Theirs to Protect - Julia Sykes Page 0,23

voice slid over my skin like a silky caress. “You’ll be rewarded for your honesty. Don’t you want a reward? I know you’re aching. I can make the ache go away.” He tweaked the chain around his finger, and a burst of pleasure/pain ignited my senses. “Or I can make it worse. You will answer honestly, or this interrogation will go on for a lot longer than it has to.”

His gemstone eyes gleamed, and a wicked grin sharpened his handsome features into something predatory and breathtakingly primal.

My belly quivered, shuddering with desire and dread. “Interrogation? You don’t have to interrogate me.” The words were slightly slurred, but I had to tell him that I wouldn’t keep secrets from him. I wouldn’t hurt him like that. I wanted to please him more than anything. I wanted to please him and Marco. “All you have to do is ask. I’ll tell you anything.”

Joseph’s grin was sharp enough to cut. “I know you will.”

I swallowed hard, and a shiver raced through me. My body shifted in the ropes, making them tug and caress in all the most forbidden places. Every taut line of the rope was like a harsh embrace from Joseph, and I slipped deeper under his control. I didn’t have to worry about an interrogation. If he wanted this fantasy, I would give it to him. I would give him anything he asked of me, just as he would give me anything I asked of him.

“Tell me about the nightmare you had last night.”

I froze, and ice encased my heated flesh as the nightmare I’d tried to forget flashed through my mind with vicious clarity.

A crushing weight on my back pinned me to the mahogany dining table, huge hands shoving down on my shoulders. My breasts ached under the pressure, and the man’s punishing hold compressed my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t see who held me so cruelly, but I knew. I remembered the horrific helplessness I’d suffered under his brutal hands. All I could do was gasp and writhe beneath Gabriel Costa, the sadistic mobster who wanted to hurt Joseph’s father.

“Your son can watch me fuck his whore while he bleeds out,” Gabriel told Mr. Russo, his voice rough with sick anticipation.

I slapped my sweaty palms against the polished wood, struggling to get free. But Gabriel had me trapped, his hips pinning mine against the edge of the table. Terror clawed at my mind, scraping the insides of my skull like a wild, trapped beast.

Joseph’s face filled my vision. His full lips were drawn in a furious snarl, and his aquamarine eyes glittered with horror. He reached for me, but another man materialized in the shadows at his back. Silver flashed in his hand, and Joseph’s body went rigid as the knife slammed into his side. Joseph was falling, and there was so much blood…

“Leave it, Joseph.” Marco’s growl snapped me fully back to the present. His black eyes were narrowed on Joseph’s face, and his muscles had gone stiff. He wasn’t touching me anymore. I realized that the icy sensation on my skin had settled in the absence of his heat.

A shudder wracked my body, but the delicious embrace of the ropes wasn’t powerful enough to distract me from Marco’s sudden discomfort. I didn’t want to tell them that I’d dreamt about that awful night with Costa, because I was sure it would upset them to remember it, too.

“Was your nightmare about Marco?” Joseph prompted, wrapping the chain around his finger in an idle motion.

“What?” I exclaimed. How could he possibly think that?

“Was your nightmare about Marco?” he repeated, his voice smooth and even. He tugged on the chain, awakening another burst of pleasure/pain in my sensitive clit. “Be honest.”

“No!” I cried out, writhing in his ropes. They squeezed my hips, my breasts. My entire body was a live wire, every nerve crackling with sensation.

Joseph didn’t relent. “What was it about?” Suddenly, he released the clamp, and pain seared my clit as blood rushed to the sensitive bud. I screamed, and he tenderly rubbed the abused area with his thumb, soft brushes of calloused flesh that sent shockwaves of pleasure rolling through my body. “Tell me,” he commanded.

My resistance was shredded, and even my fear was in tatters. All I could do was answer him honestly. “Gabriel Costa,” I gasped, my eyes burning with tears. I wasn’t sure if I was crying from the awful memory or from sheer sensory overload. “His guard stabbed you.