JARED (Lane Brothers Book 4) Page 55

  What happens if I lose my hard won independence and grit only to be abandoned just like before?

  I can’t deal with that; I know myself. So it would be better to just get everything out on the table before I walk down a path that I know I won’t be in any shape to return from.

  “Ashley, love, let me make this very clear for you before you say another word. You either do as I tell you, or I can place a call to that social worker you’ve been dealing with and tell her exactly how bad Benjamin has become. Your choice. I’ll be back soon.”

  I pack. Of course I do, because as many years as I’ve been apart from him, I know the man all too well. Lucian Jasper, heir to the Jasper throne and fortune, is nothing if not a force of his own.

  The man is determined, ruthless, and most of all just downright mean when he feels thwarted. I’d seen it in the eighteen-year-old boy who’d swept me off my feet and beaten the hell out of Tommy Banner when he’d tried fondling me at school.

  I see it even more in the man who’s decided, for whatever reason, that I am his newest toy.

  The only thing I don’t quite know how to handle is the fact that I’m still very attracted to him, even knowing that he’s about to chew me up and spit me out.

  Chapter Six

  Luc

  I feel somewhat…I can’t say guilty as I leave Ashley standing in her home, sick and frightened. Hell no! I feel no guilt. I’ve wanted her for what feels like an eternity, and now that I have her over a proverbial barrel I have no intentions of stepping back just to spare her delicate feelings.

  What I feel, though, is a slight twinge of remorse for pushing her so hard when she’s obviously sick and in need of a lot more care than I’ve given her thus far.

  I plan to remedy that as soon as I have her under my roof and in my bed. Not for sex, not yet, even though my dick is screaming obscenities at me right now.

  No, for the first time in my life I feel the need to get a woman into my bed for the sole purpose of healing the strain that her battered life has wrought for three years.

  I want to pamper her and make her whole, return all that fire I remember so well before taking what I consider my property. I just need to get my lust under control long enough to make that happen.

  Not going to be easy though, not after the taste I’d had in the car. Bloody hell, I almost threw all caution out the window the moment she’d crawled all over me and started rubbing her wet heat on my boy.

  I wanted, want, to throw her down beneath me and own her sex in the most primal way. I want to stamp my mark on her and make sure every swinging dick in the world knows that she belongs to me and me alone.

  I know exactly how I’m going to do it, too; I just need to control myself long enough to get her healthy.

  “Why are you here?”

  Have I mentioned that this kid rubs me the wrong way while awakening every protective instinct I have? Well, he does. I’m caught between the urge to yell at him and soothe his innocent little heart all at the same time, an emotion I’ve had for only one other living being, and she happens to share my blood.

  I can’t say what this boy…no, that’s a lie, I know that this boy is a good one. I see it in the way he looks at my woman when he thinks no one’s looking, as if she’s the beginning and end, his life raft amidst a stormy sea.

  Yeah, the kid is good; he just needs a good kick under the bum to get him back on track. I plan to be the foot that gets his arse in line.

  At least, that’s what I want, if Ashley doesn’t go all mama bear on me and tear me a new one.

  “Tone,” I warn, signaling to Harry to drive. “Now then, before we go home I’d like to have a man to man talk with you,” I say, watching his little lip scrunch defiantly.

  “What d’ya want?”

  Patience, Luc. The child needs strength now, not another set down.

  “I would like for you to drop the attitude long enough to listen. I am aware that your useless father was so weak he ran away from his responsibilities like a girl.”

  I won’t sugarcoat his father’s actions just to spare his feelings. Better he know how I feel from the start, and from the look on his face I suspect he feels the same way, if not more disgusted with his parent than I am.

  “Ash says I can’t talk about him that way.”

  “She’s a woman. They tend to think with their hearts instead of their heads the way we men do. She still remembers your father as being a loving man. You and I know different,” I say, watching him straighten up like a weight has been lifted.

  So that’s the way it is. I suspect that most of his anger stems from Ashley’s need to keep her father’s memory as clean as she can for a boy who needs an outlet, not a bloody fairy tale.

  “Yeah, chicks don’t understand things the way we do,” he sighs, sitting back with a huff.

  I restrain my smile and give him my best stern look.

  “I am aware that what you must feel after that sort of abandonment is painful, and I am aware that having your sister work more than she sees you must be…frustrating, but I am telling you now, before we start, that she has done her level best to keep it all together because she loves you and wants to keep you.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  The lip on this pup.

  “Yes. And no, I will not allow you to start bad mouthing her right now, so keep it to yourself, pup. What I want you to understand is this: if you cannot keep a civil tongue in your head while speaking to Ashley, I will ship you off to boarding school so fast your little head will spin. She is sick and exhausted; she needs a calm, restful time now to recuperate.”

  “She’s just being—”

  I hold up a finger in warning and steel myself against his trembling lip. You think I’m being too harsh, but the truth is that I have every intention of this child being mine; I just can’t have him breaking down my woman.

  “Uh, I told you to be quiet. Now then, like I said, you will be kind to her or shut it. Understood? Good. When we get to your house we will pack whatever it is you need and then go to your new home. Ashley isn’t exactly on board with all this, so I’m going to need your help getting her settled in.”

  “We’re moving?”

  “Yes, to the home I bought us. It has a pool and a yard.”

  When his face lights up I know I have him. Bribery is a child’s game, after all, and I know exactly how to wield that particular weapon against any opponent.

  And no, I feel no guilt using my worldly wealth to get a child on my side. If it works, it’s what I’ll use.

  “A pool? Oh, man! I swam once when our school took us to the public pool and it was awesome!”

  I smile.

  “Yes, but before you get too excited I want to make you a deal,” I warn, watching his eyes narrow.

  Ah, just as suspicious as his sister.

  “What?”

  “That’s ‘What, sir?’ to you, young man, and don’t you bloody forget it. I want you to promise me that you’ll do everything I say, when I say, and that you’ll try harder with Ashley. If I so much as hear you raise your voice to her…and don’t even get me started on what I will do if you ever lift a hand to her again. Real men do not hit women.”

  He swallows noisily and nods his head, watching me like a cornered puppy.

  “Okay. Sir.”

  “In return I will provide everything you both need as well as ensuring that your father, when he comes back, because we both know he will, cannot take you.”

  His eyes shoot to mine, and I feel a thousand times better when his trembling lip firms and his eyes clear. I’m a man; I know how the male species thinks, and I know that part of Ben’s problem is the thought of having to be a son to an undesirable one day.

  I’ve felt this way myself as a child, so I perfectly understand his thoughts. I’m here to fix that shit, and I want him to know it.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. You help me, and start being a kid again instead of a bloody little thug, and I’ll make sure our fa
mily stays together. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  See? I can broker any bloody deal I set my mind to. Now I just have to broker a marriage deal I’ve been waiting seven bloody years to land

  Chapter Seven

  An hour after the ultimatum—no, after being threatened with losing my brother! I am packed and sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for that jack ass and Ben to walk through the door.

  The extra time is a blessing and a curse because it gives me the space I need to think, something I obviously haven’t been doing for the last twenty-four hours.

  God, has it really only been that short a time since I’d clapped eyes on him again? Yeah, and just like that first time seven years ago I’m being blindsided by the asshole.

  Go figure my body would be thrilled while my brain is yelling warnings at me like a bitch.

  Warning one was about his intentions. I know he intends to have me. Believe me, my vagina’s been telling me how on board with that she is all freaking day!

  What I don’t know is what he wants after, or if he’ll want anything more when he gets what he wants. For all I know he’ll screw me blind and into a love I don’t want and then just drop me like a hot mess.

  Also, I need to know what he’s got up his sleeve as far as Ben’s concerned. But I’m not too worried. The little hellion will push him so hard it’ll be clear pretty darn soon.

  If he snaps, well, I can tell you right now I will not sell myself to a man if he can’t love Ben. “Have me, love my brother” is my new motto, and on that I will not budge.

  The thought make me smile again for the first time, and despite feeling like hell I laugh at the picture forming in my head of Ben running circles around Mr Fancy Assed Brit.

  No way will the guy stick around after the kid gets going with one of his tantrums.

  “Ash?”

  “Back here,” I call, steeling myself against the lust that hits me when he walks into my tiny kitchen.

  The man is all that and a side order of ribs, and damn me if the arrogant ass doesn’t know it. My face must be wide open, because he takes one look at me and his eyes go into a lazy onceover that leaves me tingling and hot between my legs.

  He leans down and plants a hard kiss on my mouth before stepping back and eying my now hard nipples. Damn, my body is so not in sync with my frantic mind.

  “Harry is loading the luggage. Did you get everything you need?”

  “Yeah…no. Um, did you happen to see that little broken cat?”

  It had been in shards after Ben’s antics, but I can’t leave it behind. It’s Mom’s, and I know that leaving the house will already be painful enough, but leaving that…

  “Yes. It was dust.”

  Oh God. Do not cry.

  “Um, did, did you…”

  “I’ll get you a new one, Ash. Now come, please, we have a lot to do before our home is set up,” he mutters, holding a hand out to me with a hard look that brooks no argument.

  I know, instinctively, that the moment I take that hand I am well and truly owned. If I accept him and everything he’s forcing on me, I am as good as signing myself over to him, lock, stock, and barrel.

  Looking over the old kitchen where Mom used to cook and tell me stories about her and Wesley’s romance and younger days, I take it all in one last time and stand, placing my hand in his larger one.

  His breath rushes out quietly before he grips me and pulls me into his side, leading me out the door, away from the only life I’ve known.

  ***

  “Good morning, love.”

  The deep, husky rumble makes me tense, and my eyes fly open when I feel the satiny soft glide of heated skin along my back, coupled with something seriously huge huddled between my ass cheeks.

  My mind freezes when I feel warm lips coast along my nape, caressing my skin before his mouth opens and sucks me in. The heat and carnality of it sends shooting tingles to my sex, and I groan, pushing back a beat into his hard shaft.

  “Hmm, that’s it, love.”

  “What are you doing, Lucian?”

  “What does it feel like?” he purrs, stroking his left hand over my navel before dipping the tips into my panties to tickle at the top of my mound.

  I can’t answer because, honestly, he doesn’t give me time before that hand descends and dips lower and pauses right over my now throbbing clit. My hips move of their own volition, and soon I’m grinding myself into his hand and breathing so hard I’m lightheaded.

  No man has ever touched me before, not like this, and I am as terrified as I am aroused.

  “That’s it, love. Take what you need,” he purrs again, moving his hand in tighter to cup my whole sex. Those fingers slice through me and dip in as his palm meets my nub and presses down in maddeningly slow circles.

  “Oh, oh, Lucian. What…”

  I’ve had and orgasm before—of course I have, I’m human—but what happens when he pushes a finger deep and hits the heel of his palm into me is…so insane.

  I explode from the inside out, thrashing and screaming as my sex contracts in brutally blissful waves of pleasure so intense I can’t breathe afterward.

  I’m boneless and whacked out from the pleasure when he rolls me over and takes my mouth in his hand, opening me up.

  “Don’t move your tongue or lips,” he growls before opening his mouth and clamping it over mine.

  This… I can’t even begin to explain what it feels like to be totally at his mercy as he thrusts his tongue into my mouth and licks at me as if he’s dying for the taste.

  It’s a little uncomfortable, because, yeah, I’m that girl who thinks about her morning breath, but he doesn’t give me the luxury of protesting, just keeps spearing his tongue into my immobile mouth for the longest time, moaning deep in his throat before pulling back to look down at me.

  “You’re mine.”

  I don’t respond to that statement, because I honestly don’t know what to say to that. I mean, we’ve just had…I can’t say ‘sex’, but our first sexual encounter, and he’s going all weird and dominant on me, as if the past has no meaning and my feelings are not even on the table.

  “Lucian.”

  “No. Sorry, love, but its best you hear this now before you get any ideas about where this is going. You and that boy belong to me, now and always.”

  “But—”

  “No ‘but’. Now get up and get dressed; we have a therapist to see and a school to scope out. Oh, and by the way, I left a gift in your drawer.”

  Just like that he’s up and out of bed, his smarmy ass whistling the whole time he’s in the shower and getting dressed. It takes me a little longer to move because what I find in the drawer, well, it’s hard not to cry when a man does something that sweet.

  And now how the heck am I supposed to hold onto my grudge when all I want to do is squeal like a pig and attack him with kisses?

  He’d gone back to my house—now I know where he’d gone after dropping us off at what I can only describe as a freaking mansion—and dug my mom’s ruined little figurine out of the trash.

  And glued it all together so neatly that, while I can see every crack and missing chip, it’s all in one piece. I can’t tell you how he knew that it’s so important to me, but he did, and he’d chosen to get his blue-blooded mitts dirty and dig around in garbage for me.

  Crapsickles, that stuff makes me putty in his hands, and from the knowing glint in the asshole’s eye, I think he knows it.

  “Shower and dress. We have things to do. Oh, and I put your clothes out. Wear them.”

  ***

  Luc

  She stomps into the kitchen twenty minutes later wearing the light pink sundress and low-heeled sandals I’d chosen, her cute little mouth so tight I swear she could crack nuts on it.

  Mine, to be specific.

  Like I care. All Ashley needs to know right now is that she belongs to me and that I am her…I don’t want to use the word ‘master’ because I am not into that stuff, but I am most d
efinitely in charge, especially after this morning, when she’d let me into her body.

  If I feel this way after getting her off with my hand I shudder to think what the poor woman will have in store for her when I finally manage to take her innocence.

  “I don’t like dresses,” she grumbles after planting a quick, stealthy kiss on her brother’s head and taking a seat beside me.

  When the little scamp jumps down and launches himself at her for a hug and a kiss—I’ll have to nix him going for her mouth, because brother or not, that belongs to me—and she smiles so brightly it hurts my eyes, I decide the kid’s just earned himself a Gameboy.

  Funny, but seeing Ashley so happy makes something deep inside me clench and release, something that feels suspiciously like my stone cold heart.

  “Uh, hi, honey. You seem…good this morning.”

  I tune out as he starts babbling about the pool and the yard. Seriously, what do I care about that stuff, as long as they’re both happy to be here? An hour later every happy thought I’d been resentfully carrying around comes crashing down around my ears.

  “What the fuck are you saying?”

  Brody winces at the leashed rage in my tone and sighs heavily before meeting my eyes once again.

  “They had some sort of trust fund thing that their late grandmother left to them. Since she hadn’t reached her majority yet, the handling of it was left to her old man.”

  Which means that scheming bastard Wesley Munro had not only abandoned my girl and his son, but the son of a bitch had added insult to injury by stealing their inheritance.

  Swear to God, when I get my hands on that animal I can’t be held responsible for my actions. How does a man go from being a decent father to stealing the food out of his children’s mouths and then skipping off to start a new family?

  I want to throttle him every time I think about my girl working herself into an early grave just to keep them fed.

  “Calm down, Luc. This is just another example of the human filth we’ve dealt with before. I’ll get Garret on this so we know how much of their money the idiot has already spent, and then we can go from there. There’s a woman and kid involved here, so ruining him isn’t necessarily the best route to take.”