Chapter 22

I ripped her shirt, exposing those pert breasts. She rarely wore a bra or underwear. And for a second, I wondered if it was a habit left over from her job. It was better to have easy-access clothes. Easy to get on and off. Easy to offer yourself. It was her job. I understood that.

But now, she was mine. Maise Feldman. And the thought of anyone, besides me, touching her, even seeing her like that, made me see red.

As I tore the rest of her clothes off, I dug my fingernails across her skin, streaking her with red, her flesh swollen, goosebumps rising. Her breathing was rapt. I dropped her, and she fell to her hands and knees on the cement, scurrying to get up. I pulled her to the stanchion, a coil of rope hanging off one of the posts. She started to climb over the pen, but I grabbed her by the waist. She pushed back, harder than I anticipated, throwing open the gate. I ripped her off, throwing her on the ground, and knocking the wind out of her. As she found her breath, I shoved her head into the head gate, between the metal and wooden bars, keeping her trapped on her hands and knees. I locked the stanchion into place with the buckle at the top, then I used the extra rope to make sure she couldn’t move. Her body splattered with dirt and sweat, streaks of tender skin. Completely naked.

I moved the trough in front of the stanchion, then stood behind her.

“Why are you stealing from my family?” I shouted. But I didn’t care. None of it had any meaning.

I was playing my part. Putting up an act. In case someone was watching.

“Is it your friends at the motel?” I asked. “Are they making you do it?” “You owe me a million dollars,” Maisie yelled back.

Her payment wasn’t my business. Money didn’t mean anything to me.

But Maisie was my business.

I bent down, using my weight to shove her head into the water. She coughed and sputtered at first, but then she relaxed, trying to keep still, knowing that the less she struggled, the more of a chance she had. But the seconds ticked by and Maisie was like the rest of them. There was always a moment when they still had peace. When they still thought they could live. Just hold their breath a little longer. Wait for that sweet air.

But then she blew bubbles, the water gurgling, pushing her hips up, forcing herself to stand, grinding into my dick as I pressed into her from behind. My cock swelled, pushing against her. I wanted so much more than this, this struggle that I was used to. I wanted more. More. Everything from her.

I finally let go, letting her raise her head. Her hair was soaked, makeup running in black streams down her face, and her eyes were bloodshot.

I should have gotten it over with. Used her the way I wanted, and killed her as I had always planned. Because if my father wanted me to marry her, then there was something far worse coming, and the longer I dragged it out, the worse it would get. I would be doing her a favor.

Selfishness got to me. And I indulged.

Because I didn’t want to kill her right then. I wanted her.

With one hand on the top of her head, pressing her into the water, I

kneaded her breasts, pinching and prying at her nipples while she thrashed. She threw my grip off. I fell to my knees, leaning on top of her, burying my mouth against her skin, biting her neck, pulling at it like a predator ripping flesh from its prey, scraping my hands down until my fingers stumbled over her pussy lips, the hair on her cunt, that musky, natural scent of fear and lust and ripeness floating through the air, swirling around me. Everything inside of me surged to my cock.

Every lung full of air she took greedily, twitching against me, and I shoved my hand down, penetrating her wet velvet walls, jabbing inside of her as she winced at the pain, both of us forgetting the trough. Because it wasn’t enough to drown Maisie, to kill her, and it never would be. I would always need more from her, more to take, more to own. More to conquer.

Because she destroyed me.

All I had was instinct. Desire. A fucking need to do what I wanted. To own her completely, in a way I had never owned a person before. I dropped to my hands and knees, licking her ass and pussy lips, her arousal covering my face.

“Please,” she begged. “Please.” I had promised I would make her beg for her life. But these words weren’t that. “Fuck me, Wilder,” she added, erasing those thoughts from my mind. It could have been fear, a way for her to save her own life, using lust to protect her. It could have been Maisie acting her part: a million-dollar wife. “Fuck me, please,” she said again. But I didn’t care. She pressed her hips into me, and my dick swelled with blood, wanting, no—needing her velvet flesh to constrict around me each time she fought for her life. To know that she was mine to own and use and that there would never be another man who looked at her, who threatened her, who touched her, so fucking help me.

I went to the side of her, giving myself access to fingerfuck her with one hand and drown her with the other, pushing down on her head until she was in the trough again. I repeated the motions again and again until every muscle in her body tensed around my fingers, coming for me. Coming and squeezing, her muscles involuntary, needing to come. Because despite the odds, she wanted to come as much as she wanted to survive. And I wanted to make her come. I wanted to do everything to her, to make her understand what she did to me, to show her how she was destroying me one touch at a time, and yet if I gave in—if I fucked her like she wanted—like I wanted— that it would be the end of me. But it was going to happen, just like death would arrive at my doorstep. Maisie would kill me in her way.

One day, I was going to fuck Maisie, and it would be the biggest mistake of my life.