His Pretty Little Burden (Kids of The District, #4)

by Nicci Harris

Twisting to the lounger, she bends over to grab her clothes, and I inadvertently ball my hands into fists, the heat curling my fingers at the sight of her soft wet thighs, and the curves of her pussy lips visible between them, the tight wet material translucent. Perfect.

"Mine," I hiss. Mine. Mine. A word I didn't know I would use, but now that I have, it takes root inside me. My responsibility. Mine to protect. Mine to care for. To clothe. To look at. Mine.

"You will let me buy you anything I so please, little deer," I state smoothly. "Part of resilience is not secretly rotting behind your bullshit pride, my girl. Accept opportunities. Grab them by the balls despite how they arise."

"Now be a good girl, and let me see these lovely lips say, 'Yes, Sir.'"

Remember those red flags, Fawn? He has a wife. He's twice your age. He's dangerous... God, I could write an extensive list, and yet, I don't give a shit.

“Pretty." He hums his approval from behind me. "You're dripping down your legs, little deer. You shouldn’t have let yourself get so desperate. Let me fix this for you,"

“Relax... And now that your fingers are beautifully wet, be my good girl, and slide them inside so I can see your pussy open and swallow them.”

I start to ride my fingers for him. It feels primal—innate—to do this. Like my body knows what I don't. And in my mind, I imagine they are his fingers pushing into me, taking me, bringing me pleasure.

"Good girl. You’re such a good girl for listening. Do you enjoy fucking yourself in front of me, my pretty deer?"

“Look at you. I have never seen such a pretty little thing. And here you are under my roof." His tone drops. "While you're in my house, you are to touch no one, and you best not let anyone touch you, or you'll be mourning them from the banks of Stormy River. Have I made myself clear?"

God, this man is walking sin.

The tears lying in wait now force themselves to the surface of my eyes. I don't know how to handle all the praise, don't know how to react. It. Is. Everything.

Then he strides from the room. Leaving me on my knees. Wrecked from my very first orgasm.

Invincible. My mother was wrong. Falling for someone does not make you feel invincible; it makes you feel the opposite: fragile, transparent, cut open. Quite frankly, the feeling sucks.

My mum once said, "We are all just atoms, no more superior than the dirt." Well, she never met Clay Butcher. Some things can't be explained in words. They need to be felt. And what I feel is that his atoms are far more superior than anyone else's. The Devil's prototype.

"I like looking at you. I'll look at you however I please, and you will like it, too. If you ever tell me what I shouldn't do again, I'll spank that perfect arse of yours until it's raw."

"Is part of your hospitality to also help me come because that is definitely something you should put on the brochure."

"Don't mistake me for that man," he says. "I'm not the family man you imagine me to be or the man the District paints. I didn't grow up in a family. I went to boarding school. I was only around them summers, the occasional weekend. So, like you, I had to make the place I set my head down a home."

"We operate best under a level of duress." "If that's the case, then I've been operating at my best my entire life,"

"I've seen you with women, Clay. For the past two decades, I have seen every aspect of your affection for them. I've seen you swoon them, eye-fuck them⁠—" "Charming." A husky chuckle leaves her. "Charm them. I have seen you almost, almost love them." Aurora's face softens. "But I have never seen you look at a girl the way you looked at her tonight." "And how was that?" She touches my cheek. "Like you couldn't bear not to."

Jasmine's presence doesn't seem necessary anymore. The girl isn't a spy. She isn't. She's a stray. My stray.

"Take your shorts off. Lay over my knees." With a shaky hand, I sweep a piece of hair from my face. "What?" He taps his thigh. "Underwear. Face down. Over my knees.

Then he squeezes my thigh. The rest of the drive is like that. His hand on my thigh My heart on the line.

"We shouldn't be buying him anything. I'm not keeping him. I'm not made of the right stuff to be a mother. I don't even know how to cook." "You learn on the job, little deer," I state, my words forcing a shaky breath through her lips. "You have the luxury of time before you give birth. Use your time. Think hard about whether you want to give him up."

"So pretty. Do you want me to stretch you with my fingers first? I'd very much like to do it with my cock."

"I'm already completely possessed by you, and I haven't even been inside you," he states. "I need you to know that as soon as my cock enters your body, you belong to me. Not as a lover. Nothing that trivial. In every way. You won't like what that means... Tell me to stop."

"You feel so good, sweet girl," he says, his words blanketing my concern in warmth. "You're strong inside. I had a feeling you would be. And you're the prettiest thing. Too pretty. Don't fight me. You belong to me now."

"You will be a good girl for me, little deer. Do as you're told, and everything will be okay. You will let me fuck any part of you. You will take me like a good girl. And you will thank me when I kill the boy who put this baby inside you while you were too high to consent."

"Fawn." My name comes through a strained growl as he drags himself out and pushes back in again. "Fuck. Mine." He squeezes my hips, angling me, lifting me, using me as he thrusts into my body. "Not that boy's." Thrust. "Not Dustin's." Thrust. "Mine."

And even though he is relentless in his domination, making my small frame take him over and over again, I have never felt so completely safe.

"I'll let you off this once, little deer. But if you ever come again without screaming my name, I'll fuck your tight arsehole until you need my cock inside it just to feel normal—"

"What name would I use?" He smooths my hair down my head. "Always, Sir. You are the only one who calls me that, sweet girl." I move into his warm hand, liking how he brushes the side of my hair with his palm, his fingers lightly skating through the strands. "Even when you're... inside me?" He groans, a dark tic forming in the corner of his mouth. "Especially, then." My cheeks warm. "Yes, Sir." "Good girl."

This is all about her. This entire evening, this entire interruption is all about finding out who killed a boy I’m pleased is dead and who put that baby inside her so I can finish him too.

My fist tightens around the phone as her confession to seeking her father for help stirs in my mind. Help where her foster mother failed her, where the police failed her.

Frowning ahead, I recall her bowed, fragile frame sinking into the chair in the witness room while the officer sneered at her confused state. She needed someone to believe in her. No one did. ...

The truth is all that my sweet girl wants. Who took her innocence when she could not consent? Who came inside her pretty young pussy like a fucking invalid who didn’t consider the consequences? They knew she had no one. Pregna...

I’ll be giving my little deer more than the truth. I’ll be giving her bloody revenge. Despite her self-preservation to not call this incident rape, I can’t call it anything else. And that thought is explosive—my Butcher head burning hotter than ever before.

My little deer. My Cosa Nostra princess. Mine.

It’ll never be enough. I should have shut the goddamn thing down before I saw it all, before I saw them all take turns while she tried to crawl for safety, but I couldn’t leave her alone in that room with them for a second time and closing the laptop to savour my rage was an act I would never abide.

Creeping across my vision and into my mind, darkness finds a fixed place within me. A sneer curls my lips as I walk from the office to meet the ashen faces of the soon-to-be-dead boys tied to their chairs, I immediately lock eyes with Jake. The fucker who stole my deer’s virginity. Who ripped through her and made her bleed.

Bronson slowly straightens from his chair, tense and wary, staring at me like I'm the damn rapture personified. For a moment, my little brother, the one who will slice a man's face off and have a tea party with my niece all in the space of an hour, appears wary of what I might do.

“She is the daughter of a boss in the District, Cosa Nostra.” I stop circling him. Stop behind him. “You raped the daughter of a very dangerous man.”

I glance over at young Jake—his head rolls with nausea—and then back at Landon—his neck flaps open. But all I can see is a little deer, terrified and confused, as she stares at blood and cum dripping down between her pretty white thighs.

I touch his cheek, and he closes his eyes. I think I love you.

"Fuck it," he hisses through his teeth. Then he drops to his knees, takes a nipple into his mouth, and sucks on it, long and thoroughly. I grip the dark wet hair on his crown, holding him to me as he gently treats my nipples, switching from one to the other. He is so tender tonight; tears sting the backs of my eyes, wanting to announce my emotions.

He is all hard. I am all soft and pliable, and it feels so right.

"And what thoughts have you so deliciously wet that you are dripping all over my fingers?" "Your mouth on my pussy..." I moan as he rocks his finger within my clenching walls. "The ice. The..." The way you say 'mine.' The way you called me 'your belonging.' Your smell. Your lips. God, I want your lips. God, I think I love you.

"You are going to be a very addictive little thing," he says, watching me crumble under his attention. "You remember what I told you. You belong to me. Nothing in your past matters. I will be making sure you are spoilt rotten. The way you deserve."

I have never felt anything like it. Comfort and calm. Safety and bliss. All about me. Every act. As though he can read my body, my heart, what I need and didn’t know. He understands the primal desires that I barely recognise myself, attuned to every shudder, every buck, all the rolling motions drifting me out to a place of overwhelming sensation.

I think I love you.