15. 15 MCKENNA
15 MCKENNA
He drops my hair as if something has zapped him and turns away from me.
My heart is beating so hard it feels like it’s going to burst out of my chest.
I know it’s crazy to throw myself at my enemy, but knowing that is not going to change what I am doing.
Because he isn’t just my enemy.
This is Adrian McIntyre. He’s been in my life for as long as I can remember. He’s the intelligent, driven son of my father’s dear friend and business partner.
The big brother I admired and wished was mine.
Then, the off-limits older brother.
But something has changed between us ever since Ava’s performance. And before it is over, I want his intensity.
I crave his touch and I even want his punishing strokes. Maybe through his touch, my grief and pain will be driven out for good.
Tomorrow, when the clock strikes midnight, I can forget that I was ever this desperate, this needy.
Except I don’t want to.
My heart’s a mess, my emotions unhinged. Every one of my nerve endings is awake with need and want.
Adrian strides towards me, his footfalls heavy, vibrating through the floor.
He is all predator, and I am here, his prey.
I want him to have me, to take me, to use me. I’m vibrating with anticipation. It’s rolling through my veins, making me so wet, so turned on I can barely breathe.
Brushing his fingertips along my arms, he slowly unwraps the rope from my arms. Then, he wrenches my arm behind me, pulls me to my feet.
“Oh!” I stumble next to his muscular chest.
“What are you doing to me, hellion?”
“You’re the one who bought me.”
“Yeah, I’m the damn fool. Did you laugh at me all these years after each attempt?” His fingers dig into my skin. It’s not painful, but his sharp touch grabs my attention, causing me to whimper.
“No.”
“You must have. What a stupid, lovesick puppy I was. Thinking that you were a snob, I told myself to quit asking you out. I still tried to look out for you. Even after all that, I still tried to protect you.”
He moves me forward, and we walk out of the room. My eyes blink at the light change when we’re in the hallway.
“But you know what? I don’t care. You’re mine, Mckenna. Do you hear me? You’re mine.”
“Yes, Sir,” I whisper.
He cages me against the wall; his hand slithers up my throat, grabbing my chin. “Mine.”
He kisses me like he’s a man possessed, all need, and lust, and want.
I melt at his touch, open my mouth, and allow his tongue to take up all the space. His eyes soften as they become lighter, and he breaks off the kiss, leaving me needy.
His phone rings, and he curses. Grabbing my shoulder, he turns me toward the bathroom.
“I want you freshly showered. You have ten minutes.”
“Yes, Sir.”
He’s on his phone, pacing in front of the long windows, and doesn’t acknowledge me.
I’m freezing, the adrenaline wearing off from the scene. I’m so grateful he ordered me to shower, because I feel grubby.
I grab a clean sponge from the bathroom shelf and squirt some of his body wash into it. I stand under the warm water, letting the spray hit every part of me.
I scrub, feeling the welt of the crop. The areas where the zapper got me are sensitive, but my skin is no longer red, and there are no lasting marks.
After tonight, I’m free.
My heart gallops at the thought.
My mind starts spinning with plans and ideas.
I could live anywhere.
It’s enough money that I don’t have to write that exam, but being a vet has always been my dream. I can find where Penelope is and buy her. I don’t want to think of the possibility that she isn’t alive and well.
We could move back to Boston.
I stop the water, step out, and grab a towel.
And the hypothetical crash down on me with the hard, cool reality.
A lot of people felt betrayed by my father and what he was accused of doing. His lab is gone. MM Industries doesn’t exist.
I don’t think I could show my face in Boston again. Not to live comfortably.
My heart squeezes with grief.
I miss Grace so much. She’d always talked about going back to Oregon.
I could go there or live for a year in Florence.
Somehow, these thoughts fall flat; they don’t give me the crazy heart-thumping surge that thinking of returning home did.
“Mckenna! That’s ten minutes.” Adrian pulls open the bathroom door.
“I’m ready.”
“What’s wrong?”
The man could always read me. I remember being at Ava’s birthday party one year, and I was standing by myself because Ava had personalized nail polish for everyone except for me. I didn’t know how to deal with it when Adrian handed me a packet of chips and told me my nails were fine, anyway.
I had tried to hide how upset I was by it from everyone. I knew if I brought up the missing nail polish to Jackie–because there was no way Ava’s mom didn’t have one for me- it would suddenly be found, and it would be my fault for misplacing it. But Adrian saw the whole thing happen.
“I was thinking about where I was going to go next and how I couldn’t go home…I couldn’t go back to Boston.”
His brows furrow. “Why?”
I laugh. “Because of you!”
I know it’s stupid, but I charge at him and must catch him by surprise because he stumbles back before gripping my hands in his.
“Oh no, little hellion. You don’t get to take it out on me. I’m the one who is going to fuck you like I hate you.”
His fingertips brush my shoulder as I dart by him, wondering what the hell I’m thinking. This man is used to getting exactly what he wants, and I’m in no position to run away. But with my heart thumping against my chest, I stay ahead of him, running down the hallway into the study where I crouch behind an ugly green couch.
“Mckenna, don’t you think this is childish?” His sing-song tone is threaded with laughter.
“No!” I retort. My pulse is beating so fast, my skin inflamed with need.
“I’m going to find you, and I’m going to punish you.”
“You’ll punish me, anyway.”
“That’s true hellion. But how bad it is depends on you. Come on out.”
I snort a laugh, and I’m sure I’ve lost my mind. This isn’t my personality, but Adrian always brought out a little rebellion in me.
The overhead lights flip on, and I squish myself as tight as I can under the couch, knowing this is pointless.
“I didn’t think you had any brat in you. I thought you were too scared. Too serious for this nonsense.”
Adrian’s steps are light on the hardwood, and I see his feet approaching me. I laugh and clap my hand over my mouth. It feels good to play like this, to be silly.
We’ve been dancing back and forth between love and hate, and at Ava’s party, it felt like we were past the angst. I don’t think Adrian and I can ever not have an edge in our relationship. We’ve been doing that dance for a long time.
But this is fun.
“I got you, bad girl,” Adrian says, leaning over the couch, his fingertips digging into my shoulder.
I stand and dash away, grabbing the pillow on the end of the couch, and throw it at him.
“Such unruly behavior, Mckenna.” Adrian lunges towards me, and he grabs my waist.
I let out a scream. He kicks my legs out and in one swift motion, his strong legs pinned mine.
I’m over his lap, staring at the hardwood floor.
“Now, what do you have to say for yourself?”
“I’m faster than you!”
“You had a head start, Mckenna, but I caught you. I will always catch you.”
His words send my heart galloping.
“Ow! That hurts!” His palm comes down hard on my ass.
“I want it to hurt, you bad girl.”
The sound of his hand meeting my ass echoes in the space. My ass smarts, the breath whooshes out of me, but a new river flows between my legs.
“Adrian! It hurts!” I try to kick, but he clasps me firmly.
He’s not being gentle, but as his spanks move lower to the top of my leg, covering the space with consistent smacks of his palms.
The searing pain makes me even wetter.
I squirm on his lap.
“Are you asking for something, hellion?”
“No,” I grit out.
“I think you’re lying,” he snaps his hand down on my ass, and I jump at the sound.
He spanks me in a cool, detached manner, clamping his leg down harder over me, and I can’t move. The only thing I can feel is the pain from his hand, over and over.
My ass is aching.
It’s on fire at every touch of his palm, the sting worse now than when he started.
This is quickly not becoming fun.
But then he stops, lifts his leg off mine, and spreads his legs wider. Holding me with one palm on my back, his fingers dance down between my cleft in my ass, and he slides a finger into my sensitive spot.
I suck in a breath.
“Did you forget that I won you?”
“No, Sir.”
I practically hear him purr as he works his unlubed finger in and out of my anus, stroking with little flicks around my sensitive nerves. Tingles roll down my spine, pain followed by the sharpness of the pleasure. I am so hot, so aroused, that my vision grows hazy. I moan as he slides his finger past the knuckle, wetness rolling down between my legs.
“Where can you go right now?”
“Nowhere,” I grit out.
“That’s right.” He removes his finger, raising a new line of fire as he drags it across my scalding ass, wiping it off.
He dips his hand between my legs, stretching my labia.
I squirm on his lap, caught between the pleasantness of his touch and the uncomfortable way he’s stretching my skin.
He pulls the skin until I stop squirming.
“That’s right, Mckenna. You take what I give you. I own you. If I want to take you to Boston right now, that’s where we would go. If I say I am confident you could return there, then know that I mean it. Or do you doubt my word?”
He brings his palm down hard on my ass, sending a fresh new wave of pain along my skin.
“No, I don’t doubt you.” My breath, my whole body, is on fire. I can’t help but squirm over his lap, trying to get some relief from my throbbing pussy.
If Adrian said that I should walk naked through the airport right now, I wouldn’t doubt him. My mind is feeling heavy and floaty, and I don’t want him to stop touching me.
“You got to trust me, hellion.”
He lets go of my labia, dragging his finger over my clit.
“Oh!” The sensation is so much. I’m lost in painful nirvana, wave after wave of pleasure that’s climbing higher, but not quite there. My body is strung taut with the need.
I can’t help but twist on his lap, asking him for more even as I want it to stop. “Stop please.”
“You can take more.” He rubs my clit, in a circle, rough and fast, and not letting up.
The pleasure starts to mount hugely; my body tenses, my toes curl, and his fingers keep working as I’m driven higher by the anticipation of the orgasm. It’s so close, my body practically spasms but then it breaks open, the orgasm shoots me up to a throbbing, exploding peak, crashing over my body in a wave that’s so intense my eyes water.
“Adrian!”
He drags his palm lazily along my ass, his fingers pressing against my clit. My body shudders, tries to get away from his touch, because it’s too much, too sensitive.
“I love how you look when you come for me.” I turn my head, finding his gaze.
“Yeah?”
He smiles in a slow, sultry way and it makes my pulse race even as I’m coming down from the pleasure firing through my veins. “Remember Uncle Joe’s wedding?”
Adrian leans over me. I hear the drawer opening; he rummages through it and then closes it. Something metal lays against my ass, cooling to the fiery skin.
“Yes, I remember the wedding,” I murmur, my voice sounding thick.
He taps the metal object against my ass.
“I want to carve you.” He taps the metal against my arm.
I can’t form words for a moment. My body is suddenly chilled as fear makes my nipples tighten.
“Did you hear me, Mckenna? I want to mark you. What do you say?”
He pats me gently, as if giving me reassurance.
“Yes, Sir.” I cry out.
“Good girl. You’ll take the pain for me, won’t you, my needy slut?” He skims his lips against my neck, sending shivers along my spine.
“Yes Sir.” My nipples are so beaded, I’m aching with the need for them to be touched.
“I wish we could have stayed at the wedding forever.” Adrian twirls a strand of my hair around his finger. My mind swims with images from the memory.
I had forgotten about it in the havoc over the last few months. But Adrian’s father’s much younger brother had gotten married that summer.
The summer before, everything changed and my world fell apart.
I remember my mother and father dancing on the dance floor. I’m across from them, dancing with Adrian.
We talked about how cool it is that our parents are best friends as Mr. McIntyre interrupted their dance and took my mother’s hand and my father took Mrs. McIntyre’s arm and lead her into the next dance.
We were seated at the same table, and after rejecting him five times, I finally gave in and said yes to a dance.
His palm on the small of my back felt so good. I was wearing a floaty blue dress, and as I danced around the floor, I felt like a princess. The way Adrian looked at me with heat and longing made it hard to keep my cool, but I knew I had to.
Ava wasn’t there that night, performing at a summer festival in Germany. But she always came back.
“That was the night I first kissed you.”
“Yes.”
He presses a kiss to my shoulder now, sending new shivers across my skin.
Later, after most of the guests had gone, Adrian handed me a glass of wine and escorted me out to the balcony. We spied my parents in a window seat nook, my mother’s legs on my father’s lap.
They were laughing together.
“I’m jealous of your parents’ love. Hell, I envy the love my parents have for each other.” Adrian said as he held the door open for me.
“A lot of people do,” I replied.
They had been featured in business magazines a month earlier about their forty years of marriage. There was nothing my father wouldn’t do for my mom.
“Do you want that?” Adrian’s warm fingers danced up my arm, along the sensitive skin of my neck.
My pulse raced so fast that my mouth went dry. “Yes.”
Then he took my chin in his grasp, leaned down, and kissed me as if he were a man in love with me. When he pulled back, he cupped my face in his hand. He picked up a strand of my hair and wrapped it around his finger. “Your hair is like oak leaves burnt by the sun.”
“Thank you.” My heart pounded with how he looked at me. My insides felt like jelly. I had dreamed of kissing Adrian and now that it happened…what now?
He walked me to my car and invited me for breakfast the next morning.
I turned him down, having seen a post of Ava’s on social media announcing that she was on the next flight home. The reality of why I couldn’t be with Adrian crashed down on me and I ignored his calls.
“That was the last time we saw each other before our investigation found proof of your father being entwined with the mafia.” He picks up the metal object from my back. Something with a point scrapes along my skin.
“Yes.” I shudder as the point gently drags against my skin, as painful as a paper cut.
“I wish it was different.”
“You’ve said.” I wince, lifting up from his lap.
“No. Stay here and take it for me.” His palm rubs a circle along my ass. I close my eyes and exhale as a line is drawn on my back.
My body hums with fear that leaves my mouth bone dry and heat that makes me want to mewl, cry out for his touch.
“I want to hear you say you will be mine after tomorrow night, but no matter what you say, I’m going to make sure you know you’re mine. I’m going to give you something to remember this weekend by.”
The metal point digs into my ass, the pressure sharp against my flush. He’s going to cut me. Cold sweat rolls through my body is frozen as fear slithers through me.
“I can’t! What are you doing?” In a surge of rebellion, I try to lift up from his touch.
“You’re going to stay still and take this,” Adrian brushes his hand where the tip dug into my flesh. “Be a good girl and take this for me.”
“Yes Sir!” The words are out of my mouth because I am frozen exactly where he wants me. I’m afraid of moving, of the metal point cutting my skin. I feel Adrian’s fist against my skin, and the metal scrapes against my skin.
My mind starts to get all floaty, as the metal tip presses and drags against my skin, as if I am a canvas and he’s stippling me with a pen. “You’re doing very well, relax hellion,” Adrian pulls my skin taught, then the metal tip is covering a new square of flesh, sending fresh sensations through my body, making me achy and hot and fearful all at once.
“Thank you, Sir.” My voice is thick with desire. The tapping, the needling, lulls me into a head space that feels sugary and thick. My whole body is aching with the need for this to end, but I want it to keep going because the pleasure that’s towing me under is so thick, keeping me in that suspended headspace. He can carve me, he can do whatever he wants to me because I am his.
“I can’t take this.”
“Yes, you can.” His fingers dip between my legs, finding my clit. I hump against his hand, wanting relief from the cutting of my skin.
“More, please!”
“I love hearing you beg. What do you want, Mckenna?”
“To come!”
“Then come.” He circles my clit, his knee presses against my pelvis, the metal is still scraping against my skin and it’s so much.
A high whine escapes my lips. I am going to break open. This is too much.
“Adrian!” I grab onto his leg.
Wave after wave of fire rolls across my skin and subsides, only to be set again. I moan in pleasure as he digs the metal tip in harder.
“Your juices are soaking my fingers. Do you know where my fingers are going next?”
The pressure he is applying to my body is exactly right. “No!” I grit out.
“Are you sure? You have no idea where my cum covered fingers are going after you give me this orgasm?” He flicks my clit, and that’s it, the climax explodes through my body, I’m vibrating so much, I need to get off his lap, the touch is too much to take.
Another high-pitched moan escapes my mouth.
I don’t feel like I’m here. His fingers slide in and out, deep and deeper. I can’t breathe. My nerves are all on fire.
“Tell me, hellion,” Adrian whispers the words above me. The metal cuts along my skin. Fear races through me. I don’t want him to cut me.
“My mouth!” Pleasure explodes across my skin, so intensely I shriek, hearing my cry echo around the room. I’m drenched in sweat, my head is floaty, it’s like I’m away from my body, infused with pleasure so intense it is all sensation. Adrian strokes my hair. The touch brings me back down.
“That’s exactly where they are going,” Adrian laughs and removes his hand from between my thighs.
My mouth is opening even before his fingers are against my lips. “Lick them clean, hellion.”
I moan around his digits, my hips arch off his lap, I’m lost in red hot sensations of shame so razor thin its pleasure.
“Suck them, bad girl.” I do. Oh, God, I hollow my cheeks and suck his fingers as far into my mouth as he slides them. I whimper as I lap up my own taste from his fingers.
“Your cheeks are all red, your ass is red and your skin is beautiful.” I feel the tip of the metal against my skin in a long line. I slurp his fingers, arching off his lap, humping his knee because I need more. “You’re such a slut for me, aren’t you hellion?”
“Yes Sir,” I moan around his fingers.
“I can’t wait to mark you even more as mine.” The heat of his body is over me, as he leans down and sinks his teeth into my ass.
“Ahh! Ow!” The bite feels good, my brain cells are drunk, I feel like I’m going out of my body.
“Yes, I need to show you what I’ve done,” Adrian withdraws his fingers, wipes them on my cheek. He slowly traces the bite he made. “Does it hurt?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He rests his hands on my ass. “I like having you like this.”
“I like it too.” I press my cheek against the sofa, and he strokes my hair. It makes me murmur in a different way, in a contented ease kind of way.
If only this was our every day.
He drapes a throw blanket over my shoulders. “I want to show you. Get up, Mckenna.”
I stand, shivering from the drop of adrenaline.
Adrian guides me to the bathroom and turns me around. “Look over your shoulder, can you see?” Adrian smirks.
I turn my head, trying to see what he left on my skin.
There is a faint red line, but no other mark than that.
“Kind of.” I choke out the words.
Adrian takes a cup off the shelf, runs it under the tap, and holds it to my lips.
I drink fast, with his eyes on me the whole time, realizing how much I need the water.
“‘Property of Adrian’” is what I carved into your skin.”
“But it’s not -” My insides are liquid. The heat that banks his eyes makes me burn.
“How was that mind fuck, hellion?”
My mind whirls. “You didn’t? It’s not actually?”
“No, you’re not actually carved, no permanent damage inflicted. I just wanted to make you think I did.” He drags his index finger over each faint scratch. “If you decide that you want me, hellion, at ten minutes after midnight tomorrow, I want ‘Property of Adrian’ tattooed on your skin.”
His hand comes around my neck. He gently squeezes while grabbing a fistful of my hair.
“Understand?”
“Yes,” I try to swallow, but I can’t. My body is humming with the need for more of his touch.
We’ve spent so much of our lives being adversaries, but that’s how we communicate; that’s the game we play.
I’m drenched between my legs. I rub my breasts against his forearm. He chuckles and takes my right nipple between his thumb and index finger and twists.
“Ow!”
He kisses me until my lips feel bruised, then moves to the other nipple.
“I don’t want a tattoo,” I say, past the pain that he’s inflicting.
“No? Then I will have to do something else to make sure you permanently know you’re mine.” The timber of his voice sends shivers down my spine.
“Yes, Sir. Aren’t you going to fuck every part of me?”
Adrian pulls my hair until I’m standing on tiptoes. “You’re going to wish I didn’t. I am not done claiming you.”
My stomach rolls into a knot, but I meet his cool stare.
“Give it to me, Sir.”