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Her face heated when he slid two fingers underneath her panties. “She’s so wet right now. Do you want to check for yourself? She was born for this.”
Veronica chanced a look back at Robert. The expression on his face had changed from pity and uncertainty to pure, animal lust. He was lost to her as an ally now. Apparently her body betraying her with arousal, no matter whatshewanted, was enough to count as consent in his book.
“At the deepest core of her being, all she wants is to be owned and dominated. She wants to come, bucking like a wild horse. You didn’t see her last night. She’s not Trish, but she looks the same and she’s wired the same. She should be marked the same. I need this.”
Veronica changed tactics. “I’ll never forgive you. I’ll hate you if you do this.”
“No. You won’t. You’ll feel like you belong to me, and it will be that much easier to surrender to the things I’ll make you do.”
She wished now that she’d masturbated for him the previous night like he’d asked. If she had, things might not have escalated to this point. All she’d had to do was obey—appease him a little. It didn’t matter if it was right or wrong. The only thing that mattered was surviving his special kind of crazy until she could get away. A job at a strip joint was sounding better and better, but who would hire her with a cattle brand on her hip?
Robert sat in the dirt beside her and put her head on his lap. He trailed fingers through her hair in an attempt to comfort her while she cried. “Just try to be still. It’ll be over in a few seconds.”
How could he go along with this?
“Are you going to be still or are you going to try to fight, because I can’t guarantee it won’t hurt if you thrash around. And you’ll mess up the design.”
Inside, her heart was trying to escape its cage. He was really going to permanently mark her like one of his cows. She couldn’t believe she was lying in her underwear in the dirt, being held by some ranch hand, waiting for a branding iron to strike her skin.
“Are you hearing me, Ronnie?”
“Y-yes, Sir.” She turned to look at him again, the resignation starting to fall over her. “Do you promise I can handle it?” She wasn’t sure it mattered what he said, but she was so terrified she’d take any comfort she could get.
“If your concern is pain, don’t worry. Trust me for one minute. If you don’t trust me not to harm you, trust that I’ve been doing this long enough to know how to do it. Remember what I said. Brands that hurt are either too cool or too hot. I know what the right temperature range is. Trust me.”
How could she trust him? After everything he’d put her through already, extending an ounce of trust to this man was stupid, but what choice did she have?
A moment later, the hot iron struck her skin. She tensed, expecting horrible pain, but it was shockingly minimal. He held the iron to her skin for a few seconds then pulled it away. She turned to find a look of satisfaction in his eyes at having marked her.
Relief and endorphins flooded her as he picked her up and carried her back toward the house. Once they reached the grass, he laid her down and applied an ointment to the brand, then he covered her with her ripped dress.
“W-what are you doing?”
“I’m letting you ride out the endorphin rush out here. And I’m going back to work. Don’t forget dinner by six thirty.”
Veronica’s head fell back on the grass as she looked up at the sky that went on forever. She felt like a cloud, detached from her body, floating up there in the big bright blue. Her breath came in and out in slow, measured sounds that lulled her like the hypnotic waves on the beach. Her college drug experimentation had been limited, but this was almost like being high. It was definitely an altered state. She couldn’t remember ever being this relaxed before as the breeze brushed over her face. The leaves on a nearby apple tree became the most fascinating things she’d ever seen.
A small group of butterflies fluttered around in her line of sight, and she couldn’t be sure if they were even real. When they fluttered off, she felt she’d become one with the tree, the grass she lay on, and the fluffy clouds. She felt open like the sky.
FIVE
When Veronica woke, it was to a burning sensation, but it wasn’t the brand. It was the sun she’d fallen asleep in. She looked up to find herself lying in Luke’s shadow.
“I didn’t hear the dinner bell.”
She scrambled to get up but felt dizzy from the heat. He caught her before she fell.
“I’m sorry, Sir. Don’t be mad. I didn’t mean to...” Why was she apologizing to him? Because she was scared. He’d literally scarred her for life while she’d begged him not to.
“It’s all right. You’ve never had an endorphin rush like that before, have you?”
She shook her head.
“Then I shouldn’t have left you alone.”
She winced as he scooped her up and carried her back to the house. Her hip was sore from where the brand had struck her. “It hurts.”
“It’ll be sore for quite a while.”
