I’m a bastard. You could practically smell the fear that rolled off of Megan in waves. It didn’t stop me. Fuck, if it did anything it turned me on. I was rock hard just watching the way her pupils dilated and her breathing picked up the moment we pulled into the drive.

The satisfaction that ran through me at finally having Megan could not be described. I’d envisioned this moment from the first time I saw her.

Her father had just approached me with a business deal, asking for my backing. I knew going in there was no way the venture would pan out. Phillip Beaumont was big on dreams and short on results. Everyone in our circle knew that. Beaumont had taken over his brother Clay’s shipping company when Clay died. He had been piloting his own plane, heading toward his private vineyard in Rome when he suffered engine failure. It was a hell of a loss. There were few men I respected, but Clay Beaumont was one of them—his brother, not so much.

Still, he’d approached me at one of the endless charity functions I was obligated to attend. I was bored out of my mind. I just wanted out of there and Phillip Beaumont was keeping me from doing just that. And then it happened. I looked across the room and there she was. She was a vision of innocence in a room full of people who had become hardened by life and jaded by experience.

Long blonde hair, brushed until it was smooth and glittered in the light, framed a pixy-like face with full lips the color of cherries. She was wearing a white gown, simple—almost plain, but it hugged her body like a second skin. It curved around small, upturned breasts, came high up on her neck, but the back dropped down. I could see the line of her spine, that delicate indentation. I instantly dreamt of running my tongue against the skin.

It stopped way too soon.

I wanted it to drop further, revealing the indentation of her ass. Suddenly, I had trouble controlling myself. Me, a man who made billions in a business that demanded complete control of my emotions, wanted to walk over there and rip the dress farther down, pin her against the wall and fuck her right there, in front of everyone. When Beaumont followed my line of sight, that’s when I found out who the woman was. Megan Beaumont.

In that moment, a decision was made. I would give Beaumont the money he wanted. I would invest in his stupid scheme, because ultimately it would get me the one thing I craved—his daughter.

Even then I knew he’d fuck up… knew she’d be mine.

I was a bastard, but I never claimed to be anything else.

Now, three years later, Megan had become mine.

“Now what?” she asked, after she turned to face me.

“My chauffeur will show you inside and the maid will take you to your room. You will wait there for me.”

“You’re not coming inside?” she whispered. Her face became so pink in those passing moments that it was hard to miss what she was thinking. Her words taunted and teased me. I definitely planned on coming inside of her. Megan thought I was only keeping her for a week. But it had taken me years to get her, and I was not about to let her go.

First, I’d train her body and make it crave what only I could give her, and finally I would bind her to me by planting my child inside of her. Every night I was haunted by the picture of her stomach stretched tight and my child growing inside of her. Before this week was through, I would make that dream a reality.

“Not yet. I have business to attend to. I will return for dinner. The maid will show you the clothes I expect you to wear tonight,” I instructed her. My fingers tangled in the ends of her blonde curls. Her hair was so bright it was almost white in color. Touching it was like touching the sun, so bright and shiny. The texture of it somehow seeped beneath my fingertips and entered my bloodstream, causing my body to flush with heat and need. I shouldn’t have been surprised when I felt a tremor of need move through me, but I was.

“Is this what our time together is going to be like, Jackson? You order what you want and I give it to you?”

“And if it is?”

“I am not a toy for you to dress and pose. I have my own mind. I’m an independent woman.” She refused to meet my gaze, but she stood up to me. I was almost impressed. Very few even attempted to do that anymore.

“For the next week, you are anything I say you are, Megan. You’re mine.” I felt she needed the reminder. A storm gathered in her blue eyes and they momentarily entranced me. I leaned down, holding her eyes prisoner with my own. She tried to pull her face away, but I held onto her chin firmly, not allowing her to escape.

“You’re a monster,” she whispered, anger thick in her voice, but underneath that I heard what she was trying to hide. Desire. I heard it because I felt the same. Her tongue moved between her two lush lips, for just a moment—moistening the cherry beauties and tempting me beyond reason.

I claimed her mouth then. I wasn’t gentle. I was fierce. I bruised her lips with the force of mine, punishing her for trying to deny me what I wanted most.

Her obedience.

I pushed between her lips with my tongue, ravaging her mouth, drinking in her taste and losing myself in her. She’d done her best to remain stiff in my arms, but slowly she softened, melting into me. The sweetest of purrs escaped her lips and her hands slid under my jacket to rest against my chest. I felt each finger uncurl and clench into my skin. Her nails bit into my flesh almost to the point of pain—and I wanted more. Again, just with something as simple as giving me her mouth, my control had neared its edge.

I forced myself to break the kiss, instantly missing her lips, regretting my decision. I pulled away slowly, knowing only a moment of joy when she tried to follow. In reward I gave her one last, soft kiss. She froze there, her eyes still closed, her lips bruised and swollen from my pillaging and her breathing so ragged that I could virtually see her heart beating against her chest. I couldn’t resist letting my thumb brush against the hard nub of her nipple that was pressing against her dress. At first touch her body shook.

“I didn’t think you wanted our first time to be while the chauffeur was watching, but that could be arranged.” I goaded her further by loosening my tie. Her eyes, already wide, seemed to grow larger. Her body wobbled—at first drawing closer to me, before finally stiffening and pulling away. Embarrassment and anger warred on her face and something about that made my dick get impossibly harder, stretching against the fabric of my suit. She looked up at Carl, the chauffeur, and without one glance back at me slid from the car. She started to walk away, but before she could I called out. “I’ll expect you to be waiting for me and wearing the dress I chose when I return, Megan.” She stumbled as my words reached her, but she did stop walking. I expected her to turn around. She didn’t. Instead she jerked her head back with the dignity of a queen and kept walking.

I found myself smiling as Carl closed the door. He hurried to walk her up the white stone steps that led to the front entrance of my home and even then I could not stop watching.

I could not stop smiling.