The Ruthless Heir

Judge’s [POV]

Once Santiago leaves, I rejoin Mercedes. She’s standing beside the piano still watching the spot where her brother was. I saw the hope in her eyes when she first saw him. And then the disappointment that followed almost immediately.

“Are you all right?”

She shakes her head as if to clear it, then looks at me. “Fine,” she says coldly. She turns away from me and closes the piano lid.

I go to her and place my hand over hers, pressing my front to her back. There’s a moment when she softens against me, leaning into me. But it’s brief, and I think she’d pull away if she wasn’t trapped between me and the piano. “Mercedes.”

“What?” she snaps, trying to take her hand from mine.

I tighten my hold and brush her hair off the nape of her neck, setting it over her shoulder. I’m so close I can smell her shampoo, and I hear her short breaths as my fingers play over the IVI tattoo. The space above it. She shudders, and I draw in a deep breath before taking a step backward.

One time. It was allowed one fucking time. Looking Santiago in the eye was already hard today. I can’t complicate things more.

Mercedes sighs and walks away from me.

“Why didn’t you tell me about Chambers earlier? And why in the world would you think it was safe for you to pursue this alone? To follow Abel when you know how dangerous he is?”

She folds her arms across her chest, her defenses up again. I’m sorry for it because this space, this room, and the piano have become a haven for her. Watching her when she plays, listening to the music she makes, it’s, in a word, sublime. She is at ease. Relaxed to the point she drops her defenses, her anger, her hurt, and is perhaps herself more than at any other time I see her.

“It’s fine. Nothing happened. I’m fine. Excuse me.” She walks toward the exit, but I capture her arm.

“I don’t excuse you.” And there it is again, the friction between us. A charged tension I’ve never before felt with any other woman. “And you don’t walk away from me until I do.”

She looks down at my hand, then up at me, and I see how her eyes darken as she licks her lips. It makes my dick twitch, and what I’d like to do most in the world right now is rip off her clothes, bend her over the piano, and fuck her until her knees give out and my name is the breath she breathes.

A low rumble from inside my chest breaks the silence. The beast is rattling its chains. It wants out. It wants her.

One. Fucking. Time. That was all.

“And what will you do if I don’t obey your command, your honor? Is that what you make them call you in the courtroom?”

I grin. “I like that. You may start using the honorific, Mercedes.”

“Fuck off.”

“Careful.”

“I won’t be careful.” She tries to jerk free. “What are you going to do about it? Bend me over the piano and spank me?”

“Close.” I tug her to me and let my gaze drop to her mouth, to the expanse of skin exposed by her top and the soft swell of her breasts in the push-up bra.

She grins. “Do it then. I dare you.”

I grit my teeth. “Be careful, Mercedes. I mean it.”

She shrugs the shoulder of her free arm. “You won’t. You don’t dare touch me because you’re afraid.”

“Afraid?”

She leans up on tiptoe. I feel her breath on my face when she speaks. “Yes, you’re afraid, Judge. Afraid you won’t be able to stop yourself from taking what we both know you want.”

I shift my hand from her arm to her back, brushing fingers up along her spine until I get to the base of her skull where I grip a handful of hair. She drops to flat feet, and I tug her head backward.

“And what is it I want, little monster?”

“Me.” She grins. “My pussy, to be exact.”

My response, a growl, makes her smile. Confirmation. As if it’s a secret. It was a ridiculous notion to ever try to pretend I didn’t want her.

I tilt my head and walk her backward so she’s standing against the piano. She swallows hard. I spin her around so fast, she yelps, not expecting it. Her hands come flat to the top of the piano so she’s half bent over it.

“Stay,” I tell her when she struggles. It’s her default. Fight. Every time. And I’ll still take it overflight. Her retreating into herself is not what I want to see ever again. And I’ll do whatever I need to do to make sure I don’t.

“You keep telling yourself that,” my grandfather’s voice says. “You want her. Have her. She’s yours for the taking.”

I flip her dress up over her ass. She’s wearing a dark red G-string. “Your ass does beg to be spanked, doesn’t it?”

She clenches her cheeks, then softens them as if offering them to me. My cock grows hard at the sight of her, at the sound of her quickening breath. I slip my fingers into the waistband of her panties and tug them up.

She gasps, rising on tiptoe as the string digs into her folds. “What the fuck?”

I lean over her, slide one hand between her torso and the piano, and cup her breast, pinching her nipple.

She yelps.

“What I want, the little monster is for you to be safe.”

She turns her head, wincing as I tug her panties higher. “Can I ask you a question, Judge?”

“Of course, Mercedes.”

“How do you picture me when you’re jerking off at night? Am I on my knees at your feet? Worshipping the great Judge Lawson Montgomery’s big dick? Or am I bent over taking it from behind? What’s your preferred scenario?”

I pull her up straight and turn her to face me but keep a tight grip on her panties. She braces her hands on my shoulders for balance. “Thank you for asking. I enjoy both. How about you? I hear you, you know? I hear you moan when you make yourself come at night.”

She blushes wildly and shoves against me. “I don’t!”

“No need to be embarrassed, little monster. It’s perfectly natural.” I release her abruptly, and she stumbles sideways, posture twisting as she tries to muster some dignity without actually reaching under her dress to pull the string out of her pussy. “And I like listening to you come. I like it very much.”

“You’re such a jerk!” She spins to walk away, but I grab her arm again. I need to address something.Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g

“Paolo said he saw you near one of the outbuildings on the property. You’re fine to wander, but I don’t want you going into those buildings.”

“Why? What are you hiding?”

“I’m not hiding anything. It’s not safe. You keep out, Mercedes. Do you understand?”

“Fine. Let me go.”

“One more thing.”

“What?”

“You and I will be attending a party at IVI on Saturday night.”

“What party?”

“A dinner.”

“Why?”

“You need to show your face. People are talking.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Aren’t you afraid they’ll talk about you when they see me on your arm?”

I don’t answer that. “I’ll send a dress up for you.”

“Fine. Whatever.” She walks toward the exit but stops and turns back. “Did you know?”

“Know what?”

“That she’s pregnant?”

After a long moment, I nod.

She snorts, then curls her lip in disgust and stalks off. I hear her slam her bedroom door, and I don’t see her for the rest of the day. Which is a good thing because I can’t seem to be around her without touching her. And she’s right about what I want. What I imagine at night. And it needs to stop because no matter what, I cannot have her. Not the way I want. Not ever.