Chapter 5

Damien carried me entirely down the long, dark hallway of his massive penthouse while my fists beat uselessly against his broad shoulders and my high heels kicked desperately at the empty air. He completely ignored my frantic struggles and kicked the heavy double mahogany doors of his master bedroom wide open with his polished leather shoe before he marched directly into the center of the sprawling, coldly decorated room. He did not gently set me down on my feet or give me a single second to brace myself against his overwhelming physical power. He simply opened his massive arms and threw me completely onto the center of the massive king-sized bed, sending my body bouncing violently against the expensive mattress until my spine slammed hard against the velvet headboard. I immediately scrambled backward and pulled my bare knees tightly against my chest while my chest heaved with ragged, terrified breaths because the reality of my legally binding situation was finally crashing down on my shoulders.

He did not rush after me to pin me down right away, choosing instead to stand perfectly still at the edge of the bed while he slowly and deliberately pulled the black silk tie from his muscular neck. He dropped the expensive silk carelessly onto the dark hardwood floor and reached up to unbutton the top three buttons of his crisp white dress shirt to expose the dark ink of the tattoos trailing across his collarbone. His golden eyes locked entirely onto my flushed face and they were completely pitch black with a pure, feral lust that made the temperature in the massive bedroom skyrocket in a matter of seconds.

"Take off the ruined dress, Chloe," Damien commanded in a dark, vibrating growl that echoed loudly off the high ceilings and sent a violent shiver of unwanted heat straight down my spine. "You can take it off yourself right now, or I will climb onto that mattress and tear it off your body with my bare hands to prove exactly who owns you."

"Do not touch me," I breathed heavily while I dug my fingernails fiercely into the expensive duvet cover to anchor myself because my heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird inside a cage. "I signed your disgusting legal contract to save my brother from federal prison, but I absolutely refuse to willingly spread my legs for a monster who destroyed my family legacy to get me into his bed."

Damien did not look the slightest bit deterred by my fierce rejection and a terrifyingly dark, victorious smirk spread slowly across his handsome face before he crawled directly onto the mattress. He moved exactly like a massive, predatory cat stalking its trapped prey, effortlessly absorbing the space between us until I tried to roll completely off the side of the bed to escape him. He moved much faster than I did and caught my bare ankle with his large, calloused hand, dragging my thrashing body effortlessly back into the absolute center of the mattress before he caged me in. He pinned both of my wrists securely above my head with his left hand, using his overwhelming body weight to press my legs firmly into the mattress so I had absolutely no leverage to fight back against him.

He used his right hand to grab the high neckline of my red silk evening gown and completely ignored the exorbitant cost of the designer fabric before he violently ripped the dress straight down the middle of my chest. The silk tore with a loud, sharp sound that echoed like a gunshot in the quiet room, falling away to completely expose my black lace bra and my violently heaving stomach to the freezing air conditioning of the penthouse.

I gasped in pure shock and instinctively arched my back off the mattress, but the sudden movement only dragged my sensitive center directly against the thick, hard ridge of his arousal pressing prominently through his tailored suit slacks. Damien leaned down and pressed his open mouth directly against my exposed collarbone, biting the sensitive skin hard enough to leave a permanent, dark bruise before he dragged his teeth slowly up my neck to completely devour my breathless gasp. The overwhelming friction of his heavy body pressing intimately against mine made my center painfully throb with a desperate, heavy ache, and I absolutely hated myself because I was completely soaking wet for the exact man who ruined my life.

"You are my legally contracted wife now," Damien whispered darkly against my trembling lips while he slid his rough, calloused palm directly over my soaked lace underwear and applied a firm, agonizing pressure that made my vision blur. "And I am going to make you scream my name so loudly tonight that you completely forget your own brother's face."

Before he could slide his long fingers underneath the edge of my lace panties to completely dismantle my sanity, the heavy double doors of the master bedroom violently crashed open and hit the walls with a deafening bang.

Damien instantly stopped moving his hand but he did not release my pinned wrists, snapping his dark head toward the doorway with a look of pure, murderous rage contorting his heavily scarred face.

A tall, breathtakingly beautiful blonde woman wearing a sparkling silver designer gala gown marched directly into the bedroom with her high heels clicking aggressively against the hardwood floor. Two of Damien’s heavily armed, massive security guards ran into the room right behind her, panting heavily and looking completely terrified of the ruthless billionaire glaring at them from the bed.

"Mr. Sterling, we tried to stop her at the lobby," the lead security guard panicked while he held his hands up in a placating gesture because he knew his life was currently hanging by a thread. "She used her old biometric access code to bypass the private executive elevator and she physically pushed past us when the doors opened!"

I recognized the furious blonde woman immediately because her face was plastered across every single high-society magazine in the city. Vanessa Croft. She was a billionaire heiress, a ruthless socialite, and the exact woman every single person in New York City assumed Damien Sterling was going to formally marry by the end of the year to merge their massive corporate empires.

Vanessa stopped dead at the foot of the massive king-sized bed and stared in absolute horror at my violently torn red dress, my exposed lace underwear, and the highly intimate, dominating way Damien was currently pinning my body to his mattress. Her perfectly manicured face twisted into a mask of absolute, venomous disgust while her hands clenched into tight fists at her sides.

"Damien, what the absolute hell is this sick joke?" Vanessa shrieked at the top of her lungs, her shrill voice echoing sharply off the high ceilings and completely shattering the heavy sexual tension in the room. "You abandoned our massive engagement gala downstairs without saying a single word to my father just to bring this bankrupt, pathetic little slut up into your private bed? Her brother just surrendered their entire company to you and their family is completely ruined!"

I flinched violently at the cruel insult and instinctively tried to curl my body inward to cover my exposed chest, but Damien kept my wrists firmly pinned above my head while he slowly turned his attention entirely onto the furious heiress. He did not look the slightest bit embarrassed about being caught compromising me and he did not scramble to explain himself. He looked absolutely lethal, radiating a dark, suffocating aura of pure violence that made the two armed guards physically step backward toward the hallway.

"Get out of my bedroom immediately, Vanessa," Damien ordered in a voice so incredibly cold and flat that it literally dropped the temperature in the room and made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

"No, I am absolutely not leaving!" Vanessa screamed back at him while she marched aggressively forward and pointed a sharp, manicured finger directly at my flushed face. "She is nothing but corporate trash, Damien! We have been planning our corporate merger for two entire years and I am supposed to be the woman wearing your ring. I am not going to stand here and let this pathetic, penniless little bitch take my rightful place in this penthouse!"

Vanessa entirely lost her temper and suddenly lunged forward toward the side of the mattress, raising her hand high into the air with her sharp acrylic nails aimed directly at my face to slap me as hard as she possibly could.

She never even managed to touch a single hair on my head.

Damien moved faster than a massive man of his size should ever be able to move, completely releasing my wrists and standing up from the bed in one fluid, terrifying motion. He caught Vanessa’s wrist in mid-air just inches from my face and his massive fingers locked around her delicate bones like an iron vice. He did not simply push her away or ask her to calm down. He violently twisted her arm entirely behind her back and shoved her forcefully downward until a sickening, loud pop echoed through the quiet room as her shoulder visibly dislocated from the socket.

Vanessa fell heavily to her knees on the hardwood floor and let out a blood-curdling scream of pure, unadulterated agony while tears of pain immediately ruined her expensive designer makeup.

"She is my legally contracted wife," Damien stated ruthlessly while he stared down at the weeping, broken heiress kneeling on his floor without a single ounce of mercy or hesitation in his golden eyes. "She owns everything in this building, she owns my name, and she belongs exclusively to me. If you ever disrespect her in my presence or try to lay a single finger on her body ever again, I will personally snap your neck and throw your body into the East River."

He did not wait for Vanessa to stop screaming before he looked up and locked his deadly gaze directly onto his two terrified security guards standing completely frozen by the bedroom doors.

"Drag her out of my penthouse right now and throw her directly onto the street," Damien commanded in a gravelly, authoritative tone that brooked absolutely no argument. "And completely delete all of her access codes from the main server. If she ever manages to get within fifty feet of my wife again, I will put a bullet in both of your heads before the sun comes up."

The massive guards immediately rushed forward and grabbed Vanessa roughly by her upper arms, entirely ignoring her dislocated shoulder while they forcefully dragged her off the floor and hauled her backward toward the hallway. She kicked her silver designer heels and thrashed wildly against their iron grips, her face turning dark red with a terrifying mixture of physical pain and pure, venomous hatred.

"You think you actually won this game, you stupid little bitch?" Vanessa screamed at me over her shoulder while blood dripped from her bottom lip where she had bitten right through the skin to deal with the pain of her dislocated arm. "You think he married you because he actually wants you? Ask him the goddamn truth, Chloe! Ask your brand new husband what he actually did to your father on the highway three years ago!"

My blood completely turned to solid ice in my veins and the entire room started to violently spin around me because my father died in a highly publicized, tragic car accident on a slick highway exactly three years ago. The police ruled it a complete accident caused by brake failure, and his sudden death was the exact event that forced my older brother to take over the company and start embezzling money in the first place.

The security guards violently dragged Vanessa out into the hallway and slammed the heavy double mahogany doors completely shut behind them, abruptly cutting off her hysterical screaming and leaving the bedroom plunged into a suffocating, dead silence.

I slowly sat up on the edge of the mattress and clutched the torn pieces of my red silk dress tightly against my exposed chest with shaking hands while my lungs completely forgot how to process oxygen. I stared at Damien. He stood perfectly still in the exact center of the room with his broad back turned toward me. His massive hands were clenched into tight fists at his sides and the muscles in his broad shoulders were pulled completely taut under his white dress shirt.

"Damien," I whispered in a broken, horrified voice that barely carried across the quiet room. "What did she mean about the highway?"

He slowly turned around to face me, and the terrifying, dark guilt flashing clearly in his obsessive golden eyes told me absolutely everything I needed to know before he even opened his mouth to speak.