Page 6 of Black Sheep

A whispered caress. An entreaty. A demand.

It’s a thousand other things. All wrapped in sugared poison. I push away from the counter, despising the knots in my stomach and the steel in my cock. I feel her gaze on my back as I stalk through the door next to bar that leads to my office.

Shot after shot of adrenaline spikes through my bloodstream until dark, volatile sensation drenches me to my fingertips. My office door slams behind me, and I throw the bolt, as if locking myself in will prevent my growing insanity.

Already I want to tear the door off its hinges and rush back to the bar. I force my feet the other way and throw myself into my chair. High on the wall, the screens reflect the various areas of the club. My eyes zero in on her. I don’t even fool myself into thinking that she’s as defenseless as she looks. Her skin may look satin smooth, but it’s coated with steel armor.

Deliberately, I shut off the feed to that camera and activate my phone. As I type, I silently urge her to accept my words.

“You’re free to leave. Take me seriously and Do. Not. Come. Back.”

As I power off my phone, the full extent of my weakness cannons through me. I don’t want her to come back, and I don’t want to hear her out for one reason alone.

She’s here because of my father.

She’s here on behalf of the man I hate more than anything else in the world. The man who made sure that, at nineteen, I would never have the option of redemption as long as I lived.

For a few years, I thought he would be satisfied with helping the devil stain my soul. But no. He’s still after me. He’s used his sentries in the form of my brothers, and now he’s pulling out the big guns. I give him kudos for sending Cleo. With each visit, I’ve felt my edges crumbling away.

Despite everything I feel for her, I’ve tortured myself with the urge to give in. To hear that voice up close and personal. To smell her. Touch her.

Is her skin still the softest satin I’ve relived in my dreams?

Jesus.

I crave all of it even when I know it will be the last straw once she speaks the words she’s been sent to deliver.

The Rutherfords and the McCarthys.

Once unlikely allies turned bitter enemies. Two dynastic families with feet firmly entrenched in underground crime. Drugs. Girls. Racketeering. Extortion.

Murder.

Between the two of us, we changed the course of our families’ destinies. And I intend to change it even more. I intend to annihilate the Rutherford name until there’s nothing left.

In a family of cold-hearted black sheep, I, Axel Rutherford, am the blackest. Abundantly despised by my three brothers, actively hated by my father.

She was the golden princess. Put on earth to test every single one of my hardened edges. And I happily burned away every last one for her.

But my reward wasn’t forever with her.

Instead she turned away from me. And crawled into my father’s bed.

Chapter Two

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

The howls of hell’s demons eventually stop once the club is empty of patrons. Stomach clenched, I turn on the monitors, zoom in on where she was. She’s gone. The relief I should feel is painfully missing.

I stand, already punching in my assistant manager’s number to let him know I’m leaving as I stride out of my office and out of XYNYC. In the city that never sleeps, the stale stench of humanity and rough sounds buffet me when I step out, but I welcome it as I walk the short distance to the underground parking garage where my black McLaren Spider waits.

Its throaty roar echoes the one prowling inside me so I slam my foot on the gas and revel in the squeal of tires when I skid onto the street.

Twenty minutes later, I park in another allotted spot beneath another building I own.

The Punishment Club started out as a sick private joke, a way to find a less hellish outlet during a period when time on my hands was an even more dangerous thing than the average death-wishing that was my constant reality.

In New York City, it didn’t take long for it to become clear that there was an outlet for every problem. And very often, the more extreme the outlet the better.

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