, and you won’t tell her about it,” he immediately replies. I close my eyes and hold my forehead in my hands, not knowing what to do with this information.
“You can’t just marry her off to some old pervert like this,” I say, jumping to my feet and shaking my head. I can’t let this happen. Harper is mine.
The idea of Malik laying a hand on her makes my stomach twist in a knot, and I feel like I could be sick.
“You’ll stay out of this, Dawson. This is what we need to do for our business, and I won’t have any interference from you.
You don’t have any say in this,” he says.
His voice is cold and emotionless. He seems almost surprised that I would even try to stand up for her.
“There’s one more thing. This is the entire reason I have her under your control for the next year.
I expect you to keep a close eye on her, understand? ”
I shake my head and try to think of some way to break this deal while he continues.
“With her job, she shouldn’t have any time to fool around. She needs to stay busy and distracted. You’ll have to make sure she stays pure, too,” Dad says. “That’s one of Malik’s demands, and if that falls through, there’s going to be hell to pay.”
My heart sinks to my stomach, and I can’t bring myself to say anything. Of course, Malik would want a virgin. And of course, I took his soon-to-be bride’s virginity before I knew anything about this. That sure does seem to complicate things.
We end the call, and I pace back and forth for a while, trying to come to terms with everything I just learned.
I’m pissed off. My dad lied to me and used me.
I should have known there was an ulterior motive for giving Harper this job, but I thought he was just trying to make her earn art school if he was going to pay. Maybe I was na?ve.
I never thought he would sell his own stepdaughter.
“You’ll have to make sure she stays pure,” I repeat to myself, scoffing at the sentence. It echoes in my brain, and all I can think about is how Harper was once pure before I took that from her. I suppose I took that from Malik too. But it was mine to take. Harper is mine.
I don’t waste another moment before I storm out of my room and barge into Harper’s. She’s lying in bed on her stomach with a sketch pad in front of her, still in the skimpy dress I picked out for her.
When she sees me, she sits up, but I close the distance between us before she can and push her back down on the bed.
She gasps, but she doesn’t fight me on it. When we kissed in the car earlier, I could feel the excitement with every swish of her lips. She wanted me as much as I wanted her.
I climb on top of her and kiss her, holding her against the mattress while my tongue infiltrates her mouth. She kisses me back, moaning with every swish of my lips against hers.
My hands climb down her body, exploring the thin fabric of her dress and imagining the soft skin that lies beneath.
I slide my hand inside the low-cut top of the dress to feel her breast. It’s soft and pillowy, her nipple hardening under my touch.
I flick my thumb over it, and she gasps from the jolt of pleasure that courses through her.
“No one’s ever going to touch you but me,” I whisper, looking deep in her eyes before slowly moving down her body. I kiss my way from her lips to the delicate skin between her breasts, savoring how soft every inch of her skin is. “Every part of you is all mine.”
I sit upright and look down at her as she breathes heavily, her lips red and swollen from our kiss.
Before she knows what’s happening, I’m tearing her dress in half and exposing all of her below me.
The only thing she’s wearing is a pair of lace panties that I immediately pull down. I need to see all of her.
I lean down and take her breast in my mouth, teasing her nipple with my tongue as I swirl it around and moan against the sensitive bud. Her fingers slide through the back of my hair and hold me close while she pants from the sensations.
My cock is throbbing, and I thrust myself against her to create some glorious friction and tease myself.
When I’ve had enough, I sit up and tear my clothes off to toss them aside, freeing my cock. Harper looks at it with wide eyes, seeing it for the first time.
“You see what you do to me?” I ask while I slowly rub the length of my cock in front of her, letting her see just how hard I am. “You’re all I think about all day long. All I want is to fuck you so hard you can’t even think straight.”
She bites her lip and tentatively spreads her legs, silently letting me know that’s what she wants. I part her legs even more and stare at her beautiful pink pussy before lowering my mouth to it.
“Oh my god,” Harper cries out as my mouth crashes against her already soaking wet core. I devour her with my tongue, listening as each whimper and moan from her pleasure echoes through the room.
As badly as I want her to come undone right here and now, screaming my name through the room, I stop myself before the pleasure grows too strong. Harper sits up on her elbows and looks at me with pleading eyes, begging me to move between her legs once again.
“Trust me, I’m far from done with you,” I say, leaning forward and kissing her, letting her taste herself on my tongue.
My cock is throbbing and begging to be inside her again, and I want to oblige. I lift her legs, pushing them back so I have clear access to her perfect pussy before sliding myself inside her with ease. She gasps and cries out as I fill her with every inch of myself.
I close my eyes and hold steady, savoring the way her walls wrap around me, inviting me in as if I were meant to be in this exact position all my life.
“You belong to me,” I whisper, slowly moving my cock in and out of her as she loses herself against the sheets. “Fuck, you were made for me...”
Harper doesn’t say anything through the breathless moans, and I look down at her while I continue slowly pumping. She’s on the verge of losing control of herself, and I want to take her there.
Even though I’m here with her, in the back of my mind, I’m thinking about Malik and the deal that was made for her.
It angers me, and it starts to take over the thrusts, and I move harder and faster against her, watching as her mouth hangs open and the pleasure-filled sounds practically drip from her throat.
I force myself to stop as I feel her getting closer, and I lean down, looking her in the eyes as she begs for me to keep going.
“Tell me you’re mine,” I demand. I stop moving, settling myself deep inside her as I feel her pleasure starting to recede.
“Please, just?—”
“I could keep you like this all night,” I say, interrupting her. “Stuffed with every inch of me, whimpering for me, begging for me. You’ll take it all because you know the truth. I want to hear you say it.”
Harper closes her eyes and whimpers, shaking her head as she tries to fight against it. She bucks her hips against me to try to create the friction she needs to get off, but I move her legs and hold her hips steady.
“I don’t think so,” I say, looking down at her with a lust-filled grin. “You know what you have to say. Say it, and I’ll give you everything you want and more.”
She bites her lip, contemplating whether she wants to give in to my demands or not. Just to show her what she’s missing, I thrust in and out of her one more time and watch as she cries out and moans, digging her fists in the sheets before I stop once again.
“Tell me what I want to hear, Harper,” I continue, feeling how close she is to coming once again. “Tell me you’re mine and that no man will ever touch you like this.”
“Please, Dawson,” she begs, looking up at me with her eyebrows furrowed and desperation and her eyes.
“Not yet.” I roll my hips against her, already as deep as I can go, just teasing her as much as I can without sending her over the edge, controlling everything about her pleasure until she says what I want to hear. “Tell me.”
She bites her lips so hard I think she might bleed and reluctantly gives in. “I’m yours! I’m all yours!”
I smile and move my hips again, thrusting in and out of her with more passion as I fuck her. “Nobody’s ever going to touch you,” I say, leaning down and kissing her again. She whimpers in my mouth as I completely unleash myself inside her. My movements are faster, emboldened by this passion.
Her pussy clenches around me, and I feel each throb as it tightens around my cock, pulling me deeper inside her. I can’t fight back against it any longer, and I explode inside her.
“Say it again,” I growl as I pump in and out of her.
“I’m all yours,” she cries out through a pleasured whimper.
When we’re both finished, I collapse on the bed beside her and watch her body as her chest rises and falls, recuperating from what just happened.
I try not to think about Malik as we fall asleep. There has to be some way out of this because I can’t let her be married off to someone like him. Harper is mine. I’m not letting anything happen to her.