Lili Germain - Six Brothers

He traces my eyebrows with his fingers, runs his hands through my loose hair, before settling his grip at my throat. It isn’t tight, but there’s no mistaking what it means—I might be on top, but he is in charge. I am surprised when his gruff voice breaks the silence.

“You look so much like her,” he says, his voice filled with wonder. “How?”

I know exactly who he is talking about, but I shouldn’t. Sammi shouldn’t.

“Who?” I ask innocently.

His grip around my throat tightens. “ Mariana ,” he says, and inside I smile. Five gold stars to Dr. Lee and his amazing surgical skills.

“Who’s Mariana?” I ask, struggling a little as his grip continues to tighten, his other hand now pulling hard on my hair. His mood has definitely changed, too. The mask is back on and he’s no longer showing any signs of vulnerability. He’s back to being the unpredictable snake, ready to strike at any moment.

I rock my hips slightly as I feel him begin to swell inside me once more. How is he hard again already? The man is a fucking machine, literally. He is clearly torn between wanting me to stop and wanting me to keep going. I rock faster, with more intention, and gasp as he throttles me, cutting off my air supply.

His face contorts into loathing and despair. “Mariana was my mistress. My lover. Ten years she was here with me, until I found out she was ratting me out to the cops.”

My eyes begin to water as he throttles me a little harder, shaking me for effect. I start to see white flecks and my ears hum with the lack of oxygen.

“You know what I did to her?” he asks me. I shake my head minutely, frozen in place, as he begins to lift his hips and thrust into me forcefully, all the while cutting off my windpipe.

“I cut her tongue out for telling tales about me,” he breathes, his thrusts becoming harder, faster.

“I cut her lips off for speaking about my club,” he says, sucking and biting on my hardened nipple.

“I cut her head off for betraying me and express-posted it to her mother,” he finishes, finally releasing his grip on my neck. I immediately begin to choke, my hands at my broken throat, wheezing lungfuls of musky air.

“Uh-uh,” he chides me, taking my wrists and pinning them at my sides as he continues to thrust into me. He smiles darkly, admiring my neck. “I want to see my hand prints on you.”

I continue to wheeze, struggling to take a full breath, still light-headed.

“Wrap your legs around me,” he commands, and I obey, gripping my legs around his waist as he stands. Still inside me, he takes three quick steps, slamming me into the wall, impaling me with his cock as my head connects with concrete and I see stars.

“Look,” he says, pushing my chin so that I am facing his mirror. I see myself, flushed, looking completely out of it, with two angry red handprints on my neck. He smiles, tracing the marks with his fingernail, sending involuntary shudders through me.

“You’d never betray me, would you, Sammi?” he says, planting himself deeper with each shattering stroke, his eyes alight with desire and remembered sins.

“Never,” I lie.

Afterwards, when Dornan is finally sated, I take a shower. All the soap in the world won’t wash away the feeling of his skin on mine, but I lather up anyway, the water as hot as I can stand it without causing burns, comforting as it bites at my skin.

When I’m done, I re-enter the bedroom to see Dornan dressing. I sit on the edge of the bed, naked save for a towel around me, and watch.

As he pulls his jeans on and closes his belt, he eyes me thoughtfully.

“Damn,” he says, as if the thought has only just occurred to him. “I’ve been pumping you full of juice for weeks, baby girl. You gonna get pregnant on me?”

I smile, propped on my elbows, the thin towel hiding nothing about my naked body. “I’ve taken care of it,” I say, smiling.

“Well, good,” he says. “But then again, damn, you’re so good-looking I might need to knock you up to keep you here.”

The thought of carrying another child related to this family fills me with cold dread, a feeling that seeps into my bones and takes up residence.

“You don’t need to do that,” I say, giggling. “I’ll always be your girl.”

He is apparently thinking about impregnating me quite seriously. “You could use a little extra meat on your bones,” he says, caressing my upper thighs under the towel. He pulls it away, exposing me to the damp night air, and slides one finger along my slit, cupping my pussy with his hand. I writhe a little underneath his touch.

“The boobs,” I say, taking his other hand and cupping it to my breast. “A baby would ruin them.”

He withdraws his hand from between my legs and squeezes both of my breasts in his hands. “I could just buy you some more,” he says.

“Dornan!” I say sharply, breaking him out of his funk. He cannot seriously be thinking of getting me pregnant a mere few weeks after he’s met me.

“ Sammi ,” he mimics, setting his jaw squarely and grabbing my elbow. Before I can fight him off, he has flipped me onto my stomach, his knee pressed into my back, pinning me in place.

“What?” I ask, before I hear a whack and feel a sharp sting at my ear.

“Be quiet,” he instructs, laying on top of me, crushing me with his weight. “Listen to me. You keep taking your little pills for now, and when I decide I’m ready for another son, you’ll give me those pills and we’ll make a baby. I decide what happens. Understood?”

I nod minutely, pinned and useless. I’d kill him before I ever let him do that to me again. I’d rather die.

Seemingly satisfied with my answer, he releases me, and I sit up, gathering the sheets around me. My next question escapes my lips before I can think.

“What if it was a girl?” I ask him. Oh my God. Why did I just say that ?

He smiles a wide grin that beams so bright, it threatens to break his face.

“I’ve always wanted a little girl,” he says. “A daughter to call my own.”

I smile, swallowing thickly, because if I don’t, I will scream.

He pulls a T-shirt over his head and dons his leather cut. “I’m going back to see my wife,” he says dismissively. “Poor woman loved Chad like he was her own son. She’s devastated.”

She’s probably fucking glad , I think.

“I’ll miss you,” I say, because this is my role and this is what I’m supposed to say.

“I’ll tell Jase to keep an eye on you,” he says.

“You don’t need to do that,” I say evenly. “I’m fine. I’ll be here, waiting for you.”

He cocks his head to the side, surveying me with cold calculation. Grief has left him exposed, blunt, even more fucked-up than before. I need to start being more careful when I speak back to him, because he is like a loose cannon ready to explode at any moment.

“Lay down,” he says, stalking over to his discarded funeral clothes. I watch him as he extracts his tie from the pile, the same tie he wore to his son’s funeral only hours ago. My smile vanishes as I realize what he is going to do.

He approaches me with the grace of a tiger stalking its prey, and suddenly, I am very afraid. I fear that his sudden realization about who I look like—Mariana, the beautiful bitch who fucked him over—has ignited some old feud within him, some desire for vengeance. And, although I don’t believe for one second that his vendetta against the dead woman is warranted, I can understand that burning, crippling desire to get an eye for an eye that must be coursing through his veins.

“You’re not laying down,” he says, punching me square in the face, making contact with my cheekbone. He doesn’t punch very hard, and thankfully his wedding ring is on his other finger, saving my skin from being cut. It hurts like a bitch though, and as I’m clutching my cheek, Dornan grabs my ankles, dragging me down so that I am laying flat on my back. He straddles me, and as I put my palms forward in a defensive gesture, he grabs them and wraps the tie around them tightly.