Chapter 3

Aaron took me to bed after helping bathe my aching skin. When his touch was gentle, almost like my father, I felt a high that went higher than the drugs he let me inhale. He wrapped a bare arm around my waist, and I flinched when his boxers rubbed against the painful welts on my ass.

"How could you let that happen?" I asked, hardly above a whisper.

"What? I told you I like it when they hurt you."

I sighed. "Not that. Letting him have sex with me without protection."

He drew a long breath from behind me. "That wasn't supposed to happen. And I'll take care of him."

Realization washed over me like the water from his fancy showerhead. "Wait, you said he was family?"

Aaron cleared his throat. "James is my brother."

My gaze snapped to him. "You let your brother have sex with me?" My lips drew down. That was beyond fucked up.

"He's the only one I trusted in my home. I needed to see someone use you."

"I don't understand why you can't do it yourself." I looked down at my hands.

"Oh, princess." He rubbed my side. "There"s so much more to this than you'll ever know. I'm so attracted to you, but I can't just sleep with you. When I see them abuse you and hurt you, I just have to make it all better. I have to fuck you better. Fuck the pain away." He kissed my forehead. "I want to be your hero."

I gnawed at the inside of my cheeks. What kind of shit is that? Aaron is many things, but a hero ain't one of them. Everything that happens to me around him is because of him!

"I was supposed to be the only one to come inside you, though, and he fucking ruined it." He brushed a hand through his styled hair. "The worst part is, I liked it. I loved claiming your pussy after he claimed it. The sticky warmth of him inside you. I'm torn between wanting to keep your pussy for myself and letting them unload in you so I can claim it for myself afterward." He groaned. "What a goddamn power move. Drawing their come out of you as I fuck you, just to replace it with my own." His body trembled with the memory.

My stomach sank. I knew what that meant. And I wanted nothing to do with it. No amount of money would be worth strange men coming inside me. I tried to shimmy out from under his strong grasp.

He tugged me closer. "Where are you going?"

"I want to go home." I pried his arm away from my waist.

"Princess, this is your home now," he said with a pleasurable release of breath.

The fuck it is."I'm not staying here." I shook my head.

"How much to let me keep you?"

I leaned on my elbow. "I'm not something you can own."

He gripped my chin and lifted my face toward his. "Everything can be owned."

I huffed, ripped myself from his grasp, and began searching for my dress. I remembered him ripping the fabric from my chest. "Where are my clothes?" I put my hands on my hips, my cheeks flaming red.

"I tossed your dress while you were in the bath. It was all torn," he said evenly.

Of course he did. I stomped out of his bedroom, wrapping my naked body in my jacket. I grabbed the doorknob, willing to walk out of that damn house while wearing only my jacket...but he had given me a ride there.

Fuck.

Aaron appeared from the shadows of the bedroom, walking toward me with confident steps. Sweatpants hugged his waist. "Do you want me to call you a cab?"

I wanted to yell at him, but I swallowed my voice. He knew what he was doing. It was all about control for him. It was a game.

He pinned me against the door and placed a hand on either side of my head. One of his hands roamed down my chest and gripped the belt of my jacket. He tugged it, and the lightweight fabric spread, exposing my naked body to him once more.

"What do you want, Scarlett? What is it that you want from me?" His hand raced up my stomach and landed between my breasts. He looked at me, his blue eyes intense and hungry.

My mind went back to my father's friend. To the first time he fucked me. Much like Aaron, he had pinned me against the wall of my bedroom. His hand had slipped down the front of my pants. A forceful touch I couldn't form a word to stop, even if I wanted to. He'd been so hungry for me, as if he'd devour me whole if I didn't give him at least some of me. As if he'd been watching me and wanting me, and the moment I turned eighteen, he'd struck. Despite how scared I was at first, he threw me on the bed and took me like no other. He made me come on his dick. No one ever fucked me the way he had. His experienced touch and the movement of his hips made me weak, and I wanted all that again.

"Scarlett?" Aaron's voice drew me out of the moment I enjoyed so much in my mind. "Who were you thinking about?"

"No one," I snapped.

"That look wasn't from no one."

I scoffed like a petulant child. Aaron grabbed my face.

"Someone I knew when I was younger," I begrudgingly admitted.

"What kind of teenage boy would fill your mind while my hands are on you?" Aaron laughed humorlessly.

I shook my head. "It wasn't a teenage boy."

He cocked his head, waiting for me to say more. Instead of telling him, I dropped my gaze.

He fisted my hair with a frustrated groan. "Tell me who occupies your mind."

I groaned. "His name was Mark. He was fifty-five, and I was eighteen. He was my father's friend and employee."

A grin crept across Aaron's face. "Sweet little Scarlett. A man just a bit younger than me fucked with your mind that much, huh?" He let go of my hair and ran his hand down my body until he could pry his fingers between my legs. "You like how we fuck you? How we know how to please you more than the men your age?" He leaned his face into me and bit the skin of my collarbone. "How many pussies do you think we've been inside to be able to make yours feel that good? Did he even put his mouth on you?"

My father's friend never had the opportunity to go down on me. He'd fucked me in a hurry while my father was on the other side of the house, waiting for him to return. There was no time for that, as much as I had wanted his mouth on me. He"d licked my come off his fingers, though, wearing it like a badge of honor in front of my father.

I shook my head.

"Oh." He bit his lip. "I don't go down on whores."

That time his words did more than nip. They took a massive bite out of my dignity. I never wanted to be thought of as dirty, because I worked so hard to be clean. Besides Mark, no strange man had ever been inside me without protection. Until Aaron.

"But you're such a special one." His hand grazed my cheek. "Will you stay with me if I show you what you've been missing?" His low and seductive voice made me throb between my legs. But his words also made me flush with anger.

Fat chance. No one's going to hold me hostage with just the promise of a little oral.

Without waiting for my answer, he tugged my jacket down my arms and let it fall to the floor. I opened my mouth to argue, but he dropped to his knees before I could utter a word. I leaned against the door, drawing my hips forward as his fingers raked my thighs. His warm breath made me shiver as it rolled over my skin. I laced my hand through his beautifully graying hair, half of me trying to keep his mouth off me while the other half wanted to pull him closer. I didn't have to close my eyes to imagine Mark. I felt like I had him between my legs already.

A mature confidence radiated from him as he grabbed my ass and buried his face between my legs. His tongue worked me in ways I'd never felt. I gasped. An experienced flicking between drawn-out, upward licks. I gripped the back of his head and drove my hips forward, grinding against his mouth. Aside from the pleasurable pricks of a five o'clock shadow, his face was smooth.

Aaron brought a hand down and pushed his fingers into me. My orgasm lurked just beneath the surface of his starving mouth and thrusting hand. I'd never come from oral. It never did anything for me. Sure, it felt goodish, but it just wasn't enough. Aaron's dedicated tongue changed everything. I wanted to come on his face. My thighs trembled, and I could hardly hold myself up as my orgasm drew closer, ready to roll over me like a tidal wave.

"I can't stand any longer," I whispered, trying to steady my quivering muscles.

He looked up at me, his mouth shining with my wetness. A sadistic smirk crossed his lips. "You're going to, and you'll come against my mouth like my good little whore."

He buried his face into me again, licking until it was all I could do to hold myself upright with my hand on his head. I came so fucking hard—an explosion of pleasure that made me forget why I wanted to leave in the first place. He held my hips as I shuddered against his mouth.

"Stop," I whispered, gripping his hair to pull him away. The feeling was too intense.

He continued, making me spasm and jerk with the torrent of overstimulation.

"Please," I begged.

He ran his tongue through me a final time, capturing the flood of wetness between my legs. He got to his feet, and I tasted myself on his lips as he kissed me.

"I wish there was someone else here so I could watch them fuck you, my little girl." He brushed the hair from my face. "I'd give anything to rip into you with my cock right now."

His words frustrated me. I wanted him, and I needed him to want me. I didn't understand why he wouldn't just have sex with me. Why did he need to follow on the coattails of another man? I reached out to stroke his cock through his sweatpants, but it wasn"t hard.

Damn it.

"I told you. I can't fuck you without another man involved. I need to see you spread open by someone else."

What kind of fucked up game was that? "It feels like you aren't attracted to me," I said with a deflated sigh as I gathered my jacket off the floor.

"Oh, Scarlett, no. I'm really fucking attracted to you."

"Then why do you want people to do this to me?" I turned around and gestured toward the tender bruises and welts.

He took a deep breath, trying to figure out his response. "I'm a bad person, Scarlett. I get off on your pain. God, I love seeing your pretty face coated with tears and smeared makeup."

I shook my head. There were plenty of men who did. "Then why don't you hurt me yourself? Why make someone else do it?"

Aaron touched my cheek. "Because I'm less depraved when someone worse is inside you."

That makes you the most depraved of all.