3. 3 MCKENNA
3 MCKENNA
The sound of my name from his mouth makes me want to claw his face. Red-hot anger swirls through me and I bite down on my cheek to keep from screaming.
The man behind me is six-four. His deep brown eyes are ringed with gold. His black hair is slightly below his collar and has been cut since I last saw him.
Memories of the last twelve months flash through my mind. Adrian and his team on that awful morning, when he marched to the head of the boardroom and told everyone on my father’s team to get out. They’d been fired, and MM Industries was defunct as of that moment.
Adrian scowled at me on his way out, raising a cool eyebrow. “Not so high and mighty now, are we?”
He always thought I was a snob.
My heart races as he smiles coolly. This has to be a mistake. There is no way Adrian McIntyre won me for the weekend. I cannot go through with this auction. Bile rises in my throat, my stomach tightens in knots.
How can I give myself over to the man who destroyed my entire life?
He’s the reason I’m here, auctioning off the use of my body to the highest bidder.
He’s why I didn’t achieve my dream of being a veterinarian.
“Let go of me,” I lift my leg, eager to kick him.
He grins wolfishly and clamps a hand on my shoulder. My breath whooshes out of me as I start to dry heave. This cannot be happening. There has to be a way out of this, but I quickly think back to the long and arduous interview.
I signed the contract, sealing my fate.
“Mckenna, look at me.”
The command in his voice is steel. I squint my eyes closed and shake my head.
“Now.”
Swallowing, I turn to look at him. He tugs my hair, pulling my head up until I meet his cool gaze.
“Good. You are mine for the weekend. Do you need to re-read your contract?” His tone is commanding and cold.
I can’t speak. I swallow hard, but I feel like I’m going to vomit. I want out of this room. There has to be an exception to the contract.
“I won you,” Adrian says, reaching for the bottle of water on the counter, uncaps it, and hands it to me. “Drink.” He lets go of my hair.
I take a mouthful of water, but I can’t swallow, and I spit it out, aiming for him. Droplets drip down my breasts, soaking the front of my camisole.
Adrian shakes his head in a slow, exaggerated way. “Are you already disobeying me? We’ve hardly begun.”
I close my eyes against his silky tone and try to stop myself from shuddering. This is my nightmare. It’s not going to solve a single problem, the whole reason I’m here.
Oh God, what a way to screw up even more, Mckenna.
“Try again,” he says, pressing the water bottle against my mouth. I can’t do anything other than drink; all my strength is suddenly sapped out of me. Tears roll down my cheeks.
His expression is hard as stone. “Is it so awful, Mckenna? At least you know me. It’s not some stranger touching you.” His lips are so close to mine, but he doesn’t kiss me.
“I’d rather have a stranger,” I bite out. A shiver of fear rolls down my spine, coupled with white hot need. As much as I hate this man, I can’t control how my body responds to him.
“A stranger won’t treat you like I will.” He pulls my hair again, tilting my throat up. “A stranger might be too kind to you.”
“Kind?” I squeak out the word. My pussy clenches, betraying me, my pulse races.
His gaze is so dark and predatory.
“Yes, kind, which is what you don’t deserve. You deserve to be treated as the piece of meat you told everyone you were.” He picks up his glass and sips it.
For a half-second, I want to throw my arms around him and beg him to look at me, to remember when we were kids racing through my dad’s library.
But those days are long gone, a memory that fades each day as I wake up in a one-bedroom apartment with my mother.
His smirk makes me so angry I want to hurl myself at him. I clench my hands into fists, trying to spit out a curse, but it comes out in a shriek of frustration.
“Cute little hellion,” Adrian’s tone deepens.
His mockery is too much.
“Fuck you!” I beat my fists against his muscled chest. I grab at his shirt, trying to rip it off him.
“Stop it, Mckenna. It’s wholly unbecoming of you,” he casually grips my hands in his, applying steady pressure to my wrists. “Let go.”
“Not until you behave.” I smell his woodsy cologne, see the ring of gold around his eyes as his gaze sears into mine and my nipples harden more as electricity sparks between us.
“I hate you,” I spit at him but the spittle doesn’t reach him, it drips down my chin.
Adrian transfers my wrists to a one-handed grip as he drags a finger along my chin. “You’re so adorable, all angry. But I will make you suffer, Mckenna.” He scoops up my spit with his index finger and my stomach tightens as he swipes his finger along my nose.
My mouth goes bone dry as my skin heats up even more. My pussy throbs with need.
“I don’t care. This weekend, you are mine, and you will do everything I say. I hope you were honest in that interview because we will do every single thing you consented to at least once.”
Those kinks I have enjoyed consensually and each time, with a partner who checked in with me every step. I’ve been lucky with my sexual experiences.
It’s the theme of my current life: my luck has run out. I try to speak, but only a guttural sound comes out of my lips. My breath hitches as he presses his fingers against my wrist. “No,” I manage to squeak out the word.
“Oh yes. Mckenna, I’m not the monster you think I am. Before we go any further, I want to hear it from you. Do you still wish to proceed? Do I have your consent to use you in all the ways I want to, based on what you told Club Lust?” Adrian drops my wrists.
The room spins underneath my feet. “Oh... I don’t-.”
I grasp the counter and force myself to take a breath.
“Tell me,” his touch is fire against my cheek. So many times I have daydreamed about him touching me, kissing me, but not like this and not now.
Adrian McIntyre was like a brother to me throughout my entire life. When my car broke down on the interstate, and I was going to be late for my final, I called my mother, who told me to call the car service. I was on hold with them when Adrian showed up and gave me a ride.
When I was trying to study, and Ava and her friends were making too much noise, teasing me about being a bookworm, Adrian calmly locked the dining room doors, keeping his sister and her friends out.
This man had shown up for me many times, including watching us when our parents went to a red carpet event.
He listened to me reel off the anatomy and vitals of equines and cell biology facets. Adrian encouraged me to apply to Tufts University when my mother seemed disinterested and my father, as usual, was too wrapped up in his own scientific pursuits. I might not have applied if it wasn’t for him and Grace.
I choke out a sob.
Because if it wasn’t for Adrian and his intent on destroying what our fathers built, I would have taken the exam and achieved my dream of being a veterinarian.
I need to make that dream a reality.
“Yes, I want to proceed. You have my consent.” I have no other choice. A new wave of wetness seeps between my thighs.
A slow and sultry smile spreads across his face. His dark eyes blaze with anger and heat.
His aura is electric, and I’m trembling with nerves being this close to him.
He turns from me, picks up his drink, and stalks to the leather couch. His movements are slow and deliberate as he sets his drink on the table next to the sofa.
“Crawl to me, Mckenna. Or would you rather me call you Davis?” He says it with a sneer, and I glance at the door, thinking of running out of there.
Of forgoing the money and telling Club Lust I can’t do it.
“Don’t say my father’s name again.” My voice is like gravel.
Adrian shrugs. “I don’t think you get to call the shots this weekend. Drop to your knees and start crawling, or I will give you a first taste of that corporal discipline.”
Fury spurts up from my belly, sharp and hot, heating my skin, it mixes with the want and need, making my head swim. But knowing I have no choice, I sink to the floor, unyielding underneath my knees.
I move quickly, wanting to get to the carpet.
“Slow down.”
Of course, the bastard would want me to do it slowly. I sit back on my heels and glare at him, but before he can make good on his threat of punishment, I duck my head and crawl.
Once I get on the fuzzy rug, it’s way more tolerable on my knees.
“Stop. Turn so you’re facing the vanity.”
That will mean that Adrian will have a view of my ass, covered by my matching green panties.
I shuffle and feel his gaze rake over my body.
“It’s a very nice ass, Mckenna. Who does it belong to for this weekend?”
“You,” I say, as if I am accusing him of a heinous crime.
“That’s right,” Adrian says. “Now, thank me for calling your ass nice; that was a compliment.”
But I can’t thank this man for anything except ruining my life.
I hear the creak of the leather as he sits forward.
I jump as his palm comes down hard on each of my ass cheeks. His open palm scorches my skin.
“These are the rules, Mckenna. You do as I say, and you obey. Now, say ‘thank you.’”
He smacks me again; the sound vibrates in the room, the pain spreads across my ass, and my skin burns.
“Thank you,” I say it as one might say, ‘you asshole’ and he laughs, hearing the unsaid word as if I had spoken it.
He spanks me again. His palm feels like wood as it lands over and over, the sound bouncing around the room.
I grit my teeth, my pussy throbs. I want to scream. I hate how this man is turning me on.
Because the damn spanks arrows to my pussy, making it clench, reminding me of how needy it is to be filled.
“You said objectification, and we will start with this. You will stay exactly like this. Keep your head down while I check tonight’s arrangements are in order. Don’t you dare spill my drink.”
I curse my body for betraying me because I am a mess of hungry need. To be used by this man? That was once a dream. But now it’s the last thing I want and the wave of shame mixed with my arousal that rolls through my body makes me want to scream. He set the glass on the base of my spine, sits back, stretches out, and put the heel of his foot on me.
“This is where you belong, Mckenna, under me.” He digs his heel into my ass and I shudder, wetness gushes between my legs.
I hate this man who is using me as a footstool and a table for his drink.
He drags his foot along my back, brushes it against the glass. I whimper, fearing that he’s going to on-purpose spill his drink, but he continues to brush it up my back, resting his hard heel on my shoulder.
I hate that I am here, under Adrian McIntyre’s foot, at his beck and call all weekend.
But the silence as he reads on his phone gives me the space to run plans through my head, even as my ass is burning and my body is heated with pleasure.
My father taught me to always have a backup plan, which is ironic because, in the end, he didn’t.
Whenever I wanted to do anything, like enter the next horse jumping competition or go to a friend’s house, he’d quiz me.
“What’s your plan, Mckenna?”
I’d tell myself, and then he’d hold his chin in his hand and peer at me over his black-framed glasses. “And if that fails, what are you going to do?”
I can’t run out of here right now; that would cause too much fuss, and it would end without me having the money.
But if I wait it out and look for an opportunity to leave, I could get some funds transferred to my mother.
Even if Club Lust comes after me for fraud or something, a legal proceeding will take months, and by then, I can fix it — this whole mess. Adrian lifts the glass off my back, and I exhale in relief. He presses his heel against my shoulder. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying out. He removes his foot from my shoulder, stomps it down on the ground, and thankfully, I stay still.
I don’t want to give this man reason to torment me.
“Turn.”
Adrian’s rich voice has me snapping back to the present.
I turn so that I am facing him on the sofa.
The anger in his gaze and the stiffness of his posture are minor reflections of how I feel. He shouldn’t be angry. He ruined my life.
Holding my gaze, he tips his glass, allowing some liquid to fall on his shoe.
My heart flutters wildly against my chest, making me feel like a caged animal wanting to escape.
“Lick it clean.”
My nipples are so hard under my camisole, the fabric almost hurts them. I close my eyes. I can’t do this. I am not going to lick Adrian’s shoe.
“You’re lucky I am not asking you to do this in public. Don’t make me repeat myself.”
But I can’t move; I am frozen, watching the liquid on Adrian’s shoe slowly slide off the top to where the leather meets the sole.
He leans forward and pushes my head down so my nose touches his brushed leather Oxford shoe.
Never have I hated myself more than this second when my tongue darts out, hitting the shiny spot on the shoe.
Shame, poker hot rolls through my body, heating my face.
“That’s a good shoe licker. It’s the only thing you’re good for. That and fucking because I am going to use every hole you have.”
“Yes, Sir.” The words d my lips before I can stop them. I’m lost in the tide of this moment.
His sly smile makes me feel like caught prey. He’s won me, and I hate it.
My panties are so wet, I know they are sticking to my pussy while my juices are running down my legs.
The whiskey is tasteless as I lick it. There’s too much saliva in my mouth, clouded with the scent of leather from his shoe.
“Maybe you can obey after all. Now, the other one.”
I hate myself for the whimper that escapes my mouth as I shift to move over to his other shoe. He tips the rest of the glass, and the liquid lands by the laces.
I lick before I overthink it.
“Yes, just like that.” Adrian’s hand snakes through my hair, and he pulls, causing me to move closer to him. “Get my shoe cleaned before a drop of whiskey falls, or you’ll lick it from the floor.”
Damn him for making me feel this hot, for lighting me up with need. I feel a mental tug, like my mind trying to give way to the bliss I feel when I normally submit like this. But because it’s Adrian who is tugging my hair, I can’t let go completely.
I lick his shoe, trying to hold back the whimpers.
He drops my hair. “There, nice and clean. Maybe you can be good after all. You have two minutes to gather your things. Take those heels off.”
“It’s the only shoes I have!”
His slap against my cheek is so fast and quick that I reel back as the room spins.
Yes, I had said okay to face-slapping. Grabbing my cheek where he struck it, I regret it.
“Obey, Mckenna. Don’t talk back to me. I don’t care if you don’t have other shoes. I’m not taking the chance of you stabbing me with your heel.”
I glare at him because I hadn’t thought of stabbing him with my stiletto. My hand presses harder against my burning cheek.
“You tried to ruin my reputation. I am not taking chances.”
With a comment to a journalist, I might have made life hard for Adrian. But it doesn’t compare to how impossible he made my life when he took everything my father built away from my mother and me.
Adrian laughs and taps my other cheek. “Get going, Mckenna.”
Rising, I turn my back on him and glance around the room for anything I have left, but there is nothing besides my cardigan and bag.
I take my heels off and go to put them in my bag.
“Leave them. I’ll replace your cheap shoes.”
I drop them onto the dressing room floor and swallow back tears.
Adrian is the reason I wear cheap shoes, and he knows it.
“I will take that.” Adrian steps forward for my bag.
He loops his arm under mine. His touch scorches me, reminding my body of how needy it is for his touch. I bite the inside of my cheek as he guides me out the door.
I survived my family’s fall from grace, but I don’t know if I can survive a weekend with the architect who was behind that fall.