Controlling Interests: A Step-Brother Romance (The Legacy Series Book 2) (18 page)

A different man.

Probably a better man as much as it pained me to think it. Living in the shadow of the estate and suffering through Darius’s madness would ruin him. Darius already threatened his life. In another time, I might have considered Reed a real step-brother. I knew in my heart he was more than just a Bennett. He had…hope. A future. A way to get out of the violence that poisoned his brothers.

That was if he didn’t drown me first.

He dunked me under the water once more, and I had no idea if he planned to torment or fuck me. He seized the suit, but I had my freedom. I splashed away from him, hobbling to the edge of the pool. My arms covered my bared breasts as Reed hooted from the deep end, brandishing my top in a victorious fist.

“
Haha
.” I clutched at myself and slipped from the pool. “Give it back.”

“I’ll trade you. Top for the bottoms.”

“Na-uh.”

“Then I’ll get them myself.”

I giggled as Reed hauled himself out of the pool in a burst of fluid strength. He raced at me just as Hamlet buzzed behind my feet. I tripped, and Reed scooped me into his arms. It wasn’t a rescue. I hit the water before I realized he jumped.

Beneath the ripples, he grabbed my feet and poked my legs. His fingers tangled in my bottoms. I pinched his side. Hard. He backed off but didn’t release me.

Something changed.

We surfaced, but his arms wrapped over me once more, entirely too tight. The air squeezed from my lungs like he meant to ring the water from me. My chest pressed hard against his, and I whined as he tangled a hand in my hair and pulled.

Too hard.

Much too hard for Reed.

“Ouch!” He didn’t let me go. Maybe it was a test? I remembered my word. “
I hate you
!”

He rearranged his grip, but his voice edged hard. “Shut up, slut.”

My stomach pitted.

Slut?

This wasn’t part of the game.

This wasn’t anything like my Reed.

I struggled from his grasp, but the true horror lurked behind me.

“I heard screaming, my dear.” Darius’s voice chilled the water into ice. “Is everything okay?”

Reed was right to hold me. I clutched him tighter, pressing my bare chest hard against the safety of his body. My hair screamed against his grip, but I didn’t care. Every inch of my bared skin prickled with creeping dread. 

Darius had seen me nude before, he had even groped me and tried to do worse. But my pride reforged itself in the past weeks, and those damn sundresses teased me with a modesty that only left me more vulnerable when violated.

My courage evaporated. The last thing I wanted was Darius Bennett staring at my exposed body.

Reed sensed it. His arms covered what they could. “We’re fine. Swimming.”

“Is that so?”

“Just fucking around.”

Darius paced the concrete, his shoes clipping the stone and drawing the attention of Hamlet. Reed turned me before Darius touched my dog. Hamlet, of course, flopped onto his side and offered his tummy.

I tensed, waiting for a kick or a punch to punish my innocent pup.

He only petted Hamlet, earning a wagging tail and kicking leg.

“You should be more careful, Reed. Sarah might be in a delicate condition.”

My fingers dug into his shoulder. Reed didn’t react.

“Yeah. Sorry, Dad. We were just having some fun.”

“My children should have fun. But, son, you must be careful with your baby sister. She’s just a little girl yet.”

That tone. That horrid, perverted tone.

I had no idea if Darius saw me as an adult woman to breed or a small child clutching for her daddy’s hand. He introduced me as his daughter, yet he offered my body to my
brothers
. I knew he got off on it, but I didn’t know how much. Every slimy word from his lips was meant to frighten me. And it worked.

I should have never given him that power.

I should never have allowed him to think of me as
his daughter
.

“Yeah, got it,” Reed said. “Sorry. Don’t know my own strength.”

“Well, boys will be boys. Right, Sarah?”

I didn’t answer. The water lapped at my body, and punishing goose bumps prowled over my bare back. The sun shone, but it wasn’t bright or warm enough to banish the demon watching, waiting,
savoring
. His mind rotted with sin, and in some ways, it relieved me. I knew what he wanted with me.

But I should have prepared better for it.

Reed too, but the day his soul anticipated such wickedness was the day I’d lose him forever.

Darius claimed one of the poolside chairs. He smoothed his trousers and sat, watching us wade in the water.

Reed felt my trembling, but he couldn’t hold me tight enough.

Darius gentled his voice, a snake bite to just the rattle. “It’s nice to see my children getting along.”

Oh no. I ignored my instinct to push from Reed and duck into the water. He had the same thought. But releasing wouldn’t prove anything.

What had Darius seen?

What did he assume?

Had he watched us laughing together? That wasn’t such a crime. Darius ordered me to spend time with my step-brothers. Hell, he knew I recovered from my asthma attack in Max’s theater under their careful supervision.

But I hadn’t laughed near them.

I hadn’t let them chase me, splash me, and strip me with such a victorious grin.

I hadn’t acted
friendly
with them.

How much of my alliance with Reed did we reveal?

“Reed, you must share your secret,” Darius said. “Sarah always gets so sullen with Nicholas, and she just screams bloody murder with Max.”

Reed stilled. “She got tired of fighting me.”

“Good.” The word grunted, like a satisfied lover taking his thrill. “I’m glad she’s obeying her brothers now. Like a proper sister.”

I hoped he’d leave. I should have expected his perversion.

“Sarah, there are better games for little girls and boys to play.”

I shuddered. Reed drifted us away from the edge of the pool.

“Dad, come on,” he said. “I got this under control.”

“Son, you should enjoy your time with your sister, but…” Darius shook his head. “I can’t risk endangering her. Not when she might be in a delicate state with all that seed swimming in her tummy.”

He wouldn’t have done this with Nicholas or Max. He treated Reed like a child because he hadn’t hurt me, he hadn’t
wanted
to hurt me. Darius didn’t trust his son to rape me, and for good reason. Without a threat against his life, Reed never would have tolerated Darius’s bullshit.

Except now?

I didn’t think we had a choice.

But Darius spoke of
protecting
me. That was new, but it didn’t mean I trusted it.

I’d endure a thousand of Darius’s tortures before I submitted to what he believed was a kindness.

Darius picked up a sun-warmed towel. “Come now, Sarah. Out of the water.”

My nails dug into Reed’s shoulders, nearly drawing blood. Darius lost his patience after my obstinate moment. His voice lowered.

“Now, Sarah, listen to your father. Out of the pool before Reed starts to play rougher.” He stared at his son. “I would hate to see him dunk you when it’s already so difficult for you to breathe.”

I wasn’t going under the water, not under his order, and not when I didn’t know if he’d let me up. For all I knew, catching me laughing with Reed was enough to damn me. The Josmik trust was already too much of a liability. I wasn’t giving him any opportunity to kill me.

And I wasn’t forcing Reed to hurt me. Not again. Even if I could handle it, I wouldn’t be responsible for breaking the spirit of my first friend in the Bennett Estate.

I slipped from Reed’s reluctant hands and shielded my bare chest. Hamlet barked as I emerged from the pool, cautiously picking my steps.

“Time to dry off, little one.”

I drew only as close as I needed, hiding my breasts under my arm. I held out a hand for the towel.

His lecherous grin prickled like needles over my skin. I wish I had drowned.

He patted his knee, spreading his legs for me to approach, entirely too close to the hardening bulge within his trousers.

He’d touch me.

My chest seized tight, locked with a choked breath of a profanity I longed to speak and the scream from my nightmares I desperately hid.

I could run. Dash to the house. But I knew how that ended, and so did Darius. This time, Nicholas and Max weren’t in the estate to stop him.

But I had Reed.

Reed wouldn’t let him rape me.

The memory of the pool cue slamming against my ribs haunted me with doubt. Reed hadn’t helped me then, but he couldn’t let it happen again.

I thought.

I hoped.

I honestly didn’t know, and that scared me more than anything Darius might have planned.

It was only a towel. I’d pretend it was just a towel.

My stomach heaved as I stepped within Darius’s embrace, tucked too closely to a body I still remembered pressed against mine. The towel rubbed over my back, and Darius hummed. Pleased.

He wrapped the material over me tight and tugged me near.

Trapped.

“There, there,” he said. “All safe and sound now. I know how rough my boys can be.”

They learned from the best.

The fluffy towel brushed over my arms in gentle, careful strokes that covered me in a layer of invisible grime. It wasn’t right. Not his touches. Not his apparent kindness.

He got off on incest, on hurting his
daughter
in either affectionate fantasy or his violent desire.

The towel bumbled over my curves. He tisked his tongue.

“Arms down, Sarah.”

No way.

I wasn’t exposing myself to him again. Not after what he did. Not after what he still planned to do.

Reed was too far away, and Nicholas…

I wasn’t about to think of Nicholas while his father groped my trembling body.

Darius gripped my arms, the force of his hands hidden within the seemingly gentle caress of the towel. I tensed. He pressed, hard.

“Don’t worry, my dear.” The smile was enough of an invasion. “If you can’t depend on your father, who can you trust?”

Good fucking question.

His grip would break my wrist. My arms crashed to my sides, and Darius peeked inside the towel. My breasts exposed for him, flushed pink with humiliation and dripping damning droplets of water from my tightening nipples.

He palmed the towel and shushed me with a lullaby threat.

The material kissed over my breasts. I expected him to hurt me. Instead, he dried my arms and shoulders, neck and chest, as though I were his child pulled from a bath.

That made it so much
worse
.

“Sarah, you’ll never dry off if you’re wearing those bottoms.”

The towel laced with razors and every drop of the water sharpened the blades.

Reed swore from the pool. Nothing he could do now. Nothing anyone could do.

Darius saw me naked before. What was left for him to discover or me to hide?

I feared him, but I wouldn’t let him see it.

I slipped the bottoms from my body and dropped them on his knee if only to watch a ring of dampness spread over his trousers.

I braced for a slap.

Darius didn’t react. It scared me more than his violence.

“Good girl.”

The towel lowered, slipping down to cover my exposed behind. He bundled it in his hands and, with a delicate swiftness, he rubbed over my belly.

Low. Gently.
Lovingly
. As though he thought I was pregnant.

The towel swiped, catching over my hips. I didn’t move as his deviancy buried the material in my slit.

Once.

Twice.

Three times was too many for an innocent drying.

I didn’t let him see me flinch, but it didn’t matter. He made his point.

His attention turned clinical as he finished with my legs before tightening the terrycloth over my shoulders. He stood, forcing me to look up.

“All dry. Doesn’t that feel better?”

I didn’t answer.

“No pouting. You can play with your brother later. Understand, we have to be careful with you, Sarah, just in case you’re carrying a little Bennett in your belly.”

I didn’t blink. “And if I’m not?”

“Let’s think positively, my dear.”

“I’m not an optimistic person.”

Darius’s gaze traced over the curves hidden beneath the towel once more. “I am, Sarah. And I have no doubt you’ll give us what we want. Nothing is denied to a Bennett.”

“Prepare to be disappointed.”

I braced again for a slap.

He did
nothing
.

Darius had never once exacted any restraint with me, especially when I threatened his livelihood and future. He shook his head.

“You’ll see,” he said. “Fight us if you must, but, within the year? I will have a dutiful daughter, a new company, and a grandchild uniting our families.”

“You will have nothing but ruin. I guarantee it.”

“Enough, Sarah. I won’t have you hysterical. It’s dangerous to baby.”

A dozen expletives filtered in my mind, and a dozen more urges to gloat, to reveal the negative pregnancy test, to dash his hopes and exclaim the truth about Josmik and my infertility.

“You have no idea what danger is,” I said. “If you did, you never would have let me roam free.”

“It’s true.” Darius brushed his hand along my cheek. Pushing him away would have only dropped the towel and revealed my nudity. “I do spoil you, my dear. Forgive me, but having a new daughter is such a…” His gaze lingered to my hidden curves. “…Simple delight.”

Reed hopped from the pool. Darius’s voice hardened.

“Fuck her again.” He didn’t even look at me. “I don’t care if she is fertile or not, make sure she understands her place in this family.”

He left us alone, but turned halfway to the house.

“And, for Christ’s sake, son, don’t take her in the pool. Fuck her for conception, not your kicks.”

I bundled inside the towel as Darius stalked to the mansion. I breathed easier only once Reed gathered me, hiding me within the cabana, hidden from the estate’s windows.