Twisted Deeds (Hellions of Hade Harbor #3)

by Mila Kane

I wasn’t dumb like Tilda had called me. I could learn. People couldn’t be trusted, after all. It was a lesson I wouldn’t forget.

She rolled her eyes, and my hand itched to spank her. Someone needed to teach daddy’s princess some manners.

That psychopath. He was unhinged. He’d broken into my goddamn house, after ignoring me for a year. He’d spanked me. The memory of his hand landing on my behind again and again had blood rushing to my face. When it came down to it, all my snappy comebacks and mean-girl zingers had disappeared, and everything had left my head except for one maddening reality. I hadn’t hated it. As soon as I’d realized how good it felt, to be helpless in his arms, under his control, struggling to no avail and just forced to take it, I’d been too horrified to say anything. I couldn’t ask him to stop. He’d have heard the lie in my voice.

“Tell me the truth, Your Majesty. Which one was redder this morning…your ass or your forehead?”

“In my place?” I snorted, fighting the suffocating feeling of heat pooling in my core. What the hell was wrong with me? Was I actually enjoying this? He carried a knife, for fuck’s sake; he’d cut my hair and spanked me. I was more messed up than I’d ever imagined. It was clearly past time to start seeing a therapist. “Yeah, in your fucking place.” He leaned in, his hot breath against my lips. “On your knees…crawling, naked and humble, until the brat act dies…” I was transfixed by the intense glint in his eyes. “Then what happens?” I wondered aloud, and then immediately cursed myself for encouraging his psycho daydreams. “Then…you find out who you really are, because this mean girl, Ice Queen thing? It’s getting old.”

“I don’t know anyone else who needs the money like you do. Everyone knows how tight money is for your family.” I was going to kill her. One of us was leaving this twisted relationship in a body bag.

“Do you have any idea what your toxic words make me want to do to you?” I asked against her lips. Punish her. Take her. Ruin her. Break her…just enough to keep her.

I stared at her. Where the hell had this girl been hiding all my life? Be still my wicked heart, because in a year that had been fucked up and shitty all around, there was finally something to look forward to.

I got up and glanced in the mirror as I passed. I’d fluffed my hair a few times and pinched my cheeks before I realized what I was doing. Preening. For the man who’d threatened me with a knife, spanked me, and cut my hair. Maybe insanity was contagious.

It was funny. Until recently, I’d never really cared about or even noticed the cold. I was the Ice Queen, after all. Cold, alone, isolated, aloof. It felt comforting. The control over my surroundings and the people who’d intrude in on my solitude was soothing. Tangling with Asher Martino had changed that. I felt freed from my bindings, like a pinned butterfly that had suddenly shaken free from its board and realized it wasn’t dead after all. It was a frightening and odd feeling. It felt dangerous. Like an addiction I couldn’t afford to have.

“I’m impressed by how desperately you need to pretend to have a boyfriend. So desperate that you’ll even lower yourself to your knees for me, beg and crawl…whatever I want from you, right?” His breath prickled against my skin; he was so close. His hand ran through my hair and then trailed down to circle my throat. “You’ll put on that tiny cheerleading skirt you used to wear in high school, the one that made all the boys stare, and climb on my lap, bare-assed, while I play video games with my friends, or watch a hockey game, no matter who’s watching?” His fingers gently squeezed my neck. “Then you’ll get down between my thighs and catch my cum on your tongue when I’m done with you, swallow every last drop and thank me afterwards?” My cheeks were burning. His words were filthy and shocking and the hottest thing I’d ever heard. No one had ever spoken to me like this. No one. His dark eyes drank in my oscillating emotions. His hand left my throat and slid up to my lips. He pushed his thumb inside my mouth. “Show me what a good little brat you’d be at sucking me off.”

The urge to sink inside Winter’s bratty virgin body and fill her up, to send her home to daddy dearest full of me, dripping and ruined, and mine already, was nearly overwhelming.

He shook his head slowly. “Yes, I’m jealous,” he clarified. I stopped my slow escape, shocked into stillness. How was he able to turn me inside out so easily? He never said or did what I expected him to. “What the hell?” I demanded, irrationally angry at him for making my heart flutter like a trapped butterfly in my chest. “I said I’m jealous. I don’t like seeing some other fucker’s number on you. I really don’t fucking like it, and it’s not happening again. You want to wear someone’s jersey, you wear mine.”

“You could be not okay with me. I don’t give a fuck,” he continued, and leaned in. His hot breath hit the top of my spine and moved along it. His lips traced silent words on my shoulder. “I don’t care if you’re crazy. I don’t care if you’re sane. It doesn’t matter to me. I’d play with you anyway.” “How romantic,” I managed to get out. “We can be the most touching love story of the psych ward together. Let me up, I’m freezing my nipples off.”

When had this obsession taken root? I couldn’t deny at this point that it was exactly that. An obsession. A need to know where she was and who she was with. A need to see her smile or laugh. A drive to be the one who saw her home safely. The one who she called when she was upset or happy. The man in her life. Hadn’t she been the woman in my life since that day last year, even if she hadn’t known it? There certainly hadn’t been anyone else in my thoughts, or anywhere near me. It had been her. My obsession.

I relaxed back. Winter’s bed was really fucking comfortable. Maybe I should sleep here from now on? I felt her reassuring presence at my side. She wasn’t out getting into trouble somewhere or talking back to the wrong person. She was right here beside me, where I could keep an eye on her. A strange comfort I hadn’t known I’d wanted until this moment. I closed my eyes and slept.

“That’s good, baby, very good…See what a fast learner you are, little brat?” I held her there until she gagged, the sound a sweet symphony. She moaned a protest around me, and I let go of her head. She eased back and glared at me. The loss of her warmth around my dick was painful. “Call me brat again, and I’ll bite it off,” she warned. I sank my hand back into her hair, stroking it back. “How about beautiful? Smart? Absolutely fucking infuriating?” She smirked. “Better.” I guided her back to my cock, and she slipped her mouth over the head again. She bobbed on me, her tongue working in circles along the underside, sucking like her life depended on it. “How about mine? How about I call you mine?” She moaned around me, an exclamation of surprise. This woman still had no idea of her effect on me. She was so observant, so on the ball with every little thing, except for how I felt about her. I was her blind spot, and she was mine.

She came into the room and patted Eve’s arm as she walked past. Her kind, maternal touches were like generously spread breadcrumbs falling from her fingers, and I was a starving pigeon, trying to get closer to the source of abundant food.

Once you got past the cold, icy exterior, if she let you, there was a burning, needy, unsatisfied girl under there, desperate to be touched. The Ice Queen, isolated in her frozen fortress no longer.

She flushed. Unused to compliments, despite being the most beautiful woman in town. I’d change that. She’d get plenty used to them soon enough.

The interior of the cabin was simple, rustic and charming as hell. I could just picture nighttime, with the fire lit, four friends and their girls sitting around, talking and laughing. How I longed to be part of it. Asher’s permanent plus-one.

Yes, you’re right. But the fear remained. The feeling of standing at the precipice of huge change wasn’t a comfortable one.

He sighed and buried his face in my hair. “Now you’re mine, Winter. My spoiled little brat, my smart and funny Ice Queen. Mine. And we’re at the beginning of everything. Got it?” “Got it.”

“Can you name the knot, Your Majesty?” I shook my head, unable to speak. “It’s called a grapevine knot. Most commonly used in search-and-rescue missions. This knot means finding someone who’s lost and holding on to them and never letting go. Wherever you go, whatever you need…I’m with you.”

“There is nothing you could ever tell me to justify shutting me out. Nothing. Tell me you fucked someone — you sign his death warrant, but you don’t lie to me about it. Tell me you killed someone — I will make the fucking body disappear. Never try to tell me again that you don’t love me — because I will never fucking believe you. Our souls are two ropes that will never be unknotted. It’s too late, Winter.”

“Despite what you might think, I actually came here for a different reason. Here — the scout sought me out to try and get your contact info. I think you’ve been discovered, my love.” He took the card and stared at it for a long moment. Then he smiled, tucking the card away. “You’re going to call him, right?” He nodded thoughtfully. “Sure I am. I haven’t worked this long to give it up now. However, I have my conditions. I won’t go just anywhere. I don’t want the type of contract that pays me a ton upfront and can trade me somewhere across the country whenever they feel like it.” “Okay, but it’s the NHL. You might have to be accommodating,” I teased him. He shouldered his bag and held his hand out for mine. “Sure, on some things, but others are nonnegotiable.” “Like?” “Like location.” We left the locker room and headed down the hallway. “Location? That seems like a small thing to shoot yourself in the foot over,” I observed. “I won’t go anywhere you don’t want to. That’s my nonnegotiable. I won’t budge on it.” He pressed our joined hands to his lips and kissed the back of mine. “That’s my choice, and it always will be. First of all, I choose you. Every. Single. Time.” I blinked tears out of my eyes at his words. “Well, ditto,” I mumbled.