That was the perfect description of how he felt. Not bothering with gloves, he went straight to the punching bag. The first collision of his fist against vinyl, pushing against the barely yielding sand inside, was cathartic. Imagining Aldo Peretti’s face on the heavy bag was even more satisfying, and he punched in earnest. Each thrust of his fists brought a flash of pain to his bruised knuckles but lessened the rage building in him.
“Fucking pathetic excuse for a human being.” He wasn’t sure if he was cursing Peretti or Kasilli. Which of them was more evil? The predator who preyed on a young girl, or the father who turned a blind eye? If either of them was in front of him, he wouldn’t hesitate to rip them apart with his bare hands. Knowing Peretti had been in his grasp less than an hour before filled him with renewed rage and the thirst for justice.
As he punched, his anger drained slightly, but another emotion rose. At first, he couldn’t identify it. Possessiveness was in the mix, and the thought of anyone else’s hands on Mia drove him to increase the intensity of his punches. Still, the unnamed emotion teased the back of his mind, swelling as the rage lessened minutely.
It wasn’t until he missed the bag and slammed his hand into the wooden platform holding the chains suspending the bag that he acknowledged what he was feeling.
Guilt.
A fucking huge load of guilt, which was an emotion he hadn’t experienced in such a long time, he’d forgotten how it felt. The image of holding Mia underneath him as he took her in the shower that first night flashed behind his eyes and he cursed. With a vicious thrust, Shane slammed his other fist into the wood, grunting at the mental relief the physical pain provided.
He had taken her without regard to her feelings on the matter. Blood spattered from a shredded knuckle when he hit the wood again. Shane had held her down, stroked her to make her wet, and forced her to accept him. Her body had been ready, but clearly, she hadn’t. More blood and another squishy thud of flesh against a solid object.
He wanted her, needed her, ached for her. Shane had been obsessed with her for months, but he hadn’t wanted to hurt her. He hadn’t even given it much thought either way. In his arrogance, he had never considered that she wouldn’t want to be taken as his property.
Had he imagined she would be flattered by his attention once she got past the mafia thing? If he’d given it any thought—and he had to admit that he hadn’t considered it at all from her perspective—he would have assumed a few nights in his bed would alleviate any of her concerns over his criminal ties.
He jammed his fists against the support frame in concert, crying out as agony shot through his hands. Still, he did it again and again, seeing it as penance for what he had done.
One of his knuckles flared with pain beyond the others with his final hit to the wood, and Shane dropped to his knees on the mat. His harsh breath exploded from him in short gasps. Hanging his head, he clenched his hands into fists. Blood and torn skin provided gruesome proof of his self-mutilation, but it didn’t seem like enough.
He knew why, of course. Shane had accepted he had wronged Mia. He had hurt her in a way that would have been horrible for any woman, but especially traumatic after years of sexual abuse by someone she should have been able to trust. He was a disgusting animal for taking her.
The right thing would be to help her go somewhere safe, out of Peretti’s reach, and let her start over. She could find some average Joe and settle down into a mundane life of suburban bliss. Pop out a couple of kids, focus on her schmuck of a husband, and live the average fairytale. That would probably make her happy and keep her protected from Peretti.
Knowing all that, he was still keeping her.
Fuck if he could stand the idea of letting her go. Even now, he was a selfish prick and completely obsessed with her. Shane had never been one for picking the right course, and he’d never been overly concerned if he was following the accepted social mores in his daily life.
Keeping her was perhaps the biggest crime he’d ever committed. His conscience pricked at the idea of causing her further pain, but he literally couldn’t envision letting her walk away. She had to be his.
He couldn’t give her freedom, and he wasn’t truly compelled to try. All Shane could do was ensure he didn’t crush her in his tyrannical fist. He’d have to keep his iron grasp encased in velvet. If he could make her happy to be with him, it would be the best way to proceed.
Finally, he got to his feet, feeling a bit better after having decided on a course of action. If he couldn’t let her go, he’d just have to make sure she wanted to stay.
A few minutes later, as he stepped into the sting of a hot shower and winced as the water ran over his knuckles, Shane embraced an uncomfortable truth. It was wrong and completely ruthless of him, but he was keeping her under any circumstances. His resolve about that hadn’t wavered. He would treat her more gently and less like the lord of the manor entitled to all the maidens in his kingdom, but he would never let her go.
* * *
Mia waited for Shane to come to her as she tried to remain calm and accept she would have to stop fighting. It had been second nature to resist Aldo, and she had never given in to him. Night after night, she had tried to fight him, no matter the pain it caused. Giving in had been unthinkable.
Drawing up her legs, she laid her head on her thighs and struggled not to cry. The bitter truth lodged inside her chest like a lead weight. She didn’t exactly want to keep fighting Shane. Their encounters were completely fucked-up, with more violence and animal aggression than tenderness or sharing, but when they came together, it was amazing.
Fighting him was a turn-on. Humiliating to admit, but she wasn’t going to shy away from the truth. Part of her liked having him overpower her and force her to take pleasure from their coupling. Most of her resistance came from anger and outrage that he would just kidnap her and keep her like an object, but the tiniest part of it was…
“Foreplay,” she whispered aloud. Mia shook her head, not understanding how she could react so differently, with such complicated emotions, to Shane. He was essentially the same as Aldo; they shared so many commonalities—both criminals, both obsessed with the need to control her, both ruthless and willing to do whatever it took to have her.
Mia rocked slightly as she remembered the ways Shane had forced her to orgasm. He’d touched and licked her until she was screaming with need and contracting around his cock or gushing into his mouth. He wanted her at any cost, but he wasn’t the completely selfish asshole her stepbrother was. Aldo had never tried to give her pleasure, though she was relieved rather than annoyed.
Shane wanted her participation. She didn’t allow the illusion that he would accept her refusal or let her push him away, even with his new information about her past, but she knew the key difference between the crazy fuckers in her life was that Shane wanted her to enjoy their fucking, too. Aldo didn’t care if she got any gratification from anything.
Not that she thought she could have, even if Aldo had gone down on her for hours. The thought made her physically ill and highlighted another key difference between the men. She wanted Shane on a fundamentally physical level, whereas Aldo repulsed and terrified her.
Where did that leave her? Mia had agreed to stop fighting in exchange for Shane’s protection. If she kept up the hostilities, he would either overpower her every time until she was panting for him or he would grow tired of her being too bothersome and send her packing. He might even send her gift-wrapped to Aldo if she pissed him off enough.
That idea made her lurch to her feet and head straight for the toilet. Mia vomited the contents of her stomach as her mind insisted on providing horrifying images of the things Aldo could do to her—had already done to her during the four years she had been under his dominion.
A brutal, detailed comparison of the acts she had endured under Aldo and Shane left her with a clear determination. Shane had and could hurt her, but he could also satisfy her on a level she had never known. Aldo would only hurt and control her. Nothing had changed there, except he seemed to have grown hungrier for her.
