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“That brand means something to me, to my family. Anything with that brand on it is mine until the day it dies. She wanted to be mine. I know the way you think. You have to understand that, no matter how much you deny it.”
“I’ll never be yours,” she said, her voice laced with contempt.
“Youaremine.”
“No.”
“We’ll see.” He stood and scooped her up, going back to the barn with her kicking and screaming in his arms. Her mind blanked, not allowing her to think about what his intentions surely were.
Two other cows were in a pen, waiting their turn. Robert stood in the middle of the barn. His eyes widened when Luke threw Veronica to the ground.
“I’m going to need you to hold her down.”
She looked up at the other man, pleading in her eyes. Now he’d seen how crazy Luke was, somebody had to help her. “Please, don’t let him do this,” she whimpered.
“You appeal to me, not him, Princess. I’m the one who owns you. Do you see the bigGon the branding iron?”
Robert raised one of the brands out of the heater, and she nearly went mad from panic seeing how bright red the iron was, then he laid it back down in the burner.
She turned to Luke from her sprawled position in the dirt. “P-please, Sir. You can’t do this to me.”
“Can’t? Don’t tell me what Ican’tdo with my property. That won’t play in your favor.”
“I’m sorry.” The tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Are you mine, Ronnie?”
“Y-yes, Sir,” she said, hoping verbal surrender alone would end the frenzy that had started in him again. If he did this to her and she survived it, she’d show the mark to Will and make him feel guilty forever for walking away and leaving her alone with Luke in the kitchen. He could have taken her out of here. Between the mean streets of New York and this, she finally knew which fate was preferable: not this one. Luke was the door with the tiger behind it.
He grabbed the dress and ripped, pulling the fabric apart, leaving her in her underwear. She wasn’t even wearing a bra—the ones in the drawer were so tight she’d finally given up on them. But she was too upset by what was about to happen to her to be concerned with the ranch hand seeing her half naked.
“NO! Please, please. You don’t have to do this.”
“I mark what’s mine. Robert hold her.”
The ranch hand studied her for a minute. “I’m not sure about this, boss.”
Veronica made another attempt to plead her case. “You said Trish asked for the brand. Maybe that’s true, but I’mbeggingyou not to do this. Please, I won’t defy you again. I belong to you, please. I’ll never say I don’t again.” She was babbling, repeating herself, unable to stop the endless litany of pleading. Words that had seemed so hard to say a few days ago spilled from her mouth in a desperate bid for safety and protection.
“I also didn’t kidnap her. Face it, sweetheart, there is a lot about our situation that is different.”
“She’s not Trish,” Robert said.
“I know she’s not Trish! Why does everyone keep saying that? But she may as well be.”
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.”
