4. Asher

Breakinginto a house like Winter's wasn't actually as hard as it looked. Rich people were idiots. They thought that their multimillion-dollar houses and the high walls surrounding their lavish gardens gave them some sort of guaranteed safety. They didn't. They just made them a target.

After Leonard finished firing me, security escorted me to my locker. My manager didn't care if the drugs were mine or not; he had to take some kind of action, and taking it against me was a hell of a lot easier than against Winter.

That backstabbing brat. Why I had expected anything more from her, I had no idea. Sure, she'd pretended to be an actual human for a second, a girl far more interesting than I'd ever given her credit for, but then she'd screwed me over as soon as she could.

There was nothing deeper. She really was a vapid, spoiled bitch, and tonight, she was going to learn what happened when you fucked with me. I wasn't scared of her or her father. It was finally time to teach the Ice Queen a lesson she wouldn't forget. A lesson a year in the making.

I drove my motorcycle over to her house as soon as my place of employment finished throwing me out on my ass. Parking a little way off so the noise of the engine wouldn't carry, I headed to her property on foot.

I'd been there before, but never inside. There was surprisingly scant security around for such an expensive property. It was the small-town mentality. Folks thought Hade Harbor was a safe town, especially in neighborhoods like the DeLauries'. If they'd ever ventured across the tracks into the part of town I'd grown up in, they'd have a very different opinion.

There were security cameras on top of the walls, but they were just for show. A deterrent. Families who traveled a lot for business seldom wanted to be bothered with overly sensitive alarms going off whenever a cat walked by. In the case of the DeLauries, I was betting they had staff on the property twenty-four seven, and that gave Charles a false sense of confidence regarding his daughter's safety.

Tonight, I'd prove him wrong.

Families like the DeLauries' were all for show. A plastic shiny veneer with nothing underneath.

I climbed the wall easily and dropped onto the gravel drive. The house was huge. Locating Winter's room would be the hard part. There were a few windows blazing into the dark night. Winter's mother was walking through the house. I followed her progress along one of the hallways until she disappeared into a dark room. I circled around, searching for a possible entrance, just as a figure appeared in a lit-up window.

Winter, dressed in an oversized nightshirt, brushing her hair and staring up at the stars. She hadn't closed her curtains yet. She probably felt safe and secure in her privacy, her window overlooking the garden behind the house. Like she'd heard my thoughts, she reached out and tugged the heavy drapes closed.

Gotcha, Ice Queen.

A short climb up a trellis and across a crumbling stone balcony and I was easing in through her window. It was open a foot, despite the cool night air, and old, without the kind of safeguards that would keep someone like me out.

I lowered myself into her room. The smell of her perfume hit me immediately. Amber and night jasmine. This girl even smelled expensive. The room was massive, and a four-poster bed sat in the middle, gauzy white curtains pulled haphazardly shut around it.

I approached, my boots muffled by the thick carpet.

Her hair was spread like a satin sheet across her pillow. It shone in the darkness. She slept on her back, her arms thrown carelessly above her head. Sleeping like a baby, without a care in the world.

I straddled her at the same moment my hand clamped over her mouth, sealing in her scream.

Her body came alive suddenly, her hands smacking at me and her hips bucking against mine, trying to throw me off. Instead of hurting, the frantic smack of her belly against the underside of my balls sent blood rushing to my cock. I gathered her hands and held them over her head, pinning them to the pillow with one hand, keeping the other over her mouth to stop her from calling out. Her eyes shone in the darkness, and her hot breath puffed on my palm in frantic pants. She was scared. Good.

"We need to talk," I growled at her.

At the sound of my voice, some of the fight ebbed from her muscles. She was relieved it was me. Just me. She had no idea no one hated her more right now.

"I got fired tonight, thanks to you. You want to fuck with my life? What makes you think you have the right?" I asked her, leaning down and getting in her face.

Her eyes were huge, her gaze jumping around my features, and she blinked those fanlike eyelashes hard.

She mumbled something under my hand, and I slid my palm lower and gripped her jaw instead, allowing her to speak, but not scream.

"It's a job at the country club…it's hardly life or death. Don't you have a full scholarship?"

What the fuck? Is this girl fearless or just dumb?

I stared at her for a long, hard moment, trying to figure her out. She was impossible to predict. Good. It was better that way. I didn't have to worry about her sobbing and pleading when I punished her for being such a brat.

"Some of us have more important things to pay for than makeup and blowouts. I guess that doesn't matter to someone like you, does it?"

She let out a long breath. "I'm — I didn't know you'd get fired," she finally said.

"That's a fucking shitty apology. Tell the truth — you didn't care. That's fine, I don't give a fuck what happens to you, either, Your Majesty, but you will pay for what you cost me."

She was wriggling against me, moving her hips and trying to dislodge me. The only effect it was having was making me harder, my cock deciding that now would be a great time to fuck the brat out of Winter.

"I told you to stop being such a fucking bitch around me, Winter, but you've clearly decided not to listen. Move again, and I'll turn you over and spank you so hard you won't sit for a week. That's what happens to brats." My warning was a growl.

Her eyes flared as her lips pursed, her chin still captive in my hand. "You wouldn't dare," she bit out.

I chuckled. "That's the second time you've said that to me tonight, and it's the second time you're wrong. You don't fucking know me, Winter. Turn over now, or I'll double what's coming to you." My command was absolute.

She swallowed hard, her slender throat bobbing against my grip. I wondered how it would feel to tighten my hand and make her claw against my wrist for air. Just the thought was a fucking turn-on.

She shook her head. "No."

"No?" I toyed with her throat, tightening and loosening my grip. Her eyes stayed glued to mine. She wasn't nearly scared enough.

"You have to make me," she whispered.

Fuck. The thought nearly sent my cock busting out of my damn jeans. It was the hottest moment of my goddamn life, and it was with her, the woman I couldn't stand.

"As you wish, Your Majesty." With that, I yanked her up. She fought against my grip as I sat and leaned against her headboard, then pulled her across my knee, face down. A leg over her shins locked her in place. She landed across my lap and raised her head to scream at me, just as my hand landed hard on her ass. She stilled, shocked out of words. When she collected herself, I struck the other side, and she jerked.

"This is exactly what bratty daddies' princesses should get when they fuck someone over."

I rained down two spanks in quick succession, and she arched her back and gasped. Her weight was lying on my cock, and it was painfully good. Her ass was magnificent under my hand, round and plump.

She was quiet. I spanked the other side, and she remained quiet but wriggled her hips on my crotch.

"What do you have to say for yourself?" I leaned down and asked her.

She mumbled something into the covers. I pinched her ass cheek hard, and she lifted her head.

"I didn't quite catch that apology, Your Majesty, try again."

"I said fuck you, Martino. You can go to hell. I'm glad you got fired, you lunatic," she snarled at me.

I tutted loudly and spanked her again, her hips bucking into every movement.

"That's not very good manners for a well-bred brat. Try again."

I spanked her again, and she arched her back and gasped. "I'll never apologize to you," she challenged, her eyes blazing as she twisted to stare up at me.

"Is that right? Maybe we need to try something else," I suggested and reached into my pocket. I had her lower legs trapped under one of mine, so she was stuck there, waiting to see what I'd do.

The butterfly knife caught the light; I twirled it in my fingers. She really stilled this time, her attention fixed on the blade.

"I'm not like your country club trust fund boys. I'm not someone you want to fuck with." I trailed the blunt edge of the knife up her leg. "I'm not scared of you, or your daddy, or anyone you know. Your money doesn't impress me. I don't think you're as hot as you think you are. Crossing me is always a mistake, DeLaurie, learn that here and now, and save yourself trouble."

I reached the hem of her ugly-ass nightshirt and tugged it up. I planned on cutting her panties off. That should instill the right lesson not to fuck with me. Well, it would in anyone else. "You have to make me." I was starting to believe what I'd long suspected. Winter DeLaurie wasn't like anyone else.

The hem of her shirt slid over her round ass, and I stared.

Winter slept without panties on. It was a piece of knowledge I didn't particularly want floating around in my head, keeping me up at night.

"If I didn't know better, I'd have thought you knew I was coming," I mocked her.

"Yeah, because I fantasize about being spanked by a knife-wielding delinquent," she tossed angrily over her shoulder.

"That's between you and your therapist…I don't give a fuck what you think you like or don't like." I spanked her again hard, this time on her hot skin. She hissed, jerking just right against my cock trapped beneath her. I soothed the burn with a circular motion, my fingers drawing dangerously close to the heat between her legs.

I matched the other side and a tiny gasp left her. Was she wet? I had to know how fucked up the Ice Queen really was.

My finger dipped an inch as I soothed the second spank, trailing up her inner thigh. Wetness coated my fingers.

I tutted loudly. "My, my…This is supposed to be a punishment, you do know that, right?"

She was quiet even though I'd given up holding her mouth shut.

"Forgot about shouting for help? Now would be a good time," I reminded her, squeezing her ass cheek hard between my fingers until she wriggled against me. Her dripping cunt was right there, needy and empty. I could've sunk my fingers inside there right now and had her coming in seconds. But this girl was poison, and getting tangled up with her was a mistake. Besides, this was a goddamn punishment. For the first time, Winter DeLaurie wasn't getting what she wanted.

I trailed my finger up her leg, waiting until she parted her thighs in a subtle invitation to climb higher. Satisfaction burned through me when she did.

"Does daddy's spoiled little princess want to be spanked and fingered?" I allowed myself a second to run my fingertip down her slit. She was so wet I could smell the heady scent of her. I resisted the urge to sink my face between her legs and inhale a lungful.

Her hips nudged against my fingers, daring me to slip inside. Instead, I smacked her left cheek again, hard, and pulled my hand away.

"Too bad I'd rather stick my hand in a woodchipper than your cunt, DeLaurie."

She jerked in response to my cruel taunt, and I trailed the knife over the arch of her back, making her still immediately.

"Since this is a lesson, let's go over the most important point again," I murmured.

I ran my hand over her waterfall of flaxen hair and wrapped a strand around the blade of my knife. "I'm the trouble you won't recover from." I jerked my hand, and a pale curl fell to the pillow beside her face.

"How attached are you to this hair?" I mused, stroking my hand down the entire length of the locks.

She was mulishly silent.

"Shall I cut off more, or do you want to try apologizing again?" I wondered.

She swallowed so hard it was audible. "I'm sorry." Her voice was full of anger.

"Are you really?" I toyed with her. She was silent for a long moment. "I don't think you are."

"I'm sorry you got fired, but I never made you smoke during your shift."

I chuckled darkly. "You really are determined to be a brat until the end, aren't you? Turn over."

She stiffened for a second and then complied. She hissed when her ass made contact with the coarse denim of my jeans. I didn't bother gathering her hands. The knife resting on her sternum was enough of a deterrent against fighting back, it seemed. I fished in my pocket with my other hand and found what I was looking for.

"Consider this your first and only warning not to mess with me again, DeLaurie. Next time, some wigmaker is getting one hell of a donation."

I uncapped the black Sharpie I'd stolen from work and lowered it to her skin.

She glared up at me. I wrote carefully, in big block capitals, along her forehead. Her huge eyes threatened to burn holes through me the entire time. Her anger was delicious.

brAT.

When I finished, I capped the marker and gripped her chin, turning her face this way and that, admiring my handiwork.

"Beautiful and fitting. Have fun getting this off or explaining it." I flicked my wrist and sent the butterfly knife back into its sheath.

She rose with her hand swinging, trying to slap me. I dumped her off my lap and onto the bed, preventing a connection. I stood and stretched lazily, and she watched me from the bed, her eyes unreadable. My cock was still straining against my jeans, harder than hell and impossible to hide. I didn't bother.

I chuckled at the word imprinted across her forehead.

"That really suits you. See you later, Your Majesty."

I was already gone before the picture frame sitting on her nightstand crashed against the windowsill.