Page 108 of Powerhouse: Boxed Set
He was too close, that palpable power and ruthless energy emanating off his body like heat waves, buffeting me again and again until I felt light-headed. When I swayed slightly toward him, the hand tattooed with the rose clamped hard over my hip to steady me.
The bite of pain shouldn’t have sent tingles down my spine straight to my sex, but it did.
It did and I almost hissed with the pleasure of it.
“Oh, they’re simple even for a little girl like you to follow,” he promised, his eyes cold enough to burn my skin while his hands on my flesh felt like fire. “One. You do everything I say as soon as I say it without hesitation or attitude.”
I snorted, then winced as the fingers on my chin flexed tighter. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I think your name has confused you. You are not a lord and I am not your vassal.”
He bent closer until I could count every one of those thick black lashes, see the darker emerald ring of green around the pale irises. I held my breath, from fear or to block the assault of his sinful scent on my senses, I wasn’t entirely sure.
“For all intents and purposes, I own you. So, if I tell you to make me breakfast, you do it. If I command you to wear a certain dress to a specific ball, you do it.” His voice dropped deeper, a vibration I felt conducted through his hands on my body straight into my bloodstream. “If I order you to your knees, Bianca? You get on your knees, and you do it with a gracious smile.”
“You’re a fucking monster,” I hissed. “A perverted, fucked-up monster. If you’re hoping taking in two orphans will do something for your image, think again. There’s no hiding what you are, Tiernan. Not your thousand-dollar suits or your plastic smiles. Not even Brando and me.” I rolled to my tiptoes and snarled the next words. “You’re an unlovable man with a hollow heart.”
He ignored my outburst entirely, but for a tiny muscle that pulsed in the square-cut edge of his strong jaw. “Two.” The word landed like a whip strike, making me jump slightly in his hold. “You do not touch anything in this house outside of Brandon’s room or your own. This is a house, not a home, and you’d do well not to get too comfortable here. There are secrets in the walls and monsters in the attic that eat little girls like you for breakfast.”
“Brando’s seven, I can’t tell him not to be curious,” I argued. “Please, be reasonable.”
“I’ll be reasonable when you show me that you can follow the rules,” he promised. “In fact, why don’t we start right now?”
My heart stopped, snagged in his dangerous web, and then began to thrash.
“Give me your locket,” he ordered, already moving his hand from my chin to the silver chain.
I jerked away, but there was nowhere to go. Pressed up against the vanity by his great hulking body, I was effectively trapped. My hand darted to his wrist, fingers pressing deeply into his skin as I tried to wrench his grip loose.
“No,” I gritted between my clenched teeth as I struggled to stop him from taking the only material possession that was dear to me. “NO!”
He ignored me.
My nails tore through his skin, leaving bleeding welts in his hand and wrist the way the rose had once done to me.
Still, he pulled inexorably on the locket until with one tinyclinkthat sounded like a gunshot to my ears, the silver chain broke apart in his hands and came clean away from my neck.
When I lunged for it, he held it aloft, dangling easily out of my reach even when I jumped for it. I made another grab for it, but Tiernan’s free hand lashed out to grab my ponytail, yanking it back to keep me away.
Only when I was pinned, struggling helplessly, crying even though I hated myself for showing him how much the locket meant to me, did Tiernan lean close enough for his lips to whisper against my cheek.
“Let this be a lesson to you, little thing. If you will not give me what I want, I willtakeit from you.”
Abruptly, he released me and turned on his heel to storm out the door. I flew after him, but the door slammed in my face.
“Tiernan!” I called through the heavy wood, banging my fists against the door. “Please. Please, don’t take that from me. I-it was a gift from my father. It’s all I have left from him.”
I stopped pounding on the door to wait for his response. My entire body felt poised on a precipice, quaking in a threatening wind. If he didn’t give me the locket back, I knew I would plummet over the edge and crash into thousands of tiny pieces.
I held my breath as I strained to listen through the thick, old wood.
Finally, there was a sound like rolling metal and then a harshclick.
It took me only a second to realize what he’d done.
Tiernan had locked me in my room.
And without another word, I heard his expensive shoes strike hard against the wood floors, down the hall, and away from me.
My knees gave out from under me and I fell to the ground with an awkward clamor, knocking my elbow into the door, my hip to the floor. My head fell onto the carpet, forehead pressed into the plush material and there I lay.
