AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You know,” Asher mused, “you can kill two birds with one stone.” He swallowed the rest of his vodka and stood to head to the beverage cart. When he reached for the bottle to refill his glass, he looked back at me, holding the vodka, eyebrow lifted in silent question.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I had an inkling, and I liked where he was going.
“Lars. The man in chains in the basement.” Like I didn’t know who the fuck Lars was. “He needs to die, and you need to test the woman you’ve inexplicably fallen for after knowing her for a day.” The smirk at the end would be the last one I’d let him get away with. Brother or not.
I stared at the manilla folder that sat on my desk, the one I’d opened repeatedly throughout the day since it’d been delivered by my father’s secretary. It spelled out every single thing Rylie had done in her life. From a fight in fourth grade with a bully named Erik, to the medal she’d won as a long-distance runner in high school, to the very minute she climbed into the ring and kicked Lars’ nuts up to his nostrils.
My brother was right. She’d bewitched me. Fascinated me on a level no other woman had been able to swing. From the way she fought for those who needed protection, to the fact that she left a full-ride scholarship at UCLA to move closer to home. Everything about my hazel-eyed vixen captivated every ounce of my attention, and I couldn’t imagine that fading—well, ever.
“I don’t know her, Asher.” The beleaguered sigh that tore itself from my lips resembled the sound of a dying animal. “I can’t put a gun in her hand and force her to join our world. She deserves better.”
Asher sat on the chair opposite my desk and leaned back, crossing one leg over the other, then stared at me with a cocky expression. “You mean a world where there’s no glass ceiling. A world where she can reach for and grab power, more power than anyone else in the world could possibly have? With a Hawthorne endorsement and the Scorpio connections, there’s no mountain she can’t climb, and you fucking know it.”
He sighed, and continued, mocking me. “Yeah, that sounds like the mostterriblething in the world. If you want to fuck her, have fun with her, and throw her aside, that’s your business. But in the span of a night, she showed her courage, her fearlessness, and they chose her whether you do or not.” “They” being Mom and Dad. “And it’s your own fucking fault. You brought her home. To the one place you keep off-limits to chicks. If that didn’t say something, nothing does. Dad and Mom are already talking about how much it would mean to have a pledge that becomes part of our family.” He leaned back and rotated in his chair, then patted mybrand-newcouch with an open hand. With a grin, he faced me again. “Not only that, but unless I miss my guess, that folder is full of Riley trivia, and you’ve memorized it all.” Know-it-all, fuck. “And you’re defending her.”
I stared at my brother. When did this little prick get so intuitive?Unless I miss my guess…Asshole. But I realized he was right. If I didn’t do it, my mother would. And if she didn’t, the job would fall to Dad, then make its way down the line. I sighed. I had no choice, and it had to be me. I wouldn’t let anyone else test her. I just hoped Rylie rose to the challenge.
Silence stretched between the two of us as his words fully sank in. When my office door opened again, I expected to see the delivery men with the ottoman that should have come with the couch. Instead, the brunette I couldn’t get out of my head stood there with tears in her eyes and a scowl on her face.
“I know you don’t know me, besides fucking me like there was no tomorrow.” Rylie marched into my office like she owned it, with enough determination to remind me of her place in my life. My dick twitched because it didn’t need to be reminded. She was within twenty feet of me. Of course my cock reacted.
Her hair was a mess, wound around her neck and around her ears, like streams of dark ribbon against her skin. The rumpled shirt she wore looked like she’d pulled it on in the dark—from my closet.
“Is that my shirt?”
“What?” She glanced down, pulling it away from her chest for inspection. “It might be? I took it from your room.” She shrugged, then shook her head. “I’m not here to discuss my wardrobe choices. I need a favor.” Her eyes flashed and the green flecks embedded in the golden irises brightened behind a tear she swiped away as soon as it fell. “I may not know everything about Stonewall, or about the world you live in, or you… But I know enough. I know your family controls the underground world here. The fighting. I also know you have access to weapons, and I don’t care. Actually.” She sighed, then blathered on. “I just made that up about the weapons. I’m hoping you have access to weapons because I couldn’t bring my gun from Maine… And I need you to give me one right now. I also need you to not ask me why, or what I’m going to do with it.”
I stared at her until she squirmed, regretted her decision to come here, then I softened my gaze. Saw her. The beauty heightened by her rage, her determination for vengeance. God. My dick could’ve cut glass it was so hard. I could give her a gun if she wanted it.Ifshe could pull the trigger.
I pictured her, feet apart, finger at rest, but ready to curl into the trigger to end Lars. There would be no hesitation, no savoring the moment. She was action and fire. And I wanted her. Now. On the sofa, against the wall, bent over my fucking desk.
Her chest heaved, and her eyes went wide when Asher laughed. Slowly, she turned her head and stared at him.
Her tongue wet a path over her lower lip before her shoulders rose and fell with one deep long breath. I couldn’t be sure if she would talk to Asher or go after him the way she’d gone after Lars. What I knew for sure was that if my dick got any harder or my pants got any tighter, they were going to burst open at the seams. I shifted to adjust as she stared at Ash, and he grinned back.
“Unless you want to be charged as an accomplice, because he’s not going to give me a gun until I tell him why, and we all know it, I’m gonna need you to leave, too,” she snapped.
Asher made a show of tilting his head and smiling, pushing himself to the edge of the chair, and standing to walk around the almost-feral woman who had the audacity to bust into my office and make demands and accusations. “Of course. I’ll just leave you to it.” Before he left, though, he tapped Rylie on the shoulder and leaned forward like he was sharing a secret with her. “It’s nice to meet you, Rylie. I’m Asher. Welcome to the legacy.”
With that, he was gone, and Rylie continued staring at me like I was holding the keys to the arsenal.
“I’ll give you a gun,” I told her and my mind whirred. Riley standing in my office burning with passion and determination was sexy enough to make my dick jerk with need. But the picture of her in my mind holding a gun, ready to fire, elicited a mental groan. I clamped my lips closed tokeepit mental. “I’ll even give you Lars. But first, I want you to take this… and put it on.” Sliding the black box across the table—the one I’d had on my desk all day—I left her to it and walked out.
For almost five minutes, I stood outside my office—not quite tracing hearts on the door with my fingertip but closer than I wanted to admit—and thought about the stupidity of not staying in there with her. The idiocy of giving her the chance to walk away.
When the door creaked open, Rylie stood there in the black dress I’d picked out for her. It was form-fitting, low-cut satin, with those thin little straps I was going to slide down her arms, baring the inches of her skin slowly, savoring each one. But it was the blood-red heels, the shape of her toned leg as it peeked out of the slit on the side, that made my dick hard—harder.
“I need your help with the zipper.” She smiled demurely at me, though there wasn’t a fucking demure thing about the fire in her eyes, the hint of her smile. She knew exactly what she was doing.
Never more so than when she turned, and the wide expanse of her back was exposed by the open material.
“You’re mine now.” I zipped the dress, and leaned in, my hands on her shoulders, itching to slide down the front of her, pulling her hips back into mine, and satisfying my cock with a touch I wouldn’t be able to end at just one. “I hope you know that.”
“For tonight,” Rylie whispered, her words barely audible. “I’m not Persephone, accepting pomegranate seeds. I’m taking a gun, and I’m going to use it to take a life.”
I smirked because she thought it would be so easy to walk away. And she was wrong. I pressed a soft kiss to the back of her neck. “You’re mine and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Rylie
