Eyes Like a Wolf Read online

  “He's not my brother,” I shot back at him, and to my surprise, for the first time I really meant it. When I thought of Richard, when I saw his face in my mind, I no longer automatically labeled him family. “He's not my brother,” I said again, still trying the concept out. I tried to think when I had finally let go of the old taboo in my mind and couldn't put my finger on it. Maybe it was because my physical need for Richard was so strong, or maybe the new bond between us had broken the old one. Maybe my emotions of love and lust were stronger than a tie seventeen years in the past. Or maybe it had finally just sunken in. “Richard is not my brother.” I said it a third time, and Charles looked impatient.

  “Yes, you've said that,” he pointed out, his voice cold. “But that wasn't the song you were singing a month ago when he first wandered back into your life.”

  “I…I know,” I said, scrambling for an explanation. “But I don't feel that way about him anymore. I just…I don't.”

  “Well, it was a short step from affection between siblings to screwing, wasn't it?” he sneered. “Have you been fucking him all along? Laughing at me behind my back?”

  “No,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady and my chin up. After all, I felt I deserved every bit of what he dished out. “It's been a gradual thing. I swear I never meant to hurt you, Charles. If…if you want to call the wedding off, I'll understand completely.”

  “Call it off?” He ran a hand through his hair, mussing the carefully combed strands. “Not bloody likely. There are five hundred guests out there waiting to see us wed, and two of them are U.S. Senators. Not to mention all the clients from my firm and my mother's society friends. No, we're getting married today if it kills us—I'd be ruined socially if we didn't.”

  I felt my heart sink. “Then…then you still want me? Even after what I did?”

  “I want what I waited for,” he snarled. “What I paid for.” He grabbed my left hand and held it up, gesturing at the huge, antique diamond engagement ring I'd somehow remembered to slip back onto my finger before I left for the church.

  “What you paid for?” I stared at him in disbelief. “What do you think this is—some kind of financial merger?”

  “Oh, there's going to be a merger, all right.” His laughter was low and ugly. “A merger between you and me tonight. I was all prepared to be careful with you, dearest, to break you in gently on your first time. But since that happy little occasion came and went without my participation, I think we can dispense with the gentleness, don't you? In fact I think a little rough riding might be the order of the day.”

  “I don't know what you're talking about,” I said, but I had a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach that I did. Charles was talking about rape, and despite my rough initiation to sex at the hands of Richard's beast the night before, my mind rebelled against it. The thought of Charles touching me, taking me the way Richard had, turned my stomach. In fact, just the feel of his hand encircling my wrist made me feel sick and weak, as though I'd been breathing some kind of poison gas.

  “I think you do know.” Charles wore a hard, angry grin. “I think you know exactly what I have planned for you tonight, darling.”

  “I can't do this,” I said. “I don't know why I thought I could.” I twisted the diamond ring off my finger and held it out to him. “Here, take it and let me go, Charles. I'll get out of your life, and you'll never have to see me again.”

  “Haven't you been listening to me?” His grip on my wrist tightened painfully. “I said we're going through with this wedding, even if it is a sham. I've waited two years to have you, and I won't wait a second more.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. “You're crazy,” I said. “You can't make me marry you. And if you think you can get me up to the altar and I'll say 'I do' because I'm too embarrassed to make a scene, you're dead wrong. I don't care if there are five thousand people sitting out and half of them are senators; I'm not marrying you, Charles. Now, let me go!”

  “Not until I get what I paid for!” he snarled. And then he pushed me hard against the flowery wallpaper that decorated the antechamber's wall.

  The breath rushed out of my lungs, and I was momentarily stunned at his sudden actions. The only time Charles had ever acted remotely like this was when he had grabbed my arm in the police station the night I insisted on taking Richard home with me. I had never dreamed he had such violence in him—or such malice.

  The feeling of him fumbling to get under the voluminous white tulle skirt of my dress broke through my disbelief. Apparently, Charles had decided not to wait for the wedding night, since there wasn't going to be one, and he wanted what he considered his due now. I felt bad about cheating on him, bad about jilting him at the altar in front of his family, clients, and friends. But not nearly bad enough to let him rape me.

  “Stop it! Stop!” I demanded, pushing at his hands and kicking at his legs. But Charles was like a man possessed. He wanted me, and he was intent on having me. This was so much different than the night before, I thought disjointedly as I struggled with my fiancé turned would-be rapist. So entirely different, and it wasn't just because Charles was behaving more like a beast than Richard ever had.

  The night before I had feared Richard in his beast form, but I had wanted him as well. Or rather, my body had wanted his. I had been wet and ready to accept him, my nipples tight peaks of need and my sex flooded with my own desire. I had none of those feelings now. Now I was just frightened and revolted. And weak…so very weak. Just being near him seemed to make me ill.

  “Charles, no!” I gasped as he got his hand up my skirt and ripped away the crotch of my sheer white nylons, leaving me defenseless. “Get away—get back!” I threw the heavy diamond ring at him hard since it was the only weapon I had. It hit him on the cheek and left a bloody scratch, but that only seemed to make him angrier.

  “Hold still, dearest,” he snapped, working to get my legs apart. “It will all be over in a moment. Just lean back, relax, and enjoy yourself. Or don't—I don't give a damn either way.”

  I beat at him weakly, feeling like I was moving under water. I felt sick—literally sick to my stomach. I wondered distantly if throwing up on his head would stop Charles in his mad assault and doubted it. He was enraged—a man who'd been cheated of his rightful property. Because that was all I was to him, I now realized, just property. A pretty piece of arm candy to show off during the wedding of the decade to all his clients and society buddies. I just wished I had seen it sooner. And even more, I wished I had the strength to push him off me. But I felt so weak, so terribly weak…

  “Get off her. She's mine!” The sudden roar in the tiny room was so loud I thought it would make my ears bleed. With immense relief, I saw Richard storm through the door, his green eyes glowing possessively. But Charles was so intent on having me that he didn't even look around. He had the fly of the elegant tux trousers open now, and his short stubby cock stuck out, proving that he meant business. Despite my efforts to push him away, he still fumbled between us to make a connection. Only my huge skirt had saved me so far, but I had the feeling he was crazy enough to just rip it off in order to get to the prize.

  Richard didn't give him a second warning. Instead, he grabbed Charles by the scruff of the neck, as though my fiancé were a small kitten, and heaved him across the room. I heard a hollow thumping sound as Charles's head hit the wall and he landed in a heap in the corner. He scrambled to his feet indignantly, clutching his head with one hand.

  “How…how dare you?” he spluttered, pointing at Richard. “This is my wedding and that's my fiancée.”

  “Not anymore.” Richard's voice was a low, menacing growl. “She's my mate now. You ever come near her again, and I'll kill you.” He looked at me. “Are you okay? He didn't hurt you, did he, Rache?”

  I swallowed hard. “I…I'm fine. Just a little sick to my stomach.”

  “Well, well, and supposedly he only just fucked you last night. Having morning sickness already, dearest?” Charles hissed.