Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ophelia

Ican’t dothis.

The realization is such a relief, it makes me sag against the entry wall.

As soon as Wagner opened the door, the decision to leave was made. Whatever happens to my family as a result of me denying my father’s business partner? We’ll handle it. Or rather, our lawyers will handle it. But if I say yes to Wagner right now, who knows if it stops with one time? He’ll always have the means to blackmail me and my father. I have no way of stopping him from hitting send on that email to the New York Times in the future. All I’m doing is delaying the inevitable.

And then there’s Ezra.

Even if I never see him again, I’m not going to soil the memory of our time together by letting this nasty lecher touch me. My body belongs to Ezra, one hundred percent.

A sob rises up in my throat. I miss him so much.

“Come along, Ophelia. I’ve been waiting a long time for this.”

Gross. I’ve been eighteen for like, two seconds.

Bugs crawl on every inch of my skin.

Wagner is wearing a silk dressing gown and house slippers. He smells like Tums.

I wouldn’t have made it five seconds without gagging anyway. I’m out of here.

“I’m not letting you touch me,” I breathe, spinning toward the door—

He grabs my arm, his fingers digging painfully into my bicep. “You will hold up your end of this bargain, sweet cheeks, or your father’s face will be all over the evening news.” His hot breath wafts into my face and he starts dragging me forcefully into the living room. “This works out perfect for me in so many ways. I get to stick it in the little brat everyone at the office pants after. And your father will be forced to resign his position, leaving the firm to me.”

“Let me go!” I screech, digging my heels into the carpet.

Wagner grabs a section of my hair, using it to pull me toward the back of his townhouse. I scream and stumble—and that’s when the front door of the house is kicked open.

Ezra stands in the frame, his huge body vibrating with rage, hands in balled fists at his sides. He takes in the scene with one vicious glance—me struggling to get free, Wagner ripping at my hair—and his growl sounds like something out of the deepest, darkest jungle in Africa. It’s so loud and menacing, Wagner lets go of my hair and scampers toward the nearest wall, recoiling against it. “Wh-who are you?” Wagner snivels. “Get out of my house!”

The door rocks on its hinges under the force of Ezra kicking it shut. He advances into the room, light from the chandelier traveling over his murderous expression. “I knew you were keeping something from me, Ophelia,” he rasps, walking slowly toward Wagner. “Never again. Do you understand me? Your problems are my problems.”

I’m so relieved to see him, I can only nod dazedly.

“What does he have on you, princess?” Having reached Wagner, Ezra goes down on his knees and wraps a fist around the older man’s throat, squeezing. “Whatever it is, I hope treating my girl with anything less than respect was worth dying over.”

“Ezra, no.” I dive for Ezra and wrap my hands around his thick bicep, trying to pull him away. He doesn’t budge an inch and I start to sob. “Please. This is one of the reasons why I didn’t tell you. You’re going to kill him and go back to prison. Please. I can’t be the reason you go back there. Don’t get taken away from me, please.”

“He put his goddamn hands on you,” Ezra says through clenched teeth, his grip tightening and turning Wagner’s face a mottled purple. “He put his fucking hands on my Ophelia. He’s lucky I’m making it this quick.”

“No!” Knowing I’m almost out of time, I grasp the sides of Ezra’s face and turn it toward me. His anger steals my breath—his pupils are almost black with the emotion. I do the only thing I can think of. I kiss him. Once, twice, twisting my fingers in his hair. “I need you. I need you. He’s not worth losing each other over, Ezra. Please.”

“Mine!” he shouts down at Wagner.

“Yes, I’m all yours.” I climb onto Ezra’s lap and I’m flooded with relief when he lets me dislodge his hands from around Wagner’s neck, who immediately slumps back, gasping for air. I straddle Ezra’s lap and scoot as close as possible, dropping kisses on every inch of his face. “I missed you. Where have you been?”

“Trying to figure out how to keep you,” he heaves, leftover anger vibrating his muscles. “I went to ask your father for permission to marry you—I thought you’d like that—and he told me about your trust fund, princess. Told me he would take it away if you stayed with me. I needed to figure out a plan. I’m not worthy of you, but as long as I had a plan to one day be worthy—”

“Shhh,” I say against his mouth, kissing him lightly, my heart careening into my ribs. “You are worthy. Right this second. And I don’t care about the trust fund. I only want you.”

He bares his teeth at the man slumped behind us on the floor. “You pushed me away because of this pig?”

“I was worried you’d kill him, yes. But…” Suddenly embarrassed, I duck my head. “I was going to tell you everything this morning.” I search for the right words. “All my life, everything has been handed to me. Just once, I wanted to solve my own problem. My father had to bribe a recruiter to get me into Princeton. And…I just couldn’t bear to ask him to bail me out of blackmail, too.”

“That’s what this fucker was doing?” Ezra bristles, reminding me of a lion who has just spotted a gazelle. “Blackmailing you over something your father did?”

Whoops.Probably should have saved that nugget of truth for later. “It doesn’t matter,” I murmur, rubbing our lips together. “It’s over. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let him touch me when I belong to you so completely.” I feel his cock stiffen between us and rock against it instinctively, ignoring the man sprawled out a mere three feet away. “You made me your little girl. That’s how I want to stay.”

A groan releases, deep in his chest, and as we converge on each other’s mouths, his hands creep up under my skirt to grip my buns. I tug down the neckline of my tank top to show him my bare breasts and he gives a low curse, taking one hand off my backside to unzip his pants. “You’ll never keep anything from me ever again, Ophelia,” he says, grunting as he takes out his cock and slaps it against the back strap of my thong. “I almost died when he pulled you in here. No one touches what’s mine. No one touches the girl I love.”

“No one,” I whisper at his lips, lifting up so he can position his stiffness at my wet hole. I slide my tongue into Ezra’s mouth, playing with his bigger one, then I slowly lower myself on his thick rod of flesh, letting it fill me until I’m whimpering and clawing at his shoulders. “I love you, too, Ezra,” I gasp, flicking my hips back and grinding them forward. “Oh lord.”

“Fuuuuuck.” He slaps my right butt cheek, then grips the flesh and uses it to propel me into a rough rhythm, his teeth bared against my mouth. Growling possessively. I hold on tight to Ezra’s broad shoulders and ride his pulsing cock, my thighs flexing around his hips. Wagner has an up close and personal view of our joined bodies and I don’t care one way or the other. I need Ezra right now and when that happens, we become the only two people on the planet.

Furthermore, I can sense that Ezra is still shaken up over seeing me being dragged by another man by my hair. The sounds and movements he makes are desperate, cut with residual rage. I want to reassure him. I want to make him secure in the knowledge that he’s the only one who’ll ever be allowed to touch me. I want to make Ezra my master in the eyes of every single man alive…starting with Wagner.

“You’re so big,” I breathe, leaning back and riding up with slow undulations of my hips. “I’ll never be able to fit it all.”

Ezra’s strong throat is exposed when his head falls back on a masculine moan. “This clown didn’t know you’ve been getting twelve fat inches, did he, princess?” He catches my chin and tilts my face up. “Maybe he needs to be told.”

Arching, I drop my head all the way back so I’m looking Wagner right in his red, scandalized face. “My man took my virginity with his twelve big inches.” I punch my hips forward on those three final words, squeezing my inner walls around Ezra’s shaft and he grits out a curse in response. “He feels so good inside me.”

Ezra twists a hand in my tank top and yanks me back up, bruising my mouth with a wet, groaning kiss. He lands a sharp spanking on my buttocks, then jiggles the flesh of my right cheek. “You’re not man enough for this,” he rasps at Wagner, but he’s staring at my mouth. “No one’s ever going to get his come inside this pussy but Ezra. Isn’t that right, princess?”

“Yes,” I manage, gasping when Ezra reclines back and starts to pump his cock up into me—fastfastfast—wet, slapping sounds filling the room. “Ezra, oh my God. Ezra!”

His thumb finds that sensitive button between my thighs, playing with it, and his upthrusts grow even more ferocious, lifting me off the ground so I’m bouncing up and down on his lap, flying up several inches and slapping down, impaled on his meaty erection. I feel unexpectedly naughty knowing we have an audience watching me get possessed with such force. I can feel Wagner’s eyes on us, observing me from behind, seeing every veiny inch of Ezra’s cock slide into my pink opening—and it makes me come.

I come with such intensity, my scream hurts my own ears and I feel the flood of moisture traveling down Ezra’s flesh, dripping on his lap and corded stomach, into his pubic hair. My throat muscles strain and I shake with a violence I didn’t know my body was capable of. Before I know what’s happening, Ezra pins me down on my back and slams his cock into me, again, again, again, the top of my head coming within an inch of Wagner’s thigh with every thrust. “My tight, little fuck toy,” he bellows at Wagner. “Not yours. Not anyone’s. Mine.”

Ezra’s jaw slackens and a hot flood releases inside me. Above me, his muscles shudder with the onslaught of pleasure and his hips pump and pump, sending fluids splashing in every direction on Wagner’s floor.

“Ophelia,” he pushes through clenched teeth, finally dropping down on top of me and laying kisses on my face, neck and hair. “Ah, princess. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I whisper, my heart in my throat. “Let’s go home.”

Ezra

When I carryOphelia into her father’s office twenty minutes later, he shoots to his feet behind his desk, slamming the phone into its cradle. “Ophelia,” he fumes. “I should have known when you didn’t come home or answer your phone that you were with this thug.”

“This thug just saved me from making a huge mistake.”

She pats me on the chest until I set her down, though I’m having a really hard time taking my hands off of her, even for a second.

Her father frowns. “What are you talking about?”

“She’s talking about your business partner,” I grind out. “He’s been blackmailing her in exchange for…”

I grow livid all over again and have to garner all my willpower to keep myself from plowing a fist through the closest wall. Fuck. If I hadn’t seen her across the street, I don’t even want to think about what might have happened. That piece of shit was prepared to take Ophelia against her will and I’ll be having nightmares about it for the rest of my life.

“In exchange for what?” Ophelia’s father demands. “What are you talking about?”

Unable to help myself, I approach the desk and slam a fist down onto the antique wood. “In exchange for her. In his bed.” Needing to touch my girl and make sure she’s okay, I turn and pull her into my arms, becoming whole again when she snuggles into my hold. “He knows about the bribe you laid down to get her into Princeton. He threatened to ruin you unless she gave in.”

“I changed my mind,” Ophelia says, facing her father with her cheek flattened over my heart. “But he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Ezra showed up and kicked the door down.” She kisses my chest through my shirt. Once, twice. “He protected me.”

I drag my attention off Ophelia to find her father pale and lowering himself into his chair. “I can’t believe this. I told Wagner about the bribe in confidence and he…he uses the information to try and get his sleazy hands on my daughter?” His troubled eyes land on Ophelia. “You should have come to me.”

She shakes her head sadly. “Look at everything I’ve been given. Every advantage. Tutors. The best schools.” Her eyes shine with unshed tears. “Everything is given to me without question. I wanted to stand on my own two feet. I didn’t want to be a burden.”

The man appears dumbstruck. “All these things I give you, daughter…they’re because I love you. You’ll never be a burden.”

“Thank you.” She slides her hand into mine, squaring her shoulders and I’ve never been prouder of anyone in my life. “But I still want to stand on my own. For a long time, I’ve wanted that. I don’t need the fancy trappings and money and Princeton. I want to make my own decisions and tackle the world as I am. Not what I’ve been built up to be. Father, I need to make my own decisions. And my first decision is choosing love. Choosing Ezra.”

There’s no way to keep the happiness off my face. Not when she looks up at me with love shining in her eyes. “Ophelia,” I breathe, brushing her hair back. “My princess.”

“I love Ezra,” she murmurs. “And I’ll leave this all behind in a heartbeat to be with him.”

“You don’t have to do that,” her father says, sighing. “Not entirely.”

I glance over at him in puzzlement.

He stands once more. “I owe you a great debt, Ezra. It’s bad enough that my business partner stooped so low. If he’d actually been able to carry through on his threats…” He closes his eyes and shivers. “We’ll put Princeton on hold for now. You’re young, daughter. If you’re still happy in four years’ time and Ezra has followed through on his promise to provide for you, then we’ll celebrate. If not…” He eyeballs me carefully. “Your trust fund will be waiting.”

In other words, I have four years to prove myself.

Little does he know, I have enough motivation—and startup capital—to do it in half that time. And I will. There’s no mountain I wouldn’t climb for the girl standing beside me. She might have fallen in love with an ex-con, but I’m going to do her proud.

Starting now.

I heft my princess up into my arms and carry her from the office, whispering in her ear how much I love her, how I would die for her, that I’m going to marry her as soon as possible.

And I do.