Chapter Two
Asher
"You fucking asshole!"
People mistake power for safety. They think that if you have enough of it, you become untouchable. The reality is, power just means you bleed in silence. You can't show weakness, not even for a second. The minute you do, you've already lost.
I'm not a man who loses.
But I don't think I've ever come close to winning with Brielle, either. She's had one hand around my heart and the other on my balls, like a pretty little viper coiled around me, just waiting for a reason to squeeze, since the moment I met her.
When she storms into my office a little after two in the afternoon, curses flying, looking like sin come to life, I come face to face with every goddamn one of my weaknesses.
My cock goes rock hard before I can blink. I try to remind myself that she's Liam's little sister, the girl I swore to protect and then nearly killed. But it doesn't help. It never fucking helps.
She's under my skin and has been for longer than I care to admit. Nothing I do ever expels her.
I've tried to make her hate me. I've tried harder, maybe, than I've ever tried anything before. Every time I snap at her, every time I brush her off, every time I rip a memory from her hands and leave it bleeding on the floor, I see hatred in her eyes. But it never sticks—not the way I need it to.
If she were smart, she'd choose a less dangerous obsession than a motherfucking monster like me. Instead, she looks at me as if I'm her own private death wish. And every goddamn time, that look embeds her a little more deeply into my psyche.
One of these days, we'll tear each other to shreds. I'll be her downfall, or she'll be my demise. It feels almost inevitable at this point. And even still, I can't convince myself to let her go.
"Brielle." Her name is a kind of poison I shouldn't breathe. But I say it like I'm starving for the taste of it anyway.
She thinks I want to ruin her, that I'm out for revenge.
That's a lie. I want to own her so she can't ever escape.
I want her under my control, mine in a way nothing and no one can ever shatter.
I want to pick her apart and then put her back together, just so she never forgets that she breathes for me.
Yeah, it's a problem. A big fucking problem.
She's dressed for war in a black blazer over a white camisole, her tits pressed together like she's daring me to look. The matching pants hug her wide hips and thick thighs in a way that makes me wish I were the fabric wrapped around her. Her eyes are venomous green, her face flushed with rage.
"You know there's a process for getting on my calendar," I drawl, lacing my hands together on top of my desk. My knuckles are white, like I'm clenching a live grenade instead of my own goddamn fingers.
She takes three steps forward and plants both hands on my desk, leaning over so her hair falls in a waterfall and her scent—orange blossoms and hate—hits me like a fist. My eyes naturally fall to the tops of her breasts.
It's unfortunate that they aren't already covered in my marks.
"Is that supposed to scare me?" she asks, every word a hissed threat. "Because last I checked, you're not my boss."
"I'm everyone's boss," I reply, letting the arrogance bleed through. It's not a lie. When you have as much money as I do, the world bends to your will. Every part of it except her, anyway.
Brielle bends for nothing and no one. She never has. Maybe that's why I'm so goddamn desperate to see her on her knees—because I know she'll never willingly kneel for anyone. I can have anything I want…except her.
It pisses me off.
Once upon a time, she would have gladly given herself to me. She would have crawled through hell for me. That was before I nearly killed her. Now, she'd rather set me on fire and watch me burn.
It's precisely what I wanted, but it pisses me off anyway.
She laughs, a short, brittle sound that bounces around my office like the crack of a whip. "You're an asshole, Asher."
I lean back in my chair and let my gaze drag down her body in a way that would constitute sexual harassment if anyone else in the building tried it. But I make the rules here, and they don't apply to me.
Besides, everyone in this office knows not to even look at her. I've destroyed men for less. Those who thought they could claim what's mine will never recover. And if anyone is ever stupid enough to put their hands on her, they'll never find the fucking bodies.
"Is hell cold enough for you yet, princess?" I ask, taunting her because it's a biological imperative. It's also preferable to saying what I really want to say, which is 'bend over the fucking desk and show me what belongs to me'.
She ignores the bait. "You blacklisted me."
"Excuse me?" I ask like I don't know what she's talking about.
Her jaw sets, the muscle in her throat working as she swallows. "You blacklisted me from every agency in Manhattan. I can't even get a fucking phone call returned. I want to know why, Asher."
I glance at the stack of contracts in front of me, then at her. "Because I can."
Her hands ball into fists on the antique wood. "That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer you get," I say, smirking at her. "You want a career in this field? You know what you have to do."
She pushes off the desk, a stubborn tilt to her chin. She's furious, her face flushed and her lips trembling. I'm a bastard for loving the way fury looks on her, but we both know a bastard is the least of what I am.
"What? You want me to starve?" she spits like she doesn't have a trust fund.
"No," I say, rising slowly. My height puts me a head and a half above her. "I want you to suffer and beg, princess."
It's a complicated truth. She's taunted me for years, torturing me just because she could.
She's flaunted herself and tried every goddamn way she could to find someone she could throw in my face.
I've spent night after restless night, worried that some little motherfucker at NYU would steal her away in those hours when I had to sleep, or in those moments when I couldn't watch.
Now, she gets to pay for it with sweat and come and my handprints in her skin. I want to occupy every inch of her mind, possess every inch of her soul the same way she does mine. I want to break her open and pour myself inside.
She'll scream and cry and bleed and beg.
She'll let me fuck her and break her and claim every inch of her body.
And when I'm the only thing that exists for her, when my name is the only one she remembers, and she can't tell pain from pleasure, maybe I'll finally be able to let her go. But not until.
She takes a reckless swing at me. I see it coming, but I don't stop it, mostly because I deserve it. Her palm cracks against my cheek, the sound like a gunshot.
My cock throbs in response.
Before her arm drops, I catch her wrist. She tries to pull away, but my grip is iron. I walk her backwards until her back hits the wall, my cheek stinging from the force of her slap. My dick throbs in time.
"You asshole!" She's breathing fast, her eyes wide and wild.
I'm well aware that I'm a fucking asshole for wanting the things I do, but I want them anyway. Maybe once I own her the same way she's always owned me, she'll stop looking so goddamn tempting. Maybe then, I'll finally be able to exorcise her from my mind.
Somehow, I doubt it'll work that way. I could have her for a lifetime and still want more. But that's my cross to bear, not hers. She's a weakness I can't afford, and the longer this goes on, the more dangerous this becomes for her. So I'm solving the problem here and now.
Thirty days under my control, and then I'll let her walk away.
She'll let me do whatever the fuck I want, take her and break her however I want.
And then she'll be free of me—free to marry some little fuckboy who will never understand her.
One who won't come close to worshiping her the way she deserves.
But he'll be a safe option for her, one better for her than I'll ever be.
I'll learn to live with it, even if it kills me.
"Hit me again," I say, my lips planted against her ear. "I dare you."
She wrenches her arm to accept my challenge, but I pin it above her head. Her other hand claws at my tie, trying to shove me away. I grab that wrist too, so she's flat against the wall, my body caging hers in.
"You want to know the real reason I blackballed you, Brielle?"
She's shaking, but not with fear. That's the thing about her.
Not a goddamn thing about me scares her, even though it should.
If she were smart, she'd be terrified of the way I want her and the things I want to do to her.
Instead, she looks at me like she's just daring me to do my worst, like she wants the pain and the pleasure and the goddamn destruction we'll leave in our wake.
"Yes," she says.
"Because you love trying to drive me insane," I say, pressing my hips into hers so she feels exactly what she does to me. "And I can't have you out there, dragging my associates under your spell, pretending you aren't just trying to piss me off every time you flirt with one of them."
Her eyes flick down, then back up. Her tongue darts out, wetting her bottom lip.
"You're delusional if you think I give a shit about you at all," she whispers, but it's a lie, and we both know it.
She's never truly wanted a single one of the men she flirts with.
She does it only to piss me off and get my attention because she knows—goddamn her, she knows—that I'll never allow anyone else to touch her if I can help it.
"You almost cost me everything," I say. "You remember that?"
She blanches, but I see the flicker in her eyes, like she's remembering the screaming metal and her hands slippery with her own blood. That night is a bleeding wound that never healed for either of us.