Bitter Vows (Crimson Falls 1)

“I don’t understand. Why not arrest him?” I push to my feet, needing to stand for this, or at least I think I need to be. “Lycan?” Lycan’s steps fall softly on the carpet as he takes two strides toward the window while keeping his back to me. For a moment, he stands there silently, and I wonder if he’ll answer.

His hand threads through his dark hair, a lock falling into a shimmering eye as he gazes at me over his shoulder. “Your father is a smart man, but I’m smarter. He wanted more than he could hold onto, including your mother. He thought secrets would remain hidden forever, but he fucked with the wrong person.”

My curiosity wins out as he trickles information to me, and I lap it up like a puppy needing sustenance. I take a couple of tentative steps toward him. “What do you mean?”

“He stole from me,” Lycan says, his profile half shadowed as he regards the window, his focus on the outside instead of me. “And now I’ve taken from him.” That’s when he turns to look at me. His one hand landing on the edge of the wooden vanity, his knuckles turning white, and I wonder briefly if he’s reigning in his desire to be near me.

“You can’t steal me. This isn’t some archaic eye for an eye belief,” I bite out, forgetting that this man holds all the power. But then again, I have control as well. He can’t do anything to me if I don’t want him to. He wouldn’t force me. He can’t.

“Those questions racing through your pretty little head right now, they’re pointless,” he tells me in his smooth baritone, a hint of an accent brightening his words, making them seem lyrical. “Because I can do anything I want, to anyone I want, at any time I want.” This time, he turns toward me fully, showing off his height, broadness, and dominance. The control and power that follow him like perfume grip my chest squeeze the breath from my lungs, and I can’t find the response I need and crave.

“Don’t treat me like a child.”

He chuckles before stepping away from the soft, silver illumination streaming into the bedroom from the moon outside. “Then don’t act like one,” Lycan counters seriously. He leans against the vanity, and for a moment, I see him as the wolf, but something internally, my gut, tells me he’s not. “I’m not the bad guy here.”

“You bought me from my father. I think that makes you the asshole.”

“If you continue to curse like that, I’m going to be forced to take you under hand and show you how naughty girls are treated,” he bites out, those jade orbs flaring with danger as he pins me in place with a stare.

“Oh?” I challenge. “What? Are you going to spank me, asshole?” I have no clue what I’m doing, why I’m taunting him like this, but a second later, before I have time to apologize, his body is looming over me, his one hand gripping both of mine as he spins us around, shoving me against the smooth wooden surface he was just leaning against. My butt sticks out toward him, which only makes me blush. Thankfully, I’m still wearing shorts, and I’m not naked in front of a man who bought me.

His hand comes down in a loud, harsh swat against one cheek of my bottom, and then the other. Alternating between the two, he spanks me hard, painfully, causing the sting to trickle its way over my skin.

Embarrassment floods my mind.

My cheeks hot and red, and my panties… those are soaked from the assault.

12

Lycan

Her body trembles under my hold. The gentle curves of her frame have my erection thickening with the need to slide into her heat. To hear her cry out. Soft whimpers free themselves from her pouted lips, and I can’t help but smile at her. Our reflection in the mirror shows my dominance, but it’s her submission in this moment that has my cock rock-hard.

“Are you going to act like a petulant child, or can I release you now?” I ask, trailing my fingertips over her spine, reveling in her reaction to me. A moan of deep pleasure escapes her when I reach the juncture between her thighs. Heat spills easily from the apex of her figure as I taunt her pussy over the thin layers of the soft, cotton shorts that hide what I crave.

“Please,” Scarlett pleads, but I’m not sure what she’s asking for. More of the same or for me to release her from my hold. “Please, Lycan.”

Leaning in, I engulf her with my body, keeping her in place, allowing my lips to trail over the shell of her ear before I ask, “What, little red? Tell me what this pretty pussy craves.” The command is gentle, a caress of words along her smooth, porcelain flesh.