13. Anna
13
ANNA
O h, my god. Oh, my god. Oh, my god. He has blood all over him. On his face, on his hands, and his clothes.
“Anna, baby.” Mark is in front of me before I realize the words rolling through my head are tumbling out of my mouth in a mumbled mess. There’s a slight tremor in his hands as he reaches out to cup my face, only to pull back after just the tips of his fingers whisper against my skin. His gaze flicks down to his hands as if seeing what I see for the first time. Blood. “Shit.”
He moves to wipe the tacky prints he left on my face but turns his hands over and over again, then stops as if he’s afraid to make things worse. He looks as if he’s afraid to move as if one touch from him will shatter me into a million pieces. He’s not wrong.
It’s just not for the reasons he thinks it is.
He has blood on his hands. Literally. My forced fiancé’s blood. Patrick fucking Calhoun’s blood. There’s hardly a clean spot on Mark’s hands after the beating he doled out on Patrick. Why is that such a fucking turn-on?
They came for me. Mark and Jax are here fighting for me, refusing to let me go even when I told them I was going to marry Patrick instead of giving myself to them and permitting them to keep me. They aren’t going to let me chain myself to Calhoun, to allow myself to be ruined at the hands of a monster like him. No matter how righteous my reasons for doing so are.
Because they want to ruin me.
They want to ruin me in a way that is entirely different from the man I intended to marry. Mark and Jax want to own me, possess my body and soul. To ruin me for all other men, and I want to let them. God, do I want that. I don’t just want it; I fucking need it. Desire pools low, and an aching need builds between my legs. I’m desperate for their touch and to touch them, to show them how grateful I am that they saved me.
They saved me from myself and Patrick Calhoun when no one else would. Not even my father.
“You okay, baby girl?” Jax gives the rope he tied around Patrick, fastening him to an antique oak ladder-back chair, a final tug, tightening the knots and eliciting a satisfying groan from Patrick. “Anna?”
Am I okay? For the first time in my life, I am more than okay. I’m fucking perfect. I know what I want, and who I want, and I’ll do whatever they ask of me as long as they promise to keep me.
I nod, unable to force the words over the knot in my throat, and blink through the blur of tears.
“Thank fuck.” Mark exhales as he watches a smile curve the corners of my mouth and the muscles in my body relax. He rushes me, crushing my body to his, despite the pain I know he’s in from the punches Patrick landed during the fight. He winces and sucks a breath of air between his teeth when I run my fingers through his hair. “Easy, babe.”
“Would have split your skull like a fucking melon if your boyfriend wasn’t here to save your ass. Two against one? Fighting dirty. Afraid you couldn’t take me one on one? Fucking chumps.” Patrick snarls. The legs of the wooden chair thump and erratically beat as he struggles against the rope binding him.
“You’d know all about fighting dirty, wouldn’t you? You fucking bastard.” Jax’s fingers curl into a fist, his arm coiled back like a spring before he unleashes a devastating blow to Patrick’s face. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your fucking mouth shut.”
“No pussy is worth the hellfire I will rain down upon you. Do you think you can steal from me, not once but fucking twice, and get away with it?” Patrick laughs and spits a mouthful of blood at Jax’s feet. “You better fucking kill me. You better make sure I’m fucking dead because I promise you, if there’s a breath left in my body, I will fucking come for you. I’ll make that pretty little whore watch as I gut you, and then I’ll put her to work.”
“I said shut the fuck up. You want a taste, motherfucker?” Jax grabs my panties off the floor and shoves them in Patrick’s mouth. He clamps his hand over Patrick’s mouth, forcing it to shut, and leans in close. “There. Now you know what you’ll be missing. Now you’ll know what we took from you, what we made our own. Yeah, we didn’t have to take her virginity. She gave it to us, begged us. Anna’s ours now and you’re not going to do a fucking thing about it.”
This is too much. Isn’t it? It should be. I should be running. Not just from Patrick, but from Mark and Jax too. There’s an edge of darkness to them, carved out by the anger, grief, and hatred they feel for Patrick Calhoun. It’s been building up little by little over the years since Penny’s death until it consumed them and drove them to plot their revenge and steal Patrick’s bride.
To kidnap me.
So I should run because they’re broken, damaged by the pain they’ve been stewing in for all this time, but I’m not going to run. And not just because I want to save my mom. No, as much as I want to save her, that’s not why I’m staying with them. I want them. I need them. But I will do whatever Mark and Jax ask of me if they’ll help me find a way to save her.
But that has to wait because we need to go. We need to get the hell out of Patrick’s house and figure out how we’re going to not only pay for my mom’s cancer treatments but keep her safe from Calhoun’s men because, after tonight, I have no doubt he’ll use her to get to me.
And this time it won’t be with threats to stop chemotherapy or radiation.
“We need to go,” Mark says as if he’s reading my mind. He releases me and crosses the room to stand next to his brother, clasping a hand on his shoulder. “Jax, we have to finish it. I know we said we weren’t going to do this, that this isn’t who we are, but I think we’ve kind of crossed a line and there’s no going back. Not if we want to keep her safe. We need to finish this and get the fuck out of here.”
“No.” Jax stretches his left arm, his fingers clawing at the floor until they hook my shirt. He lets go of Patrick long enough to twist the shirt and wrap it around his face, gagging him with my panties still in his mouth. “We’re not going to kill him. Maybe we did cross a line. A few lines, but not that one. And I’m not going to.”
“We should go,” I say, pulling everyone’s attention, including Patrick’s back to me. I wish Jax chose something other than my shirt for a gag. I want to get dressed. My skin itches with the need to cover myself up. Not because I’m embarrassed or insecure of my body, but because Patrick has leered at it long enough. “There’s someone else here, his driver or bodyguard or whatever the hell he is. He must have heard something. He’ll come for Patrick.”
For me.
“No one’s coming, Anna.” Mark addresses me, but he’s staring at Patrick as if the words are directed at him. “Jax and I took care of it. We’ve got you. You’re safe.”
Patrick’s screams are muffled by the gag, but I can pick up bits and pieces of the threats he’s spewing. His skin is red, veins bulging and strained in his neck and temples. I’m not one to wish ill will on a person but if Patrick had a heart attack right now, I wouldn’t waste a breath performing CPR.
“We should kill him and be done with it.” Mark is still glaring at Patrick as he talks to Jax about their next move. “I don’t want to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life.”
Patrick makes a garbled choking sound that might be a laugh.
“We won’t,” Jax says with such finality that it draws Mark’s attention away from my former fiancé. “I have an idea.”
Mark’s lips curl in a wicked sneer that almost makes me feel bad for Patrick. Almost. “What do you have in mind?”
Jax runs through his plan. It’s deviant and beautiful and hits Patrick right where it’s sure to hurt him the most.
“You want to do what?” I should be shocked. Maybe even horrified. I should refuse, but a part of me, a dark, depraved part of me, wants to do the things he’s suggesting.
Jax wants to take me, make Patrick watch as he and Mark claim me once and for all, removing all doubt who I belong to. And it’s not Patrick.
Mark is already unbuttoning his pants. “On your knees, Anna.”
“I can’t…I’m not going to…not with him watching,” I protest but the ache between my legs intensifies, and I get down on all fours despite the words falling from my lips.
Mark kneels behind me, positioning me at an angle that provides Patrick with the best view of what he’s about to do to me. “Whose pussy is this?” He smacks my ass when I fail to answer. “Who does this pussy belong to, Anna?”
Another smack.
“You,” I cry out when his hand connects with my ass a third time, then mewl like a fucking kitten when he rubs his hand where he made contact, soothing away the sting.
“Fucking right, you do. This pussy is mine; mine, and Jax’s.” He grips my hips and, with one brutal thrust, impales me with his rock-hard cock.
Jax hovers beside us, his gaze fixed on me as I watch him unzip his pants and free his erection. He fists his hand around his shaft, moving it up and down in long slow strokes as he waits his turn with the patience of a saint.
Or maybe the devil.
Mark snakes his hand around my hip, then lower until his fingers reach my swollen, aching clit. He moves them in fast, tight circles, bringing me to the edge of an orgasm. He increases the pace, the slap of skin on skin louder as he rails me from behind. The twitch of his cock, knowing he’s so close, right there with me at my climax is all it takes. I’m still screaming his name when he explodes inside me. He leans over, pressing a kiss against my spine before easing out of me.
My body is still aching for him, but Jax is there before I have the chance to truly miss his presence.
“Roll over onto your back for me, baby.” Jax runs his hands along my legs, the callouses on his strong hands kiss my skin with each caress, as he raises them and hooks my ankles over his shoulders. He rubs the tip of his dick along my slick, oversensitive slit then slips in, forcing Mark’s cum that’s leaking out of me back inside my pussy. “Who do you belong to?”
“You.” I don’t hesitate to answer this time because I know it’s true. They own me. Every single inch of my body and soul belongs to them. “You do.”
“That’s right, Anna. You’re such a good girl, taking my cock.” Jax rolls his hips, hitting a spot so deep it almost hurts, but that twist of pain, the pressure of being so full, of having so much of him, is a new, delicious level of pleasure I’ve never experienced before. He moves faster, harder, with every gasp and moan I make. “Touch yourself. Make yourself come on my fucking cock while I ravage this beautiful fucking pussy. Let him see what I do to you.”
I love the way they talk to me, the way they tell me what to do. It’s so easy, so right to follow their commands. I do as I’m told and slide my hand over my swollen clit, bringing myself to another orgasm and screaming Jax’s name as he comes, emptying himself inside me.
Jax gets up, helps me to my feet, and makes sure my wobbly legs will support me before gathering what’s left of my clothes. He slips his shirt over my head and holds my jeans as I step into them before handing me over to Mark.
“If you so much as whisper her name in the dark, you’re finished. Raise as much as a finger in retaliation; make a move against her mother, and I will destroy you. With one keystroke,” Jax waves his hand, gesturing to the room and the whole of Patrick’s empire, “all of this disappears. Nod if you understand.”
Patrick’s expression darkens, his eyes narrowing to thin slits, but he nods.
Without a word or a parting glance, I leave my fiancé strapped to the chair, bound and gagged with my panties and the only taste of me he’ll ever have still in his mouth.