Bred
by Aria Adams
“Stop that.” I had no sympathy for her right now. She started this shit.
“Fuck off.”
That did it. I’d been wondering whether to go easy on her ass, all she’d needed to do was apologize. But she wouldn’t. I had to break through this angry front if we had any hope of staying together long enough to make this baby. I wasn’t the best role model for keeping my cool, and I knew that, but something had to bring an end to how volatile we were.
“Lie face down on the bed,” I told her.
“No.”
“DO IT!” I roared. I should have gone out. Got some space from her. But this couldn’t wait.
She seemed to crumple for a moment, and that’s when I figured it out. When she was a kid, someone had controlled her by intimidating her.
Fuck. I needed to completely change my approach because this was too close to what she was afraid of.
Too late.
She launched herself at me, screaming and swearing. She scratched my chest and I thought I’d got her under control when I grasped her wrists in my hands. She took advantage of the fact I was busy stopping her clawing at me, and she kneed me in the bollocks. Pain exploded in my crown jewels and I was down.
Lying on the floor in agony really brought home to me just how much I’d fucked this whole thing up. But she didn’t stop. Kicking at my ribs, she launched into a tirade.
“Fuck you! Fuck your shit! Fuck this baby thing! Fuck everything.”
She’d really lost it this time. I pushed through the pain, the same way I’d done when I’d gotten my burns. I got to my feet, and almost on autopilot, I wrestled her to the ground and stripped her bare, glad she was only wearing a strappy cotton dress today.
I manhandled her until she was hogtied on the bed. Her wrists were fastened behind her back with thick leather cuffs and her ankles were bent at the knees and attached to her wrists with more cuffs. They were the sort that clipped to each other, to make it easy to change the submissive’s position.
“Are we going to talk, now?” I asked her.
“Fuck you!”
She was still swearing so I got the ball gag. When I came close, she grit her teeth and pressed her lips together. But I knew exactly where to press, either side of her jaw hinge, to force her mouth open. She kept resisting me, but it was just going to make her jaw ache. I got the ball gag in and tied it around the back of her head. She tried to spit it out but it was too tight.
“Okay, I’ll talk. Some bad shit happened to you, probably when you were a kid, and now your pissed at the entire world. But I won’t stand for this crap. Under my roof, you behave yourself. You respect me. You obey me. When you don’t, I will punish you. See, I enjoy hurting you. It makes me hard. I will punish you as often as it takes to make you learn the lesson. I don’t need to hurt you to get off, but when you fuck with me… well, one of us will enjoy making you take the consequences. And there will always be consequences. You enjoy pain? Keep fucking with me. Want an easy life? Learn to control your temper.”
I didn’t use the cane. I was too angry. While I wanted to hurt her this much, there was a chance I wouldn’t stop.
Two broken people make an explosive combination.
Caden: Khloe is broken. But she’s a fighter. We’re the same. I want her to have my baby. And I always get what I want. She’s going to have to obey me, though, because I’m never out of control. When I start falling for her, I realize we have a shot at making a real family. But someone takes Khloe from me. Can I get her and my unborn child back before she’s too broken to hold onto?
Read Bred now to find out! This is a dark romance novella with a guaranteed HEA. If you like bad-boy heroes this 21,000-word novella is for you!
Aria is an author of dark erotic romance that dances on the boundary between horror and romance. Her heroes are not always immediately obvious, and neither are the villains. Her books often have elements of horror, and the characters at the end of a story are forever changed by the events that befell them. But she always makes sure there’s a happy ending, even if the characters have to work for it.
Aria also writes the warm fuzzy romance stuff as Katie Douglas, and writing as Katie, she has had USA Today and multiple number 1 bestselling books in the US and worldwide.
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